We are in the early stages of building a network. These are our current initiatives.
Our network inquiries and nodes:
Where work is happening in Illuminate…
Equitable Horizons [Blog Series]
Our blog series entitled "Equitable Horizons: Negotiating System Change Through Collective Leadership", aims to foster dialogue and deepen learning around the intersections of equity, systems change, and collective leadership.
At Illuminate, we acknowlege the interplay between these three dimensions, recognizing their powerful synergy and potential interdependence in driving lasting systemic change.
In late 2023, we invited practitioners from diverse backgrounds to contribute insights from their experiences in systems change initiatives within their fields. The response was overwhelming and from the pool of applicants, our editorial committee chose 10 submissions.
Through diverse content formats, including articles, audio-visual submissions, and photo-essays, we aim to illuminate pathways toward a more equitable and just future.
Each piece will be followed by an engagement activity, providing an opportunity to reflect on and discuss the piece with the author. Join us as we explore innovative approaches and insights at the intersection of equity, systems change, and collective leadership.
Learning & Evaluation Project
The goal of Illuminate’s learning and evaluation project is to understand the impact of the work we do and to surface the insights and learnings that are emerging from the various initiatives that we have developed, implemented and supported these last three years, specifically the justice-aligned systems change learning cohorts and the Luminary Fund.
After 3 years of program implementation, there is a need to understand the impact of our work, so that we can iterate the program moving forward and engage broader communities in supporting our vision and efforts. Ideally this initiative will support Illuminate to continue to center justice and equity within its work and within the larger System Change ecosystem.
This initiative aligns with the RWJF commitment to equity in that it will surface insights on how cohort models and collective leadership can support decolonizing spaces and structures; possibly identifying ways of knowing and working that support structural changes with the potential to dismantle barriers created by racism.
Luminary Fund
The Illuminate network continues to leverage our collective networks to engage more deeply and more internationally, to meet the needs of the emerging field of systems change in its many expressions and practices.
As a network, we recognize that there are many ways into the work of systems change, including movement building, social justice and change, facilitation and through many lineages of practice and experiences.
In 2022, Illuminate is funding and hosting the first Luminary Cohort. Eight practitioners (a mix of organizations and individuals) are on a journey together, contributing to shared learning and inquiries, each with a focus in one of the following areas:
New Systems Change Learning Communities: Regional or thematic communities of practice in new geographic locations (outside of the UK, US and Canada)
New Edgy Inquiries: Inquiries about the edges of the field of systems change practice
Power, Justice and Systems Change: Webinar Series - Fall 2022
The Power, Justice and Systems Change Webinar Series explores systems practice from diverse contexts and perspectives - providing space for learning across practices from systems leaders who have vast and deep experience in understanding how power and justice inform and strengthen the systems change field and strategies.
The interactive series is an international conversation about power in the systems change field and the role of equity and justice work in changing systems. The interactive series aims to enhance the capacity of the field to bring a power and justice analysis to the work, and center the voices, expertise and leadership of those who are most harmed by our failing systems.
Two webinars are available in Spanish!
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La serie de webinarios de Poder, Justicia y Cambio de Sistemas explora la práctica de sistemas en contextos y perspectivas diversas - proveyendo espacio para aprender de la práctica de líderes de sistemas que tienen experiencia vasta y profunda en entender cómo el poder y la justicia informan y fortalecen el campo y las estrategias del cambio de sistemas. La serie interactiva es una conversación internacional sobre el poder en el campo de cambio de sistemas y el rol de la labor de equidad y justicia en cambiar los sistemas. La serie busca resaltar la capacidad del campo para traer un análisis de poder y justicia a la labor y centrar las voces, experiencia y liderazgo de aquelles que están más afectades por nuestros sistemas defectuosos.
¡Hay dos webinars disponibles en español!
Graphic recording by Kate Morales, As The Crow Flies Design
The Illuminate Funder Node
The application of transformative systems change concepts is nascent among all but a few pioneers globally, yet the needs, and number of inquiries from funders are growing quickly as the multiple complex challenges facing them move in the wrong direction.
The Illuminate Network provides a Community of Practice space for funders to seek out peers, capacity builders and facilitators to provide guided learning journeys, peer-to-peer workshops, case studies, frameworks and more, as they navigate their way through the field.
2022-2023 Registration closed
2022-2023 FUNDER NODE COLLECTIVE WISDOM & RESOURCES HERE
Bridging for Systems Change
There are many systems leaders who are centered in community and working in ways that weave together systems change practices and diverse lineages and ways of knowing. Indigenous, feminist, intersectional and social movements for justice are at the forefront of this work.
This inquiry aims to connect and pay attention to the work of bridging from non dominant systems and between leaders who are doing systems change but might not it that.
The Bridging inquiry will explore questions like: What is the experience of bridging for systems change? What are the challenges, key insights, patterns and opportunities in bridging practices towards systems change?
We have convened a Cohort of incredible leaders who will all be hosting a deep dive into the role of Bridging for systems change, in their context.
SIGNAL: Researching systems leadership
SIGNAL is an international action research project helping funders and field builders deeply understand the practice of systems change and the needs of system leaders. Insights and connections from this work will identify gaps and inform new opportunities and collaborations designed to strengthen the field of practice.
The inaugural SIGNAL research report, covering Africa and North America, provides in-depth insights from 40 system leaders across 7 areas--Centering Equity & Inclusion, Resourcing Systems Change, Expanding Capabilities, Increasing Capacity, Supporting Leaders, Deepening Collaboration, and Leveraging Indigenous Wisdom.
Visualising the field and practice of systems change
We know that to achieve systems change there needs to be a high level of collaboration and coordination, access to valuable frameworks, processes and tools and practitioners from a wide range of lineages. However this emerging field is fragmented, with few connections, and has a greater influence from people and practitioners from a white, western and academic culture.
To tackle this, the Illuminate network set out to support the emergence of systems change practice by visualising the field with hopes to create stronger connections among people, organisations and resources, and to recognise the international field with equity at it’s core.
Mashkiki (Medicine)
Healing systems is systems change. Led by the The Turtle Island Institute, Mashkiki will convene an expanding group of systems-change leaders who are Indigenous, Black or of color, and occidental systems change practitioners. The initiative aims to build capacity of diverse systems-change leaders to work with intersections of colonization and racism in the many systems change efforts that they are working in and expand understanding of Indigenous practices and healing traditions among participants as a way to cultivate deep awareness and inform transformational systems change.
Learning Weaving
Anna Birney (School of Systems Change), Rachel Sinha & Tatiana Fraser (The Systems Sanctuary) are leading the strategy for Illuminate on how we integrate learning across all the nodes in the Illuminate network.
Learning is the core strategy of Illuminate and they are working out a way to reflect and curate insights that are emerging from different action and reflection spaces across all network activities. This will provide an opportunity to come together in collective inquiries about the emerging and edgy questions to help the field advance.
This process will emerge new insights to integrate into the network and to share back to the field in a dynamic, open and engaging way.
Capacity Builders: River Delta
In the fall of 2019, a few of the founders of the Illuminate network, including CoCreative, Garfield Foundation, McConnell Foundation, and Academy for Systems Change collaborated to host a gathering of systems change “capacity-builders” who work as independent consultants or in small collectives as facilitators and advisors, from the US, Canada, Mexico, UK and EU and First Nations. This was the first time most of them had been invited to meet together with peers to share their perspectives on the state of the field.
This node has since developed a Capacity Builders Community of Practice, with a focus on equity and integrating more health and healing into systems change practice. It has been meeting virtually throughout 2021, supported by The Garfield Foundation and facilitated by Brooking Gatewood and Rebecca Petzel of The Emergence Collective.
WATCH A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH BROOKING GATEWOOD HERE
