“Systems thinking motivates people to change because they discover their role in exacerbating the problem they want to solve …Second, systems thinking catalyzes collaboration because people learn how they collectively create satisfying results they experience…Third, systems thinking focuses people to work on a few key coordinated changes over time to achieve systemwide impacts that are significant and sustainable…Fourth, systems thinking stimulates continuous learning, which is an essential characteristic of any meaningful change in complex systems… Learning is a more powerful mind-set than knowing because it enables us to keep adapting in the face of new information and conditions. In order to optimize the performance of the entire system, people need to shift from trying to optimize their part of the system to improving relationships among its constituent parts.”
– “Systems Thinking For Social Change” by David Peter Stroh.
From the closing of USAID to worldwide cuts to development spending, the past year has left many who support impact-focused entrepreneurs grappling with two questions. First, how do we show up meaningfully in this moment of overlapping crises? And the quieter, more uncomfortable question of how do we collaborate and generate results in a very constrained global economic development space? The conversations at conferences have been rich with urgency and ambition, yet often underscored by deep uncertainty. Systems thinking invites us to sit with that discomfort, not as a sign of failure, but as an entry point for change.
As the above quote suggests, the first step is to admit how we ourselves are contributing to the challenge we are trying to solve. In a resource-constrained environment, it is tempting to point fingers at funders, market dynamics or shifting priorities. But systems thinking asks us first to look inward: How might our incentives, reporting requirements, and data demands be reinforcing fragmentation? Where might our own organizational needs—however well-intentioned—be creating additional burdens or misalignments for the entrepreneurs and communities at the center of the system? For example, how might our incentives, reporting requirements, and data demands be reinforcing fragmentation? This kind of honest reflection is difficult, but it is foundational to any meaningful recalibration.
It also pushes us to ask harder questions about coordination and collaboration. Where are we duplicating efforts with others? And where might partnership, rather than parallel action, yield better system-level outcomes? These are not merely efficiency questions, they are fundamentally systems questions that require coordination, trust, and shared learning.
Entrepreneurial ecosystem stakeholders—including investors, funders, entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) such as accelerators and incubators, policymakers, and entrepreneurs are showing growing interest in systems-oriented approaches. Yet many still struggle to translate systems thinking into day-to-day practice in ways that shift mindsets and actions. Some organizations are beginning to bridge this gap. The IKEA Foundation, for example, incorporated a systems perspective into its new strategy and outlined a coordinated set of actions to support systemic change. Similarly, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ Primer on Systems Thinking for Impact Investing offers practical guidance for integrating systems thinking into impact investing.
After nearly two decades working in impact measurement and management at WDI, one lesson feels clearer than ever: Impact measurement and management must be aligned with the needs of entrepreneurs. Too often, entrepreneurs are expected to collect donor-specified data that primarily serves the reporting requirements of funders and intermediaries. This diverts scarce time and resources away from strategic reflection and business decision-making. Over time, this dynamic weakens organizational learning, limits ecosystem resilience and reinforces risk aversion among funders and investors, leading to even more reporting demands.
Ideally, the data entrepreneurs collect for investors and donors should directly inform their own strategic decisions. Instead, today’s fragmented data systems often provide limited value to the entrepreneurs generating the information.
From a systems perspective, this challenge is not simply technical, it is structural and relational. Fragmentation is reinforced by competing incentives and power dynamics across the ecosystem: short grant and investment cycles, competition among intermediaries, and investor and funder’s desire for standardized metrics.These dynamics shape behaviors that perpetuate the very fragmentation many actors wish to solve.
Changing these dynamics requires more than new tools. It requires shifting from extracting information to co-creating learning, and from a mindset of knowing to one of continuous and reciprocal learning. This means asking difficult but necessary questions: Do investments in the ecosystem ultimately benefit entrepreneurs? Do reporting requirements translate into meaningful improvements in the support entrepreneurs receive? And do the metrics we prioritize help entrepreneurs succeed—or simply help institutions demonstrate accountability?
Centering value on the success and needs of entrepreneurs is not just more equitable; it is essential to improving the performance of the system as a whole.
The Rockefeller Philanthropy Adviser’s primer calls for moving beyond transactional relationships toward collaborative, ecosystem-oriented partnerships, including developing shared accountability for systemic outcomes and co-creating impact goals and metrics with stakeholders. At WDI, we are exploring what shared accountability could look like in practice, particularly given the significant power imbalance between entrepreneurs and their funders and investors.
One way we are taking on this challenge is by contributing to and convening field-wide conversations examining the current state of the system, especially the motivations, expertise, legitimacy, and control held by different stakeholders as they relate to data fragmentation. These conversations aim to inform paradigm-level shifts, the highest leverage point in a system: changes to the goals, rules and mindsets that shape how the system functions. At the same time, we are using foresight methods to collectively imagine a future ecosystem where entrepreneurs’ data needs are at the center. This includes examining the shared mental models that shape how different actors define success and identifying opportunities for interventions that shift those underlying assumptions. As part of this process we are also conducting horizon scanning to identify emerging trends, signals of change, and innovations that could reshape how impact data is generated, shared, and used across the ecosystem.
Through this work, we have helped convene multiple working groups and communities of practice. These spaces are generating insights that we look forward to sharing, while supporting joint learning and experimentation toward more meaningful shared accountability for systemic outcomes.
With our partner LEAP Africa, we also are co-leading a Participatory Methods Community of Practice. Participatory approaches and equitable evaluation directly address systemic problems rooted in funder/investor-grantee power imbalances, by shifting from extractive information gathering toward co-creation with and value creation for the people most affected by programs and businesses.
(Above: A group of monitoring and evaluation professionals at the Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs’ Metrics Conference in Nairobi, Kenya in May 2025. From left: Keith Otieno, Moses Waweru, Heather Esper, Blerina Batusha Xërxa and Elion Gerguri. Image credit : Heather Esper.)
This particular community explores how participatory approaches can strengthen the effectiveness and inclusivity of programs and businesses by actively engaging stakeholders in design, decision-making, and evaluation. Through case studies and shared practice, participants are building evidence that impact measurement and management frameworks developed collaboratively with entrepreneurs, rather than imposed by funders and investors, produce more accurate and useful data.
Finally, with the release of the WDI report, Reimagining the Future of Entrepreneurship Support in East Africa, we are calling for a redefinition of what success looks like for incubators and accelerators. Meaningful systems change requires different actors to act at different leverage points.
In the months ahead, we will be convening conversations that encourage “double-loop learning”; questioning not only what we measure, but the underlying assumptions that shaped those choices in the first place.
For funders, this might begin with examining whether reporting requirements generate genuine learning or primarily reinforce compliance and exploring how they might support shared learning across the ecosystem. For intermediaries and ESOs, it may mean reflecting on whether data systems primarily serve internal accountability, or whether they meaningfully support the entrepreneurs they are designed to serve. And for peer organizations and practitioners, we invite you to share your own experiences, experiments, and lessons learned as we collectively navigate these challenges.
Change does not always begin with sweeping reforms. It can start with smaller but meaningful steps: convening a stakeholder conversation to surface diverse perspectives on what data is most valuable, revisiting an impact report to emphasize learning rather than only results, or piloting new approaches to shared measurement with partners.
We are currently grappling with an important question: What models and practices can help shift the ecosystem toward shared accountability for systemic outcomes that truly center entrepreneurs’ needs? We invite others working in this space to join the conversation and contribute to a growing community of learning and practice. Together, we can help redesign a system that is more resilient, more collaborative, and genuinely oriented around the entrepreneurs it exists to serve.
Heather Esper is Director, Impact Measurement & Management, at the William Davidson Institute.
