Deeper Dive INTO PRACTICE OF PANDO FUNDING

Hello! This is a Pando Funding deep dive; one of several concepts where we dig deeper into a critical aspect of Pando Funding. To explore why we believe it matters and to share what we’ve learned while leading the New Capitalism Project, a US-based system change network to transform the economic system so that it works for all people and the planet. These deeper dives are offered as tools to help you adapt Pando Funding to your context – to animate Pando Funding as a shared, living practice rather than a fixed model.    

System Change Networks: Organizing for Complexity

Shifting a complex system for the better and rising to the challenges that really matter in the face of the polycrisis, requires new and different relationships among diverse organizations, leaders, and capital holders each with different strategies, theories of change, and priorities. The key is not doubling down on a single approach; but rather, in navigating together in the same direction and towards a shared desire for a better system.

Pando Funding is built on a core belief: networks of organizations can achieve what no single organization can do alone. Being part of a systems change network helps each member become more capable of engaging with the deep complexity of the systems they want to change. It sounds obvious and simple; and yet, it’s a practice that’s hard and rarely sufficiently funded.

But different outcomes require different ways of organizing. That’s where networks come in. Not every network is a system change network—and that’s a good thing. Networks serve many purposes. What makes a system change network unique is how it intentionally bridges across movement ecologies—connecting actors who wouldn’t otherwise engage, in order to do what none could do alone. Here are some top-line features that define this kind of network:

  • It bridges difference. Drawing on the movement ecology framework, a system change network is a purpose-built structure for deep change that intentionally “holds” a diversity of tactics, ideologies, and strategies. Instead of trying to resolve tensions, it treats them as creative fuel, building a platform to carry a range of approaches.

  • It starts with human connection. New relationships among organizations begin with relationships among people. A system change network creates space for leaders to bust silos, build trust, share insights, engage in collective sensemaking and visioning—together making meaning of the system they’re trying to shift.

  • It engages organizational power. While personal relationships matter, a system change network aims for organizational transformation in the service of transforming a system. That’s why it involves people with the authority to shift how their organizations operate.

  • It evolves over time. A system change network moves through a lifecycle—from early exploration and trust-building to strategy, action, and adaptation. The Network Lifecycle framework, developed while at the Monitor Institute, has been foundational to our thinking, and in launching the New Capitalism Project.

Working at the scale of the problem means working “at the complexity” of the problem.  A system change network is a powerful way to organize at the complexity of the problems that matter. Pando Funding is how we support those networks to act.

Guideposts in Practice

Discovering and Nurturing a Network for Shifting the Economic System

The New Capitalism Project (NCP) began with a clear goal: how might we organize for greater field-level mobilization to address the complexity of transforming the U.S. economic system? We started, not by mapping the entire system, but by understanding the significant but fragmented work already underway. We realized that this understanding, that came from deep listening to field leaders themselves, could then help strengthen key relationships throughout a vast ecosystem of activity. And in doing so, galvanize leaders to move forward in more coherence and coordination.

We started with a clear mantra: To change a system everywhere, start somewhere.

For NCP, that “somewhere” was not rooted in a specific geography; but about cultivating the quality of relationships among leaders across diverse strategies, theories of change, and issue areas. We convened a 12-person Design Team, drawn from across the economic transformation landscape, and led them through an 8-month long collective strategy-making process: meeting virtually every other week for ninety minutes during the height of the Covid pandemic and racial riots that roiled the US.

Through sustained financial and process investment, we helped build the root enabling conditions necessary for system health—trust, shared purpose, shared vision—and in so doing, to evolve from a set of unconnected field actors into the beginnings of a true system change network.

This foundation was the base for the NCP Lab which welcomed leaders, expanded movement diversity, and focused on collective action. We grew the network by calling in leaders who saw their work reflected in NCP’s vision and needed the time, space and resources to turn their system change hunches into practical interventions.

As trust deepened and the network matured, new possibilities emerged: what we started to call clusters—smaller groups aligned around specific goals. These became fractals of interest, alignment and shared will that emerged within the network. Leaders within clusters could see how acting together on high-leverage system drivers could allow them to gain impact in ways that none of their organizations could do on their own.

But even the most promising collaborations stall without dedicated resources to support this kind of collaboration. This is where one of the biggest “traps” exists in network mobilization: we risk building a bridge to nowhere. We create collective will among leaders through deliberate network orchestration but the ability to resource this collective action through strategic financing orchestration falls short.   

NCP’s experience revealed a critical gap: the lack of dedicated, flexible capital that networks can deploy as networks. Too often, transformational ideas born from these collaborations are difficult to fund outside the network context—often seen as too uncertain, too collective, too experimental. They can compete with individual members’ fundraising efforts, perpetuating a kind of “hunger games” mentality in the philanthropic industry, weakening the very enabling conditions that make the network effective.

If we want networks to deliver the system-level impact they are capable of, we need fit-for-purpose capital that matches the complexity, creativity and collaborative nature of the change we seek.

GUIDING QUESTION

What changes could you make to how your network works, so that the process of adding more diverse leaders from across your movement’s ecology increases the value of the network for everyone?

Each deep dive offers a guiding question, as a jumping off point for exploring a particular aspect of Pando Funding in your own work and context.