Four-Stage Systemic Change Process

What's its purpose in systems grantmaking?

To align diverse stakeholders around a shared understanding of why a complex social problem persists and identify leverage points that might improve systemwide performance in sustainable ways.

What is it?

A four-stage process to collectively engage stakeholders across a system in systemic change by harnessing the energy and sense of urgency that generates from creative tension,1 which is the gap between current reality and vision for the future. These four stages are iterative and nonlinear:

building a foundation for change,
facing current reality,
making an explicit choice about the future, and
bridging the gap between the current reality and the future.

1. Drawn from: Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization. (Doubleday, 2006).

When is it useful?

When stakeholders have trouble seeing how they contribute to the problem and what they can do to optimize the whole system instead of just their part of it
To identify leverage points and integrate them into a systemic theory of change
When systems are bound by a social change issue that can be addressed at a local, state or regional level

Example from the field

How does the Four-Stage Systemic Change Process work?

Image from: 'Systems Thinking for Social Change: A Practical Guide for Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, and Achieving Lasting Results,' by David Peter Stroh. Chelsea Green, 2015.

A group of local funders, including the Battle Creek Community Foundation, Community Foundation Alliance of Calhoun County, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and United Way, supported a coalition in Calhoun County, Michigan to come up with a 10-year plan for ending homelessness. The coalition used the Four-Stage Systemic Change Process, which resulted in decreased homelessness rates even during the economic downturn.2

In the first stage of the process, the goals are to engage key stakeholders, create a shared initial picture of people’s vision and where they are now, and build capacity to collaborate. The coalition engaged diverse stakeholders, including service providers, business people, government officials and the homeless. The coalition introduced this group of stakeholders to systems thinking and productive conversation techniques, and the group created a vision for the future that centered on ending homelessness.

The goal of the second stage is to develop a deep understanding of the current reality. The consultants conducted interviews with stakeholders to understand the issues around why people became homeless and why they were not able to attain stable housing. They then created a systems map to identify interdependencies among the variables influencing and affected by the problem (see Systems Mapping). A small committee expanded this map and brought it to the larger steering committee for deeper analysis, continued mapping, and catalytic conversations (which challenge stakeholders to recognize and change their role in the status quo). During this stage, they surfaced “shifting the burden” as the primary system archetype at play. System archetypes distill key insights about how the system operates (see inset). They also added mental models — the beliefs and assumptions driving actions — to the map.

In the third stage, people commit to moving toward their envisioned future by understanding and comparing the payoffs of the status quo with the payoffs for change and creating solutions that maximize the benefits of both states or make conscious trade-offs in support of what they care about most deeply. In Calhoun County, they explored how current efforts to solve the problem of homelessness often exacerbated it by creating negative unintended consequences. They also made decisions to shift resources from programs that helped people cope with homelessness (temporary housing) to programs that would end homelessness (permanent affordable housing).

In the final stage, stakeholders work to bridge the gap between their current reality and their commitment to the future. This includes identifying leverage points (such as those proposed by Donella Meadows) to shift a system archetype, integrating these into a systemic theory of change, and developing new mental models. It also includes creating a process for ongoing learning and engagement to recalibrate plans based on what the group is learning.

2. The coalition engaged consultants David Peter Stroh and Michael Goodman to facilitate the Four-Stage Systemic Change Process.

What are tips and cautions for systems grantmakers and the social sector?

The four-stage process is flexible. There is space to incorporate other tools and frameworks.
It is critical to engage diverse stakeholders early on in order to create accurate maps. The stakeholders should be varied enough to generate divergent thinking.
During the second stage, a facilitator skilled in managing power dynamics, who is comfortable with conflict resolution, may be needed for successful catalytic conversations.
The process includes powerful questions that foundations may ask of staff, board, grantees, and others to transform how they think about their goals and strategies. These questions can be used to help people think and act systemically. They can be found in the article “Leveraging Grantmaking – Part 2: Aligning Programmatic Approaches with Complex System Dynamics.”

Resources

Systems Thinking for Social Change: A Practical Guide for Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, and Achieving Lasting Results

By David Peter Stroh
Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015
Above image reproduced with permission from Chelsea Green Publishing.

Link to Book

Leveraging Grantmaking: Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Social Systems

By David Peter Stroh
Foundation Review, 2009

Link to Article

Leveraging Grantmaking – Part 2: Aligning Programmatic Approaches with Complex System Dynamics

By David Peter Stroh and Kathleen Zurcher
Foundation Review, 2010

Link to Article

Acknowledgments

David Peter Stroh

Co-founder and Principal, Bridgeway Partners

Co-director, Applied Systems Thinking

Systems Grantmaking Resource Guide

Four-Stage Systemic Change Process

Resource Type

Process

Systems Questions

People

Variables

Patterns and Structure

Learning

Grantmaking Stages

Develop grantmaking strategy

Identify and select grantees

Shape and monitor grants

Assess impact and learn

Participation

Highly participatory

Expertise

Someone who has been trained on the resource

Time

6-12 months