What key ingredients do you need to create systemic change? How do you develop a common understanding of what it means to change a particular system? How do you measure the success of the work? Do you need to? As part of our learning programme on systemic change, we spoke with Naomi Diamond and Leigh Brown from Collaborate CIC about all of these questions and more, based primarily on their experience of being a learning partner for the Cornerstone Fund (a collaboration between London Funders’ members City Bridge Foundation, the National Lottery Community Fund, Trust for London, John Lyon’s Charity and the Greater London Authority).The Cornerstone Fund builds and progresses the ambitions of the ‘Way Ahead’, a joint initiative by civil society, public sector bodies and funders, coordinated by London Funders back in 2016. The Way Ahead initiative set out a vision for a thriving civil society that is resilient, collaborative, and sustainable and which will improve outcomes for Londoners. Eight years on from the publication of the Way Ahead recommendations, there is much to learn from how Cornerstone Fund partners have ambitions of systemic change into practice. With their role as a learning partner to the Fund coming to an end, Naomi and Leigh reflected on the learning that’s emerged.
