The Systems Change Community of Practice (CoP) brings together foundation learning and evaluation leaders who are working to understand how systems change unfolds and how learning can support that work. Through peer exchange, shared reflection, and experimentation, the community explores how foundations can learn and make decisions in environments where change is complex, long-term, and often uncertain.
About the Systems Change Community of Practice
Across philanthropy, more foundations are widening their strategies to address complex, interconnected challenges. Many are explicitly naming systems change as a goal of their work. At the same time, people responsible for learning and evaluation are navigating a difficult question: how do you understand progress when outcomes are indirect, long-term, and shaped by forces beyond any single organization’s control?
The Systems Change Community of Practice was created to provide a space for funder learning and evaluation leaders to work through these questions together. Launched in 2023, the CoP brings together practitioners from foundations across the field to share experiences, examine emerging practices, and explore approaches that support learning in complex environments.
Cohorts typically run for 12–18 months and combine in-person gatherings with ongoing peer exchange. Participants bring real questions from their work, explore emerging practices, and learn from one another’s experiments.
What Participants Explore
Members use the CoP as a space to examine practical questions that arise in systems change work, including:
How foundations define and bound their systems change strategies
How to track meaningful signals of change when outcomes are long-term or emergent
How learning can inform real-time decisions and adaptive strategy
How to engage partners and communities in learning processes
How to communicate about systems change with boards, colleagues, and external audiences
These conversations often reflect broader organizational tensions—between accountability and adaptation, rigor and flexibility, or clarity and complexity.
Sharing Knowledge with the Field
The CoP is designed not only as a peer learning space, but also as a way to contribute practical insight to the field. Participants surface shared challenges and emerging approaches, and we share what we are learning through conference sessions, written pieces, and curated resources. This work is informed by a collaboratively developed field learning agenda that reflects questions practitioners say they are actively grappling with. Resources connected to this work are available here.
Interested in Learning More?
If you are a foundation learning or evaluation leader interested in the Systems Change Community of Practice—or would like to follow updates and resources from this work—please reach out to Clare Nolan.
