Community-driven systems change is an approach to development and social transformation that emphasizes the insight, leadership, and ownership of the people who are living and experiencing issues at the community level, and their work to create lasting change in the systems and root causes that underlie the critical issues they seek to address.

Community-driven systems change IS:

Working with community and government stakeholders to surface key issues, share indigenous knowledge, map out systems and stakeholders, understand root causes, prioritize issues, and develop a shared action plan – in which the CBO is one of many actors
Together implementing, evaluating/reflecting on, and adapting that shared action plan
Developing actions or interventions, with community stakeholders, in response to the issues and root causes identified in the community – drawing on available experiences, indigenous knowledge and practices, and internal and external tools and resources as appropriate to respond to the need
Being open and sensitive to both expected and unexpected outcomes, and looking for intermediate indicators of progress
Using data and evidence to learn and improve action
Thinking about the whole system, the context, different stakeholders, relationships, and dynamics
Different stakeholders recognizing and acting on different entry points
Investing time and resources into convenings and exchanges that build community cohesion, shared analysis and learning, and collaborative action
Actions that aim to create lasting changes in systems – such as advocacy, normative change, strengthening existing community or government structures. (May also include some responsive service provision if the CBO and community deem it an urgent priority.)
Recognizing that it takes time and investment to create true shifts in systems that will last, that this change may not be immediately visible
Recognizing that beneficiary numbers in a given year are not an indicator of systemic change

Community-driven systems change IS NOT:

Developing a proposal without the input of community and government stakeholders, submitting it to a funder for approval, and then delivering the proposed program to the target community
Starting with the premise of replicating/ scaling a program or rolling out a pre-packaged model or tool
Starting with and being guided by a static linear log-frame or logic model
Being evaluated according to a predetermined set of outcomes
Implementing an isolated intervention
Only service provision
Trying to reach a large number of direct beneficiaries during a short funding/project cycle without creating meaningful long-term change

Evidence, resources, and practical tools, and templates for supporting community-driven systems change

At Firelight, we conducted a three-year process (2017-2020) of inquiry, learning, co-creation, and validation with community-based organizations (CBOs) who are current or past grantee-partners of Firelight, to develop a clearer and deeper understanding of how change comes about at the community level, and how funders can more effectively support it.

Through this process with CBO leaders and practitioners, we learned that real, impactful, and sustainable change at the community level happens when:

Community members determine, own, and drive the change process; and
Change actions focus on addressing the underlying systems and root causes of concern – rather than only reacting to symptoms.

This is community-driven systems change.

On this page, we share the findings and recommendations around community-driven systems change that emerged from our learning and reflection process as well as a comprehensive set of tools for donors and others to utilize if they wish to support this approach.

These learnings have also informed a substantial re-formulation of our own knowledge, processes and practices at Firelight and the tools are the ones we now use ourselves.

Report and publication

Between 2017 and 2020, Firelight embarked upon a learning journey to listen deeply to our CBO grantee-partners to understand how better to support them in creating lasting change at the community level for children, youth, and families, and to share CBO leaders’ insights with the wider sector as a rich and valuable source of guidance to funders, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), practitioners, and scholars. Both objectives were driven by a realization that there was limited, if any, documented and published evidence on how to strengthen the capacity and success of CBOs, especially from the perspectives of CBOs themselves. The result is our report Community-Driven Systems Change: the power of grassroots-led change for long-term impact and how funders can nurture it.

See also our publication of this work in the journal Development in Practice:
Susan Wilkinson-Maposa, Sadaf Shallwani, Mary Kabati, Prosper Ndaiga, Saeed Wame & Moses Zulu (2023) Community-based organisations and child well-being in sub-Saharan Africa: defining social change, effectiveness, and success, Development in Practice, 33:3, 334-345, DOI: 10.1080/09614524.2022.2108763

If you do not have a subscription to this journal but would like a copy of the PDF version, please email learning@firelightfoundation.org.

Tools and templates for donors

Tools and templates for CBOs:

Participatory reflection tool: CBO capacity to facilitate community-driven systems-change

Like what we do? Want to learn more? Want help with your grantmaking? Please reach out to us at info@firelightfoundation.org