January 2024
We hope you’ve begun this new year after a nourishing break.
As we enter this new season, we’re delving deeper into the question: how might we better centre health and equity in how we cultivate collectives and ecosystems for transformational change?
Health and equity go hand in hand. An equitable ecosystem is a healthy one. It has wholeness and balance between the interdependent and diverse groups who have a stake in it. We can design for this at the scale of specific initiatives, organisations, networks and collaborations. At times in these we see promises and microcosms of an emerging future that is more healthy and equitable.
By contrast, an inequitable ecosystem feels unhealthy and unsustainable. There’s a sense of going against the grain, a grind that depletes. This experience is felt differently depending on privilege and proximity, with its effects unfairly distributed. Yet it is an experience that most people can identify with in some way.
As a country, we’re reckoning with our collective story and experiences of this now in a post-Referendum context. This is coupled with growing polarisation and loneliness and falling trust.
One of the keys is collaboration that is healthy and equitable. This is essential to bring more people into a sense of belonging and healing, shift entrenched power dynamics and open up imagination for a better shared future. Over the last year we’ve applied this lens more intentionally in our work with leaders, organisations and collaborations.
What we’re starting to uncover with partners are the next horizon innovations we need for collaborative systems change to be done in more healthy and equitable ways. This is relational and it’s structural: innovations in collaborative governance; resource flows and capital; leadership and practices; and learning and data.
Whether it be for peace-building and healing in a post-Referendum Australia, for strengthening democracy and connectedness, or to address other systemic challenges like climate justice, these times are inviting us to work in ways that are healthy and equitable for us as changemakers and for those around us.
We look forward to this new season and learning and practicing with you.
Anna and the CFI Team
Image: Anna Powell, CEO. Photo by Morgan Roberts.
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