Giving Compass' Take:

• John Harper at FSG discusses how the exclusion of community voices at the decision-making table does not advance equitable systems change in social impact work. 

• How can more organizations prioritize the inclusion of community voices? How does feedback relate to systems change?

• Understand more about the roots of philanthropic systems change. 

A few years ago, I came to a realization I imagine is all too familiar to many of us working in the social impact space. As the grandchild of sharecroppers and domestics, I know that change is possible, and I have dedicated my career to driving positive change in communities of need. In my case, that meant helping to generate resources and support for deserving organizations working to transform public education. Yet after nearly ten years expanding high-performing charter networks and scaling innovative school support interventions, it had become difficult for me to identify the meaningful, sustainable, and scalable change my work had achieved.

This is not to say there were not bright spots of impact, encouraging data stories, and individual lives transformed. But it was all quite fragile, threatened by any shift in school district leadership or change in philanthropic strategy. For all of my effort and good intentions, I had become complicit in a broken system that was not producing the outcomes any actor in the system envisioned.

This realization launched a new personal exploration; instead of seeking to uplift any one intervention as the solution, I began seeking to understand the levers to bring transformative change at scale.

Most recently, my exploration led me to co-create a youth-led, youth-designed initiative called the State of Young People, where we not only put young people at the center, but actually ceded and shared our decision-making power with them. Being in community with those young leaders was a transformative experience and forced me to confront another troubling reality of my career.

How many times had I been in board meetings, strategic planning sessions, and other privileged decision-making tables with the very community we were seeking to support excluded from the conversation?

Read the full article about making equitable systems change by John Harper at FSG.