What Propel is teaching us about funding change and changing funding
A reminder of what Propel is
Propel is a collaborative funding programme supporting long-term, systemic change. Created and coordinated by London Funders, the collaboration involves 12 funders, five equity infrastructure organisations, and now, 131 funded organisations. Propel prioritises the communities who experience structural inequality and the civil society groups who are best placed to make change happen to explore, develop and lead systemic change initiatives that will tackle some of London’s biggest issues.
What do we mean by systems change?
In the context of Propel, systems change means that as a collaboration, we share the ambition of addressing the root causes of inequality and injustice for Londoners.
Propel funders recognise that this work needs to be resourced flexibly over time and that the role funders play is about more than their financial contribution: it is about how funders use their own power, expertise and connections to achieve our shared ambitions. Propel funders also recognise that organisations led by and for their communities are best placed to identify, test and adapt which approaches will be most effective in creating a more equal and just future for their communities.
We recognise that there is more than one approach to systems change. What all of the various approaches have in common is the desire to tackle complex social issues and the causes of inequalities and injustice.
What are we learning so far from Propel?
We have seen that funded partners are exploring a broad range of issues, from work that addresses health inequalities for communities experiencing racial inequity to the intersectional disadvantages faced by pregnant women and new mothers. We’ve also seen that they are using a variety of methods, which include centering lived experience and voice, delivering services that respond to root causes and using learning from their work to influence change, piloting new responses, and working across sectors.
Most are reporting that systemic change takes time, patience and a diverse approach to collaboration, engaging policy makers, funders and key institutional stakeholders. One funded organisation told us that “For change to be effective at the individual, community, and societal levels, it must be approached as a multi-layered process, recognising that each individual and entity defines change differently.”
For some, identifying just one system to address is difficult; there are many complex, intersecting barriers facing communities and organisations need support in streamlining their focus to tackle the systems they’re best placed to influence.
How we articulate systems change
Propel Partners have spent significant time over the last six months asking ourselves whether we should define a ‘Propel approach’ to systemic change or whether we should ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’. We recognise that there is more than one approach to systems change. What all of the various approaches have in common is the desire to tackle complex social issues and the causes of inequalities and injustice. We acknowledge that funded organisations are best placed to identify which approach works best for their community.
So Propel is focusing on building funded organisations’ confidence to work in systemic ways. Learning sessions for grantees are provided by IVAR, our Learning Partner, and we’ve just launched a monthly peer-led session on different approaches to systemic change, the first few of which will be led by Propel’s Equity Partners. This includes approaches like Patricia Hill Collins’ framework of ‘domains of power’ (working across four levels of interpersonal, community, organisational, and structural)We’re also encouraging Propel funded organisations to share with us their approaches to systems change in future sessions.
As we prepare for the next funding offer, we are seeking to be responsive rather than prescriptive, asking funded organisations to tell us about their own goals for changing the systems they work in, demonstrate how they are working systemically, and therefore what kind of grant will enable them to do this.
Funded organisations tell us that, in order to deliver change, they need less emphasis on outputs and more focus on being able to take risks and experiment with different approaches to change.
The funding system
This also requires systemic change in the funding sector. Propel Funders have already been experimenting with different grant making processes, with more relational, light touch and flexible processes. Through these experiments, we are building confidence and evidence about what works and what is possible for both funders and funded organisations. We don’t always get it right, but you can read what we’ve actioned and learned so far here.
We know from the work that IVAR have been convening that what funded organisations value is flexibility, a relational approach, transparency about how decisions are made and security over time. Funded organisations tell us that, in order to deliver change, they need less emphasis on outputs and more focus on being able to take risks and experiment with different approaches to change. And, in thinking about being systemic, they are concerned about the impact of a funder reducing the size/time frame of grant requests to fit their own budgets.
To support funded organisations in experimenting with different approaches to systems change, Propel will need to design grants that are flexible, allowing both funders and funded organisations to adapt as they learn. We’ve collectively identified that we want to embed lived experience and grantee voice into every stage of funding programmes and that an indicator of success will be participatory involvement in grant making.
To enable all of this experimentation to be meaningful, we will continue to build a strong narrative for both funders and funded organisations, deepening our understanding of systems change, setting out how funders and funded organisations can see when this is happening, and clearly articulating what we are seeking to learn together about what enables change in a system. We will also continue to share learning with funders and civil society as we go.
