This year’s Global Philanthropy Forum concluded on the 20th of March, but the conversations I’ve had there have made space, lived in my head, and will continue to spark new ways of thinking for a long time. 

One phrase seemed to surface everywhere: systems change. This wasn’t accidental. The forum’s agenda was reportedly reworked just weeks before the event to respond to the current global moment, with an intentional shift toward a more systemic framing. Across sessions, speakers deliberated on the language of complexity, leverage points, interconnected challenges, and the need for a new way of operating in philanthropy.

This shift is worth paying attention to.

But it is also worth asking a harder question: What do we really mean when we talk about systems?

Systems are having a moment, but not always in the same way

One of the most interesting aspects of the forum was that the word systemic was used frequently, but not always to describe the same kind of system.

At Busara, when we think about systems, we are often focused on the  norms, incentives, frictions, and feedback loops that shape human behavior. We are interested in the broader environment that makes certain behaviors more likely, harder, stickier, or more resistant to change.

At the forum, by contrast, much of the conversation focused on the larger forces at play in  philanthropy : institutional weight, capital flows, incentives, and decision structures that determine how giving happens, where resources move, and why they sometimes fail to move where they are needed most.

That distinction matters, and  is exactly why the conversation was so valuable.

Because once philanthropy starts operating more as a cohesive interconnected system, and less as a collection of well-intentioned actors making isolated funding decisions, it opens the door to a more serious conversation about how change can actually be brought forward.

Trust, impact, and the fragility of the giving ecosystem

In many sectors, we still address trust as an individual attitude. But in reality, trust often behaves more like a system-level condition. It is shaped by repeated signals, stories, institutional behavior, media amplification, peer effects, and visible outcomes. Once trust starts to erode, the consequences can travel across actors and across time.

That means restoring it is not just a communications challenge. It is a systems challenge.

Mark Greer of Charities Aid Foundation spoke about the erosion of trust and perceived impact as two major systemic barriers to giving. His point was simple but powerful: when trust breaks down, the effects do not stay local. Doubt spreads. Skepticism becomes contagious. Years of institutional work can be undermined quickly.

From complex systems to living systems

John Fullerton pushed the conversation further by arguing that it is not enough to merely acknowledge complexity. He called for a living systems perspective, one that recognizes that systems are not static structures to be diagnosed once, but evolving environments that require continuous adaptation.

This idea resonates strongly with the kind of work we care about at Busara.

Too often, solutions are designed as if the world will remain stable long enough for implementation to catch up. But real systems move. Incentives shift. Actors adapt. New frictions emerge. Interventions interact with one another. What looked promising on paper can fail in practice because the system changed, or because it responded.

Fullerton’s framing around balancing natural capital, financial capital, and social capital also pointed to something philanthropy often struggles with: the need to move beyond narrow definitions of return. If we want better outcomes, we need to understand the relationships between different forms of value, and how strengthening one while depleting another can destabilize the whole.

Leverage points are now central to the conversation

One of the recurring questions worth pursuing is: : Where are the biggest leverage points for changing the system?

That is encouraging.

The leverage point question is different from and far more useful than just asking where money should go next. It shifts attention from isolated transactions to the architecture of change itself. It asks what kinds of interventions can alter incentives, unlock stalled resources, reshape behavior, or change how the broader system performs over time.

Half My DAF,  an initiative set up by David and  Jennifer Risher is a  compelling example of an  initiative that addresses a clear distortion in the donor-advised funding space. Once donors have received the tax benefits of committing money, the incentive to move those funds toward actual impact can become surprisingly weak. Half My DAF intervenes by matching donations, helping create momentum for capital that was notionally set aside for good, to actually be deployed for good.

This is what makes systems thinking useful. It helps us notice that sometimes the issue is not a lack of money, but misaligned incentives. Not lack of commitment, but a lack of movement. Not absence of intention, but a structure that allows delay to become the default.

Simulation, de-risking, and a major opportunity

One theme that warrants attention is the growing interest in simulation as a tool for better philanthropic decision-making.

Roshan Ghadamian from the Institute for Regenerative Systems Architecture argued that philanthropy needs a new operating system, and showed how simulation can guide decisions about how and when to invest resources. In a separate conversation, Sarah Marikos of the Treehouse Family Foundation shared that people in her network had been in close contact with researchers using simulation models to help de-risk philanthropic investments.

This is a particularly important signal, because for a long time, systems approaches have often been seen as intellectually compelling but operationally difficult to sell. But what came through clearly at the forum is that this may be changing. When systems analysis is framed not only as a way to understand complexity, but also as a way to de-risk decisions, it becomes immediately more actionable for funders.

And that matters deeply for Busara.

Because one of the strongest cases for systems work is precisely this, it helps organizations avoid investing heavily in pathways that are unlikely to work. It enables us to  test assumptions before we scale, reveal unintended consequences, bottlenecks, and set up feedback loops before they become costly. In other words, it is not just an analytical exercise. It is a practical tool for making better bets.

Framing systems thinking as a de-risking tool is increasingly important for the future of our field.

Systems thinking also sharpens how we understand impact

Another memorable example came from Ansu Tumbahangphe of Helvetas, who spoke about efforts to build low-cost, highly durable hanging bridges that significantly reduce travel time for rural communities. The direct function of a bridge may seem straightforward. But the impact is not.

A bridge changes access to healthcare. It changes school attendance. It changes participation in markets. It changes how people reach public services. It changes what becomes feasible in daily life.

This is a useful reminder that impact is rarely linear.

Many of the most important interventions do not work because of a single direct effect. They work because they change the conditions around multiple behaviors at once. They alter access, expectations, routines, coordination, and opportunity. Their value becomes much clearer when seen systemically.

What this means for Busara

For us at Busara, the forum reinforced something important: the appetite for systems thinking is real, but there is still enormous room to deepen what that means in practice.

There is now more openness in philanthropy to the language of complexity, interdependence, and leverage. But language alone is not enough. The next step is helping organizations move from broad systemic aspiration to sharper systemic practice.

That means asking better questions.

What behaviors are holding a system in place?

What incentives reproduce the current equilibrium?

Where are the feedback loops that amplify failure, or make success hard to sustain?

What kinds of interventions are likely to shift the system, rather than just add more activity to it?

And how can simulation, behavioral insight, and systems analysis help funders make wiser and less risky decisions?

This is where I believe Busara has something meaningful to offer.

Not because systems language is fashionable, but because the challenges many organizations now face genuinely demand it. If philanthropy is looking for a new operating system, it will need more than ambition. It will need methods that help people understand behavior inside systems, identify leverage points, and design interventions that are better matched to the realities of complexity.

That is a conversation worth contributing to.

And after this year’s Global Philanthropy Forum, it feels like a conversation that is only just beginning.