Understanding Systems Change
At Achieve Brown County, we believe that solving complex challenges for young people requires more than just programs or services. It requires changing the systems around them.
Systems change means transforming the conditions that hold problems in place, leading to lasting, widespread improvements across entire communities.
The 6 Conditions of Systems Change
Achieve Brown County uses this framework for systems change that identifies six conditions that exist across three levels: structural, relational, and transformational.
Structural Change (Explicit Systems)
1. Policies: Changes to rules, regulations, and laws that guide how a system operates.
2. Practices: Changes in activities, guidelines, and day-to-day practices within and across organizations.
3. Resource Flows: How money, people, knowledge, and other assets are distributed and allocated within a system.
Relational Change (Semi-Explicit Systems)
4. Relationships & Connections: Strengthening and deepening relationships and collaboration across different parts of the system.
5. Power Dynamics: Shifting decision-making and authority toward more equitable and inclusive models.
Transformational Change (Implicit Systems)
6. Mental Models: Changing deeply held beliefs, assumptions, and narratives that shape how people think and act.
6 Conditions of Systems Change
Top Takeaways
- Systems change is about advancing equity by shifting the conditions that hold a problem in place.
- To fully embrace systems change, Partners should be prepared to see how their own ways of thinking and acting must change as well.
- Shifts in system conditions are more likely to be sustained when working at three different levels of change: explicit, semi-explicit, and implicit.
The Achieve Brown County Collective Impact Partnership
Our Approach to Systems Change
At Achieve Brown County, we align our work with all six conditions of systems change. Systems change is identifying bright spots and barriers of these six conditions and then working to scale the bright spots and eliminate the barriers so that more children, families and individuals can thrive.
From building relationships and trust across sectors, to supporting community driven changes around practices, to challenging long-held assumptions about complex systems, we are committed to changing the system conditions so that all young people in Brown County thrive.
Collective Impact
We Don’t Create Programs
Our work is rooted in Collective Impact, a proven approach to solving complex problems by aligning efforts across many organizations around a shared vision and set of goals.
Three Pillars Drive Our Work
Better Together
Partnership Advancement
We maintain a common agenda, engage in policy work, and ensure diverse individuals and organizations are involved in the Collective Impact Partnership.
Data Driven
Data Work
We analyze and visualize data and make it available to our community for decision making. This data drives our work forward.
Cross Sector Action
Collaborative
Action
We convene, facilitate, and support Action Teams to improve one or more of the population level outcomes on our Youth Outcome Dashboard.