How Networks Support Systemic Change

A. Accountability, Ownership, and Commitment

1. More Accountability. When the people most harmed by the current system are in the room, it's harder for positional leaders to deny the truth of their experiences and the need for systemic change.
2. Deeper Ownership. Because networks co-develop the goals, metrics, analysis, and strategies together, they develop shared ownership. Ownership is more lasting and resilient and supports more powerful execution than buy-in (where some people decide and sell “the program” to others). “Since we all made it, we all own it.”
3. Stronger Commitment. When people commit time to engage in collective work, and we see others doing the same, it signals the importance of the issue and reinforces our own commitment. When we set aside the time to contribute, we develop a deeper investment in achieving something meaningful.
4. More Momentum. As a network's visible work advances, more people are attracted to join, which builds more momentum and attracts more support and resources over time.

B. Systemic Learning and Analysis

5. More Robust Analysis. Having more people representing different parts of the system in the room together contributes to more systemic analysis with fewer blind spots, which means fewer unnecessary (and costly) failures, unintended consequences, or solving the same problems over and over.
6. Space for Deeper Inquiry. When we engage in well-supported spaces for reflection and inquiry away from our daily priorities and pressures, we can gain broader and deeper insight into the complex intersecting issues at play in system-level challenges. The downtime together, usually in a new place, the relaxed moments, shared meals, play, and novelty, invite new insights and ideas. At the same time, the growing sense of trust allows us to each be vulnerable in our learning and uncertainty.
7. Greater Humility for Deeper Learning. When we see that our truth and perspectives are only one part of a much larger landscape of insights about the system, we face the real complexity of the system we seek to shift. While this can be overwhelming and disconcerting, it is also when we let go of our preferred analyses and solutions, enter a space of unknowing, and become more open to learning.
8. Ability to Learn and Adapt. Because their focus is often on continuous and collective learning, networks can operate flexibly in fast-changing contexts. Networks with diverse participants are more likely to identify emerging threats and opportunities early, and a network can better determine who is best positioned to respond to them.

C. Systemic Strategies and Interventions

9. Grounded Interventions. When the most impacted individuals in a community are in the room and supported to share and engage fully, the emerging interventions are more practical, more likely to stick, and more likely to produce the desired effects.
10. More Systemic and Resilient Strategy. Networks tend to produce more holistic, diverse, and mutually reinforcing sets of system interventions (e.g., “If you have policy people in the room, they'll only see policy levers” rather than a broader, more systemic set of interventions).
11. Faster Testing of Assumptions and Interventions. Because we have more of the system represented in the room, solutions and interventions get tested early and more thoroughly, we identify false assumptions more quickly, and unworkable interventions and solutions fail faster.  
12. Lasting and Effective Interventions. Because people representing key institutions are co-creating the strategy, the interventions and solutions become more deeply embedded in institutions, leading to more lasting change. Network approaches are often slower and more costly in the short term but more effective and cost-effective over time.

D. Reach and Influence

13. Broader and More Targeted Reach. Strong networks include people who represent diverse constituencies and communities. When we engage people held in high regard by their peers, we can simultaneously influence many different parts of the system. Someone from a specific community will have the framing, language, and relationships, understanding to communicate the network’s learning and strategies in compelling ways to their community.
14. Multi-Level Influence. An effective network influences the larger system across all levels—individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and the larger system. This is important because for a systemic issue to be effectively addressed, all levels of the system must explicitly address the issue.
15. Shifting the Context. When a network convenes and advances work together over time, that work sends signals across the system, both about the criticality of the issue and the commitment to shared action. These signals start to shift the context for all actors in the system and influence their own priorities and decisions.

E. Resources & Capacity

16. Ability to Pool Resources. When we are disconnected and work in silos, resources remain scattered and often highly concentrated in larger organizations. When sharing resources across a network, we can shift resources to the people, places, and projects that need it most.
17. More Equitable Resource Distribution. Networks that center equity provide meaningful ways for marginalized groups to engage, contribute, and lead and ensure more equitable access to resources for action.
18. More Capacity and Capacities. Drawing from across organizations and sectors, a network can cultivate more capacity and diverse capacities, skills, and resources.
19. More Focus for Participants. When we see what others are contributing to the larger work we’re a part of, we realize that our organization doesn’t have to do everything itself, and we can better focus on what we uniquely contribute to the whole.

F. Equity and Power

20. More Visible Power Dynamics. Networks help us all see and understand more clearly how and where power is located in the system, so we can more openly discuss power differences, moderate the unhealthy effects of these differences, and shift power where needed.
21. Support & Healing. Well-supported networks can advance healing and reconciliation and address trauma among participants and in the larger system, supporting the more open, meaningful, and full engagement of everyone’s gifts, perspectives, and experiences for the work.
22. Unlearning Dominant Culture Patterns. Networks are a place to challenge ourselves and each other to uncover unhelpful and harmful mindsets and behaviors around race, gender, and other areas of bias.
23. More Ways to Engage. Networks can allow more people to engage in diverse ways, contributing when and where they are best positioned based on their own needs and contexts.

G. Meaning, Belonging, and Inspiration

24. Greater Meaning, Purpose & Agency. In a network, our individual interests and intentions are tied to a shared purpose bigger than ourselves. People find meaning and a sense of agency in working towards a shared purpose together, which fuels more ownership of and commitment to the work over time.
25. Hope for the Future. Because any healthy network becomes a prototype of the system we want—with aligned visions for the future, trust and empathy, shared learning, and shared action—they help us directly experience the future we’re working to create in the larger system.
26. Belonging and Togetherness. In a healthy network that values relationships and trust-building, we can develop a sense of belonging and community well beyond what we may experience, even in our own communities and organizations.
27. Well-being and Joy. When designed accordingly, networks can be oases of well-being. We can experiment with different ways of being and foster inner development practices to foster mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being together. When we design accordingly, networks can share many joyful moments and laughter together.
28. Personal Growth. A safe and enlivening network can support us in being vulnerable about our fears and challenges, engaging in exchange and learning to strengthen our learning and work, and offering one another mutual support for challenging growth and transitions.

H. Broadened Perspectives

29. Leveraging Critical Tensions. We each have biases around key tensions, like preferring action over reflection or quick wins over systemic change. Healthy networks hold these tensions, transcend individual biases, and leverage these tensions more effectively over time than individuals or organizations do.
30. Bigger Agendas. As networks experience success in their work together, they take on more significant agendas, often focusing on human needs in small systems at first and then expanding to shift our socioeconomic systems to better address the needs of all beings and the larger ecosystem.

Developed by CoCreative in collaboration with:

Adrian Röbke, The Weaving Lab 

Brendon Johnson, Fito Network

Carri Munn, Converge

Dominic Stucker, Collective Leadership Institute

Ifeyinwa Egwaoje, Ashoka Africa

Jeanne Hamilton, EPIC ‘Ohana and Nā Kama a Hāloa

Jennifer Atlee

Jennifer Berman, The Starling Collective

Jessica Conrad, The Starling Collective

Kate Trompetter, Connect For

Katy Mamen, Water Bear Collaborative

Laurie Tochiki, EPIC ‘Ohana and Nā Kama a Hāloa

Léna Borsoi, Ashoka Europe

Rebecca Petzel, The Emergence Collective

Ruth Rominger