Brenda Herchmer is the owner of Grassroots Enterprises, a community development consulting company.Systems Innovation Isn’t Working: These Two Missing Ingredients Explain Why
In my last post, I argued that, on its own, social innovation would never deliver systems change. For years, we’ve bet on projects, pilots, and clever innovations, hoping they’d somehow add up to transformed systems. Spoiler: they didn’t.
It’s taken years (okay, a lot of years) for the lessons to become clear: if we want different outcomes, we have at least two missing pieces to put in place:
Redesigning communities as integrated ecosystems rather than isolated sectors or silos – and backing communities as the stewards of those systems.
Acknowledging that intermediaries are needed in the middle so neither grasstops nor grassroots dominate – so both are informed by each other’s experience and expertise.
In other words, the recipe for systems change hasn’t been completely wrong – it’s just been missing a few key ingredients.
1. Redesigning communities as integrated ecosystems
In my own work, I’ve had the honour of meeting innovators and entrepreneurs who are doing remarkable work. They’re convening others, generating new ideas, and implementing initiatives that clearly improve real people’s lives.
And yet, even the best of these efforts hit the same walls:
Funding rules that reward short-term projects over long-term systems work and typically exclude small social purpose businesses.
Measurement frameworks that love tidy outputs but struggle with the complexity of the diverse cross-sectoral partnerships and collaboration that are essential for change.
Governance structures that move at a glacial pace compared to the urgent needs in communities.
In my own work, we’ve seen communities shift from isolated silos to become networks of people and projects working together to tap their collective wisdom. It was transformative. When communities are respected and resourced as system stewards, they tap creativity, build trusted relationships, take on more responsibility, and make decisions that result in social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being for all.
For example, in addition to providing food banks, they are also focused on the root causes in the broader community (the system) that are (1) driving the need for food banks and (2) what can be done to ensure no one goes hungry. Along with food, that means working with others and paying attention to the broader system and the overall determinants of community well-being that are contributing to the problem – things like housing, decent work, health and well-being, etc. When that kind of system collaboration takes place and reinforces each other, the system itself begins to shift.
The secret sauce? It’s personal. People get involved because it is their community. It’s not something abstract. It’s real. They care about others and they care about where they live, work, and play.
2. Why intermediaries matter in the middle
There’s a word that’s been used for a while to describe the people and organizations who work between the grasstops and the grassroots – intermediaries.
Many wouldn’t necessarily label themselves or their organization as intermediaries - I know I didn’t. Still, they are there, often fuelled by coffee, tenacity, and sometimes by anger directed at the inequity created by existing systems.
Mostly, we’ve seen them show up as small systems and social ventures, informal groups and networks, and a few brave teams inside institutions who quietly act as boundary‑spanners – mentoring, convening, and connecting people who would never otherwise be in the same room.
Over time, I’ve come to see two main types of intermediaries (we need both or perhaps a hybrid?):
1. Knowledge and network intermediaries – the boundary‑spanners and brokers who mentor, convene, and connect diverse actors and resources.
2. Capacity‑building intermediaries – those that provide support designed to strengthen leadership, organizational, and community capacity through learning (informal and formal), peer knowledge‑sharing, research, ensuring venture-readiness, sharing promising practices, practical tools, and resources, and more.
On paper, intermediaries “coordinate” and “support.” In practice, when/if they are strengthened by policy and funding, they:
- translate national or provincial strategies and the SDGs into something a real community can work with
- carry stories, data, pressure, and scaling potential from local experiments and innovations back up to funders and policy‑makers
- hold the cross-sector relationships that keep everyone at the table when things get uncomfortable.
Some researchers now talk about these intermediary roles (both types) as being middle‑out – the people and organizations who can move influence upwards, downwards, and sideways in a system.
If you’ve been following my posts, you likely know these people I keep talking about (who may or may not have a formal title) as the systems‑catalyst leaders, place-based system stewards, and ecosystem builders. They’re not new. We just haven’t articulated how critical they are – and how thin this middle layer really is.
The middle is thin, and that’s the problem.
Look around communities and ask, “Who is actually holding the system here?” You’ll usually find:
- a couple of local or regional organizations trying to play a neutral role as conveners and catalysts
- a small cluster of social purpose organizations and municipal staff or elected officials who show up at community meetings dealing with issues and opportunities that cross sectors
- a few residents, networks, or collaboratives doing their best to keep everyone connected.
And that’s about it.
And yet, we’ve asked this tiny, tired middle to:
- steward ecosystems
- localize the SDGs
= support innovators across sectors
- attend focus groups and complete surveys
- and somehow, “scale what works.”
All that without giving them the mandate, resources, or legitimacy to act as system shifters.
In practice, that often means these intermediaries and systems, catalyst leaders, and enterprises are forever chasing short-term project grants. At the same time, the core funding for the knowledge, relationship‑building, and capacity‑building work they actually do remains out of reach – especially for social purpose organizations that don’t fit neatly into charity or nonprofit boxes.
This is what makes the middle so “messy”: too much responsibility, too little clarity, and too little backing.
It’s no wonder innovation hasn’t added up to systems change.
A question for your own community.
Innovation is just one ingredient in the meal, and without a lot of heat, a few people cooking together, and a pan that looks like a dented camping pot with a wobbly handle, we shouldn’t be surprised to find a lot of messy middles.
If you’re a community builder, social innovator, municipal staffer, funder, systems-minded business, or network weaver, chances are you’re already in that middle space – whether anyone has put it on a nametag for you or not.
So here’s the question I’m sitting with, building on that last article:
Who’s actually in the middle where you live – it might be you – and what would it take to properly support both the intermediaries who connect people and resources, and the systems‑catalyst leaders who are trying to change how the system works?
Posted on 02-25-26
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