IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/nonpfo/v1y2010i1p24n4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Foundation Strategy for Social Impact: A System Change Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Ferris James M.

    (University of Southern California)

  • Williams Nicolas

    (NPO Solutions, Inc.)

Abstract

As foundations work to leverage their philanthropic assets to achieve greater social impact, there is a keen interest in designing strategies that create transformative rather than incremental change. This paper is an effort to provide a conceptual overview that will enable foundations to better understand what "system change" means in the context of foundation strategy. It provides a succinct, non-technical definition of a system in an attempt to move from system as a metaphor to a more concrete framework that can guide foundation work. Particular attention is paid to the need to discern which strategic options are more likely to catalyze transformative change, the links between policy change and system change, and consideration of a wider choice set for creating system change.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferris James M. & Williams Nicolas, 2010. "Foundation Strategy for Social Impact: A System Change Perspective," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-24, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:nonpfo:v:1:y:2010:i:1:p:24:n:4
    DOI: 10.2202/2154-3348.1008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/2154-3348.1008
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/2154-3348.1008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bryan Tara Kolar & Isett Kimberley R., 2018. "Philanthropic Foundation Strategies to Advance Systems Reform: Perceptions from Frontline Change Implementers," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 1-14, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:nonpfo:v:1:y:2010:i:1:p:24:n:4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.