Let’s Talk about Systems Change at Impact Week
To make true change happen, one needs to think in terms of making the system as a whole change. At Impact Week in Malmö, the collective message was clear: the impact space needs to move beyond isolated interventions and towards strategic collaboration, adaptive action, and deeper trust among partners.
Discussions in Malmö centered around different facets of systems change, including how to formulate long term visions, how to collaborate better and how to ensure that existing partnerships have the trust needed to go above and beyond.
Delving deeper into the intricacies of systems change, the session From Theory to Action: Systems Thinking in Impact Investing offered a refreshingly pragmatic view on systems thinking in impact investing. One crucial recommendation was for organizations to start with existing data and frameworks without waiting for perfect models. It was a mantra often heard at Impact Week: don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.
Concrete examples offered by panelists showed how (re-)centering strategies on social enterprises had the potential to sharpen the systemic impact of the funding provided. To list a few:
- Access Foundation mapped stakeholders, prioritized system resilience, and developed practical KPIs tailored to the health of the whole ecosystem. This approach allowed for clearer strategy, use of existing data, and adaptable measurement that enhanced both impact and organizational learning.
- elea Foundation for Ethics forged long-term partnerships with entrepreneurs, providing investment, technical support, and peer knowledge-sharing communities to strengthen systemic durability. They also built cross-sector alliances with universities and co-investors, amplifying their impact and resilience on a broader systems level.
- Cewas evolved from direct enterprise support to targeted sector and ecosystem development, after recognizing that sustainable impact required building markets and infrastructure - not just helping individual organizations. They set realistic, mission-driven goals and tracked ecosystem progress with KPIs focused on broader system health, such as adoption and replication.
While challenging, having this type of clear articulation of long-term visions and realistic scaling demonstrably helped organizations avoid overreach. Many found that applying a systems lens simplified impact measurement by focusing on root causes and leverage points, enhancing clarity rather than complicating strategy.
Capital Requires A Vision
Adopting this kind of thinking is not just important strategically, but also crucial in unlocking additional capital. The session on Unleashing Mission-Driven Capital reinforced the systems change perspective by underlining the need for deep, cross‑sector alignment between foundations, institutional investors, and public banks to further scale solutions to systemic challenges.
A vital role is played by blended finance, which shouldn't be understood as simply “pooling money,” but as the fruits of long‑term trust building and relationship development. Creating these solutions often requires years of work to align mandates, understand constraints, and establish personal trust between key individuals.
Foundations were specifically highlighted as strategic enablers that go beyond capital provision by funding technical assistance, impact measurement systems, and project preparation facilities that make pipelines investable and help attract larger institutional capital. At the same time, the potential of these structures is constrained by bureaucratic processes with long approval cycles and high transaction costs, as well as limited market access where commercial scale and return expectations do not match early‑stage impact opportunities or retail investors’ ability to join complex products.
Speakers argued that treating foundation capital as a flexible de‑risking and enabling layer, and tackling these structural barriers head‑on, is essential if mission‑driven capital is to truly support systems change
Towards Sufficient Collaboration
Across all sessions panelists highlighted the need to break down silos stretching between governments, funders, enterprises, and communities. The session From Silos to Synergy starkly highlighted the challenge: while 80% of practitioners believe collaboration is vital, only 7.7% feel it is currently sufficient. The main hurdle is moving from simply talking to “actually working together” on concrete projects with shared, measurable outcomes.
Success stories showcased the power of this focused approach, including a social outcomes contract in France that prevented children from entering foster care (through BNP Paribas) and a project in the Gambia that used Smart Paper Technology to improve health data (in partnership with IKARE). These examples demonstrated that the most effective strategy is to start with tangible, well-defined projects that create win-win situations for all stakeholders. However, the panelists stressed that these collaborations demand significant time and patience to build deep trust, alongside flexibility in implementation to adapt to political and operational challenges.
Measuring for Trust
So how does one build the type of trust we have been talking about?
Our dedicated session on Leveraging Impact Measurement and Management for Ecosystem Contribution and Systems Change contributed by highlighting how new approaches to measurement underpin effective systems change. Panelists from INOKS Capital, Impact Shakers, Alfanar, Impact Frontiers and Blue Mark collectively stressed the importance of multi-level frameworks addressing beneficiary, grantee, and ecosystem impact simultaneously.
Defining system boundaries, navigating attribution versus contribution, and embedding impact reporting in organizational culture were key challenges explored. Tools like Impact Performance Reporting Norms and Blue Mark IQ exemplified evolving practice aimed at transparency and usability. It makes IMM vital in not just gathering data, but in building trust, the essential glue that fosters genuine collaboration and collective accountability to drive system-wide change.
The session 'From Theory to Action' was presented by Alejandro Alvarez von Gustedt (Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors) and joined by Lydia Levy (Access), Amanda Turner Ege (elea) and Aline Bussmann (Cewas).
The session 'Unleashing Mission Drive Capital' was presented by Shiva Dustdar and Gunter Fischer (EIB Institute) and joined by Yasmina Zaidman (Acumen), Elizabeth Boggs Davidsen (GSG Impact) and Farnam Bidgoli (CIFF).
The session 'From Silos to Synergy' was presented by Alessia Gianoncelli (Impact Europe) and joined by Maha Keramane (BNP Paribas), Tim Diphoorn (One Acre Fund) and Anne Holm Rannaleet (IKARE).
The session 'Leveraging Impact Measurement and Management for Ecosystem Contribution and Systems Change' was presented by Alessia Gianoncelli (Impact Europe) and joined by Nour Saade and Mohammed Al Radi (Alfanar), Suzanne Jenkins (Impact Shakers), Jack Isaacs (BlueMark), Sergio Sanchez Toledo (INOKS) and Matt Ripley (Impact Frontiers).
Interested to be a part of these discussions? Explore becoming a member at Impact Europe: