Transforming philanthropy
Transforming philanthropy - some reflections
I just spent two days in Brussels to meet a group of people who also work for foundations to discuss our ideas on how foundations can become more transformative. The event was cryptically titled ‘Transformative Philanthropy in Transition’. I’m using this week’s email for a first reflection on these two days and share some observations.
Overall I enjoyed sharing experiences and hearing from other people who are in similar situations. It is encouraging to hear that we are not the only organisation struggling with the things we are struggling with. While this may sound obvious, it is still good to hear other people say it out loud. At the same time, others are more advanced in certain aspects while we might be more advanced in other aspects. In addition to the representatives from various foundations, Graham Leicester from the International Futures Forum and Indy Johar from Dark Matter Labs were also present for some of the discussions.
Here a few observations:
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We need to be careful what metaphors we use when we talk about systems. The predominant metaphor for the best way of changing systems still seems to be using leverage points. Somebody also talked about cogwheels and that we have to find the right wheel to turn in order to get the change we seek. Both of these are mechanistic metaphors that can give us the impression that we can, if we look carefully enough, find a place where it is relatively easy to change a system in a predetermined way. Some people also talked about the need to find the root causes of the problem and tackle them. While this sounds more ecological as a metaphor, referencing roots, it has essentially implies the same as leverage points: we need to find the ultimate cause of the problem so we can have the most effect with the least effort. The metaphor of root causes is no less linear than the mechanistic metaphors of leverage points. I know that the people who used this metaphor over the last few days have of course a more nuanced understanding of systems and the complexity of change in social systems. Yet, the metaphors we use critically influence, and are a reflection of, our thinking. So what are alternative metaphors that we could use? Nora Bateson often talks about a meadow or a forest, ecological metaphors. I think they are indeed closer to human and social systems, by their very nature (no pun intended) than are mechanical systems that imply linearity and controlability. How do meadows and forests change? By mutual learning or, as Nora calls it, symmathesy. Change does not happen by one organism or an organisation of organisms finding a leverage point to shift the system. Indeed, the idea that one organism in a meadow would be able to change the whole meadow is obviously ludicrous. Which shows that using the metaphor of a meadow instead of a lever immediately has consequences for the way we think about our role in affecting change. We need to foster mutual learning, rather than find a lever and pull it.
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Which leads me to a deeper issue: both in the development space where I worked before and now in the philanthropic space, we often talk about aiming for systemic change and the need to change systems. In my view, there are some problematic aspects with this, even though I have always advocated that it is not enough to work on symptoms or first level solution to problem, or direct-correctives, to use another term. Those who talk about systemic change often have a pretty clear idea of what a better system would look like. So it’s not just that we want systems change, but we want to change the system so it fits with our ‘better.’ That’s why the leverage point metaphor sticks - it gives us the illusion that we can shift a whole system with a lever in the direction we want to move it. This doesn’t sound like a problem if you take it at face value. But if you have been following my writing about the problems with purpose and intentionality, it can become problematic. And there is also the question of who defines what ‘better’ means. Not just that change in systems happens through mutual learning, also setting and adjusting the direction of change is part of the mutual learning.
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In contrast, though, my next point: after listening to Indy talking about the immanent implications of climate change on the current economy and society, I was wondering if we as funders are radical enough with what we are aiming for. Indeed, Indy’s provocation implied that we need to do more, sooner. But what, concretely, does that mean? I still think it is not about pushing particular solutions (although that can also work in specific cases), but about connecting with others and connecting others. It is about finding a common sense of direction and then start walking in that direction together, learning and adapting while we go. Which again leads me to the next point.
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Going back to the metaphor of the meadow and linking it with another discussion we had: the importance of learning. When seeing human systems and social change through the lens of a meadow, it becomes clear that learning is not just a nice addition to improve our chances to achieve a strategic objective. Rather, learning becomes the strategy.
That is probably all I manage to write down for now. It’s now late Friday afternoon and I think I’ll take a break from work. If the above sounds a bit incoherent, that is probably because it is exactly that. More to come when I have digested the discussion a bit further.
The Paper Museum
I recently listened to a fantastic lecture by Iain McGilchrist at Ralston College on ‘The coincidence of opposites’. Highly recommended if you can spare 2h. This is a transcript of a part of an answer McGilchrist gave on the question what we can do against the suicide epidemic among young people (at about 1h 44min).
However, that epidermic of suicide and the underlying angst, depression, despair, emptiness, boredom that seem to characterise the world that young people are inheriting has many causes and really one way of looking at my book “The Matter with Things” is I’m trying to say what is the matter with things. And one is this view that we are nothing but. I talk about the “school of nothingbuttery” in which you know it’s nothing, we are nothing but. This is always fallacious, is always hiding a piece of shoddy thinking because nothing is ever but anything else. However I think what we essentially need is meaning, a life without meaning is not worth living. And I want to get rid of one misconception right away. This doesn’t mean that we should invent meaning, it means we should discover meaning. Meaning is there, alright, beauty is there, alright, complexity is there, alright, purpose is there, I argue in the book, alright. They’re there, it is our task to respond to see them and to incorporate them and when we do life becomes rich, we start to flourish society starts to flourish. When we don’t, the opposite of all those things is the case and what has very much struck me, and I referred to one of these in the end of [my book] the “Master and his Emissary” is the effect of social cohesion, belonging to a cohesive social group, which is not just a group of people bubbles on the Internet that just happened to share opinions, but a living group of people who share their lives.
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The second one is belonging in nature and we’ve done everything we can to alienate ourselves from nature, to treat it as a resource to be exploited and many of us who don’t live surrounded by nature have no choice other than to live in this dispossessed concrete world. Research on this is massive, it makes a huge difference to cognitive ability, to memory, but also to sense of happiness, to sense of anxiety, sense of worth and to behaviour.
And the third one, surprise surprise, is spirituality, is believing in a spiritual world and preferably being actively involved in a the community that worship together.
So these three things are now rather rare in our world. Where they exist they do help, but if you really wanted to make a totally miserable world, what you do is take people as far away from the natural world as possible and surround them by machines and virtuality, you would disrupt society, set individual against individual and say that everybody has a right to do whatever they want to do quite regardless of what might be good for the well-being of a community in the society, and you tell people that religion was all rotten, they didn’t mean anything, the world didn’t mean anything and the sooner it was all over the better. If you do that you’ll make a very very unhappy world and the evidence is that we are.
Why have I added this to my Paper Museum? What struck me is that McGilchrist was able to name three things that are most important for human fulfilment: meaning, connection to nature, and spirituality. Most people are far away from achieving that in today’s world. Furthermore, of course, I immediately saw the link between McGilchrist and Bateson (both Nora and her dad Gregory) arguing that something is never just this and nothing more. Also, I found it interesting that McGilchrist argued that meaning, beauty, complexity, and, indeed, purpose, are there, independently of us as individuals. This makes sense to me, as this is what I learned from Philip Shepherd and experienced myself when working on embodiment. It also links to my earlier writing on purpose. If purpose is something to be discovered in our interrelationship with the world, and if we can only do that in an embodied state, i.e., when we are not limited to our conscious mind but fully present with our whole selves, purpose does not get perverted to the objective end of a linear change initiative.
More for you to enjoy
A few wonderful people have created a video on Nora Bateson’s essay ‘It’s Fantastic’. Enjoy: https://vimeo.com/797266077/d57de806b7