A Five-Part Video Series from the Center for Nonprofits & Philanthropy Webinar: Unlocking Systems Thinking: Tools for Transformation

A FIVE-PART VIDEO SERIES

Centers for Nonprofits

Unlocking Systems Thinking: Tools for Transformation Webinar

From 2002 to its closing in December 2021, The Nicholson Foundation worked to advance meaningful change in safety net service systems in New Jersey. The goal was to help everyone have an equal chance to attain the essentials of a healthy and successful life. To achieve this aim, the Foundation engaged with government, other foundations, and state and local organizations to make education, health, social services, and early childhood care and education services more available and more effective.

The Foundation’s grantmaking journey is described in its 2021 book, Changing Systems, Changing Lives: Reflecting on 20 Years. A 2023 scholarly paper was built on the Foundation’s approach, making it broadly accessible to a new audience of researchers, academics, and philanthropists. The authors, Dr. William Brown of Texas A&M University’s Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy, and Dr. Wynn Rosser, former President and CEO of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, created a “Framework for Systems Change” model that showed how The Nicholson Foundation’s own grantmaking model aligned with existing literature and practice.

In May 2025, Dr. Brown and Dr. Kimberly Boller, former Executive Director of The Nicholson Foundation, co-facilitated a webinar that took the Nicholson Model and the “Framework for Systems Change” one step further. Unlocking Systems Thinking: Tools for Transformation Webinar explored systems thinking principles and their critical role in driving meaningful change in complex social systems. Presentations and panel discussions illuminated how systems change thinking has been successfully applied in education, health, and human services systems.

Video segments from the webinar are now available to help both seasoned and new professionals use these same systems change principles and strategies to unlock transformative solutions for their own organizations and communities.

Dive Into the Video Series from the Webinar

  • PART ONE: Defining Systems and Systems Thinking. Dr. Will Brown provides an introduction to systems thinking. He first defines “systems” and their elements and then describes the components necessary for systems change to occur. He closes this segment with an overview of the “Framework for Systems Change.”
  • PART TWO: A Systemic Approach to Early Literacy. Dr. Sylvia Leal is a Senior Program Officer for Education and Economic Opportunity at the T.L.L. Temple Foundation. She provides an in-depth look at how systems change principles were used in a comprehensive strategy to improve literacy skills among children from pre-kindergarten through 3rd grade in 24 counties in East Texas.”
  • PART THREE: Health Systems Change. This portion of the webinar takes a look at how systems change can occur in health services:
    • Making New Jersey the Safest Place to Have a Baby. Dr. Boller explains how “complementary approaches”—a key theme of Nicholson’s grantmaking and one of the seven components of the Brown and Rosser systems change model—was a cornerstone of the Foundation’s efforts to eliminate disparities in maternal and infant mortality and morbidity. Nurture NJ, the statewide partnership initiative in which the Foundation partnered, embodies this work. It continues to have a substantial positive impact on the health of women and babies in New Jersey.
    • A State’s Perspective on Improving Maternal and Infant Health. Dr. Denise Anderson, formerly the Managing Director for the Office of Primary Care and Rural Health in the New Jersey Department of Health, reinforced the critical role of partnerships. She describes how the state supported the operation of partners in Nurture NJ and invested in key infrastructure to enable partner operations.
    • New Jersey’s Public Health Institute. Dr. Anderson currently is the inaugural Executive Director of The Center for Health Equity & Wellbeing, New Jersey’s Public Health Institute (PHI). She describes how The Nicholson Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided critical impetus for the PHI to jointly convene public health stakeholders to conceptualize the mission, structure, and goals of the PHI. Dr Anderson then explains the PHI’s development through an incubator organization and its eventual launching through legislation signed by New Jersey Gov. Murphy.
  • PART FOUR: Community Health Acceleration Partnership. Wendy McWeeny, Co-Director of the Community Health Acceleration Partnership (CHAP), describes how CHAP uses coordinated efforts and trust-based partnerships to support a system of care rooted in community. She uses the New Jersey Birth Equity Funders Alliance as an example of how partnerships can leverage individual strengths to support families, communities, the public sector, and community organizations to change systems and achieve the goal of maternal health equity in New Jersey
  • PART FIVE: Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. Alison Mohr Boleware is the Director of Policy at the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. She explains how the Hogg Foundation works in several ways to effect systems change to improve the mental health of all Texans. It created a Policy Fellow program and two policy grant programs to increase individual and organizational capacity to engage in mental health and/or substance abuse advocacy in Texas. The Hogg Foundation also is actively engaged with the Texas Coalition for Healthy Minds, a group of more than 40 organizations, that work to improve mental health and substance use systems in Texas.

Learn More

Order a free copy of Changing Systems, Changing Lives: Reflecting on 20 Years.
This book describes the 20-year journey of The Nicholson Foundation.

Read Brown W, Rosser W. “A Framework for Creating Systems Change.” The Foundation Review 2023;15(4):50-6

VISIT THESE WEBSITES:

CHECK OUT THESE RESOURCES:

REQUEST YOUR FREE BOOK NOW
Share