Knowledge Connect

In this edition of Knowledge Connect, edited by Tracy Wilcox, we consider some key ideas on leadership and systems thinking, ideas that have direct relevance to the social sector. Guest reviewer Mehreen Faruqi also revisits one of the seminal concepts driving systems thinking, Rittel and Webber’s idea of ‘wicked problems’.more

No serious student of systems thinking can ignore the contributions of the late Donella Meadows. She is perhaps best known for her work on the Limits to Growth, and for the State of the Village Report; the latter inspiring the well-known Miniature Earth Project video.

In this article, John Sterman from MIT, who has written widely on systems thinking, explores why policies to promote health and welfare can end up failing, or even exacerbating the problems they are meant to solve.

The use of the term ‘wicked problem’ has recently become popular vernacular as a way of describing complex, multidimensional and interconnected social and environmental challenges such as climate change and global inequity.

Although mission remains the front and centre, in the changed environment of privatised welfare, the increasing inflow of for-profit management and business practices has significantly transformed this once informal sector.

While not strictly systems thinking, Matthew Taylor’s work is a compelling call to arms for the type of thinking and behaviour embodied in systems thinking approaches.

This chapter forms part of a larger handbook on environmental leadership released this year, but many of the points Faruqi makes are equally applicable to the social sector.

In this edition of Knowledge Connect we look at why philanthropy matters and review the different views on the issues of power, influence and accountability – the very issues that the philanthropy sector itself finds the most challenging. 

In the September 2011 edition of Alliance Magazine, editor Caroline Hartnell, ran a special focus on ‘Living with the Gates Foundation’. Controversially the cover of the magazine showed a picture of a big gorilla, which was reprinted later in the magazine as a very direct reference to the Bill and Melinda Gates Found...more

The September 2011 edition of Alliance magazine’s focus on  'Living with the Gates Foundation' attracted a fascinating array of Letters to the Editor.