As Cassie leaves Partners for a New Economy for other roles in the new economy field, she reflects on her past three years as part of the P4NE team:
Three years ago this month I started at P4NE where I helped shape what had been advertised as a Convening and Communications role to focus on what we began to call ‘field building.’ After recruiting Sophie to work alongside me, we became the Co-leads for Field Building and as I leave my work at P4NE this month, I wanted to share some reflections.
What did we mean by field-building back then?
As our first year in the role unfolded we set out our plans for the work of field-building in a P4NE context, which you can read here. The activities of our role included:
- Curating – Curating a monthly ‘Roundup’ of highlights from the new economy field, with the aim of illuminating work and ideas across different aspects of the ecosystem and bringing more coherence to the field as a whole. You can sign up for it here. We also redesigned the P4NE website to give more visibility to the work of our grantees and partners.
- Horizon scanning – Running monthly sessions with P4NE Grantees to experiment with ways to scan the horizon. The intention for these sessions can be found in the introductory slides.
- Sense-Making – We’ve tried this out in different ways with nested groups, including those connected geographically like our grantees in Germany and in New Zealand, and those connected thematically in the context of the Mission Labs we ran in 2023. In these examples those involved were sensemaking together – doing power mapping, sharing their views on the landscape, collectively analysing opportunities and challenges, and so forth.
- Mobilising (partners and resources) – Engaging with funder networks to connect more resources into the new economy field, by giving talks, taking part in workshops and initiating meetings etc.
- Capacity Building – Supporting the development of a pilot ‘New Economy Leadership Academy’ – an intergenerational peer learning, mentoring, and leadership development programme. More recently we’ve commissioned the development of some funder engagement and learning products that we’ll be testing in the field early in 2025.
- Convening – Through an annual gathering of 200-250 people working across different parts of the new economy field internationally (Cambridge UK in 2022, Rotterdam 2023, Brussels 2024). In 2023 we also experimented with a larger online convening, the outputs from which can be found here.
All of these also had the potential to weave together and deepen a relational infrastructure across the field and were rooted in the strategic desire to provide some kind of backbone set-up for enabling the growing field of economic systems change to be more than the sum of its parts.
And they also overlap with what’s outlined in the latest SSIR article on Systems Orchestrators:
“System orchestrators play a critical role in bringing about transformational social change by knitting together actors and institutions, providing backbone infrastructure, and mobilizing collective change efforts across ecosystems, sectors, and geographies.”
What I’ve learned from putting it into practice…
We must be careful not to presume the existence of a ‘field’ or ecosystem before it has naturally emerged.The assumption of coherence can be premature. We are in an era of exploring change through ecosystems, collectives, ecologies, mycelial webs and other related patterns of organising. Whilst this is incredibly helpful and hopeful in many ways, prematurely applying these labels can create an illusion of coherence and relationships that haven’t yet developed organically. Within the ‘new economy’ field some organizations naturally aligned with ecosystem thinking, others wanted to maintain independent trajectories that resisted easy integration into a broader framework or narrative to emphasise a collective effort.
Legitimacy to define the field and to steward it from a position as both funder and field-builder. In recent years, philanthropy has been in the process of reckoning with its role and power, and it feels it has swung from one extreme to another, from wanting to dominate, measure and control everything to wanting to step aside and give away its power entirely. The challenge isn’t about choosing between complete control or the total abdication or neglect of power. What’s needed is a more nuanced approach: one that recognizes foundations’ unique position in the landscape, and ability to serve as thoughtful, creative partners in nurturing systemic change, while remaining deeply accountable to the mission and vision that they have been part of co-creating with those they’re in relationship with. It also asks for us – from our various positions in the field – to show up to the hard work and grapple with the difficult questions together. It is from this place that legitimacy is granted, definitions arise and the required roles and postures for the stewardship of the ecosystem are discovered.
“The challenge isn’t about choosing between complete control or the total abdication or neglect of power. What’s needed is a more nuanced approach: one that recognizes foundations’ unique position in the landscape, and ability to serve as thoughtful, creative partners in nurturing systemic change, while remaining deeply accountable to the mission and vision that they have been part of co-creating with those they’re in relationship with.”
Bridging wisdom and emergence: The forest ecology of maturing a field. Like a thriving forest ecosystem, effective field building requires tending to both established networks and emerging possibilities. The “old-growth forest” represents mature aspects of the ecosystem – deep reservoirs of knowledge, tested practices and theories of change, and long-standing relationships. These established roots provide crucial stability and wisdom, as well as reinforcing an ongoing commitment to the maturing elements in a still-emerging field. Yet equally important is creating space for “new growth” – nascent initiatives, emerging relationships, and innovative approaches that point toward future possibilities. This dual focus requires developing infrastructure that enables:
- The preservation and sharing of accumulated wisdom from established centers of practice
- The identification and nurturing of emerging innovations
- Fluid exchange of resources, ideas, and learnings across the ecosystem so that it is both resilient and adaptive.
This approach recognizes that transformative change requires both deep roots and new shoots – and the vital networks that connect them.
To support and speed up the transition towards a new economic paradigm as field-builders we must pay attention to capacities and conditions as an integral part of the work. To be a responsible and effective field-builder means going beyond simply moving resources or acting as a convenor. We have a responsibility to create conditions for our resourced work to be recognized and sustained, while growing our collective capacities to lead and navigate through these times.
By ‘conditions’ I mean the contextual barriers and enablers that allow our resourced work to take root and flourish. This encompasses hidden wiring, power dynamics, and our worldviews. And in this context ‘capacities’ refers to the skills and practices needed to navigate the complexity of these times. I learnt that there is work to do with the ecosystem or the field before being able to do some of the original intended activities. For example, to do horizon-scanning and co-sensing as a group, with rigour, value and meaning, requires a level of skill in reflection. The quality of co-sensing is determined by the maturity of the ecosystem’s practice in this realm. Linked to this, before we could do some of the intended activities with the ecosystem, there was more foundational work to do first with the ecosystem just becoming more aware of each others’ work. This meant that we pivoted from horizon-scanning and co-sensing work to doing ‘learning hours’ – holding space for people to share insights from their work with each other and build connective tissue between different organisations and thematic areas of new economy work.
Evolving the practice – What might be an approach to field-building or ecosystem building now?
Purpose of the work
This might be an obvious one but if you are looking at designing and resourcing a field-building approach, then being clear on its purpose is essential.
Often the hardest work to do at this time is to ensure that boards understand the context of the polycrisis and are empowered to take action commensurate with the scale of the challenges it poses. At P4NE, the board’s deep understanding of these systemic challenges has enabled them to recognize field building as essential to achieving their strategic aims. In an era of overlapping global crises, the purpose of field building must extend beyond traditional capacity building or network development.
I’d suggest that another core purpose of a field-building or ecosystem stewardship role is to create the conditions for continuous collective evolution. It establishes what we might call an “adaptive learning engine” – infrastructure that enables diverse actors across the ecosystem to:
- Make sense of rapidly changing conditions together
- Share emerging insights and practices
- Embrace more speculative work and active learning, knowing there is no ‘what works’ path for more transformational change
- Develop aligned yet flexible strategies
- Foster deeper relationships and trust
- Respond collectively to new challenges and opportunities
This framing positions field building not as a static support function, but as a dynamic process that enables an ecosystem to continuously speculate, learn, adapt, and evolve together. The goal isn’t just to build a field, but to nurture its capacity for ongoing transformation.
This framing positions field building not as a static support function, but as a dynamic process that enables an ecosystem to continuously speculate, learn, adapt, and evolve together. The goal isn’t just to build a field, but to nurture its capacity for ongoing transformation.
Initiating the work of field-building: Reimagining how we begin
Five years ago, I wrote about the importance of invitation in field building work. But it wasn’t until I found myself deep in the practice that I understood its true significance. Like the mycelium extending its delicate hyphae, the initial reach toward connection sets the tone for everything that follows. If I was designing an invitation now to initiate an emergent field-building process I would be explicit in my first communications with the organisations that I believed made up (some) of the field or ecosystem. Instead of assuming the existence of a field and our role within it, I might start with a more humble and explicit invitation—one that recognized both the autonomy of each entity and the possibility of something larger emerging from their connection.
An invitation that says:
“We’d love to support the emergence and strengthening of the new economy field….
We see you in your uniqueness—each a node of practice and transformation, each carrying your own medicine for healing our economic systems. We glimpse the possibility of something magnificent/meaningful emerging if we could find ways to learn, strategize, and weave our work into a larger tapestry of possibility.…
We might offer ourselves as stewards of the spaces between—the synapses and soil where connection might grow. Not to direct or control, but to nurture the conditions where deeper and wider relationship becomes possible,
We dream of a field that grows beyond any single organization or initiative and that ultimately surpasses us….
Would you like to be part of co-creating this?”
Such an invitation acknowledges the deep wisdom each organisation brings while pointing toward the possibility of something larger emerging through their connection. It sets the tone for co-creation rather than imposition, for emergence rather than control.
Essential Postures
Funders and field-building organizations occupy a unique vantage point – one that offers a panoramic view of the landscape while simultaneously demanding humility. This position isn’t about claiming omniscience, but rather serving as careful observers and generous sharers of what we witness. We hold a crucial role to resource the documentation of patterns and connections, and be in a practice of being accountable to, and calling in the awareness of, our own blind spots and biases. This work requires constant collaboration with others who hold different perspectives and pieces of the puzzle.
The most effective stance in this role is both grounded and fluid – which requires a capacity for deep listening – to the seen and yet unseen, to patterns and anomalies, to dynamics and potential. It asks us to be nimble enough to respond to emerging opportunities. It requires developing what Indigenous scholar and Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall calls “Two-Eyed Seeing” – the ability to hold both the macro and micro views , the indigenous and non-indigenous, or the space between binaries simultaneously. This means being present enough to hear subtle signals while maintaining the capacity to see broader patterns and possibilities.
Field building and ecosystem stewardship requires embodying a role that thinks much more expansively than money. It means recognising and activating all the other assets – from networks and knowledge to brand and convening power. And all the other kinds of capital – social, intellectual, reputational, and beyond. In deepening the practice and skill of ecosystem building – weaving people and ideas together, facilitating generative conversations, and working in emergence – we’re equipping people to be able to resource ecosystems and infrastructures, rather than providing bilateral grants.
“Field building and ecosystem stewardship requires embodying a role that thinks much more expansively than money. It means recognising and activating all the other assets – from networks and knowledge to brand and convening power. And all the other kinds of capital – social, intellectual, reputational, and beyond.”
The work is much broader than one organisation or small group of organisations. As a field-builder you are working for the ecosystem – actively seeking to build resources and structures to support new capabilities on behalf of a much wider ecosystem(s).
I’ve also seen how field-building offers a practice ground for fundamentally reimagining how strategy emerges. This means creating conditions where the field has the power to shape the strategy – where lived, learned and practice experience, and wisdom naturally shape strategic direction, replacing siloed strategy processes with collective mission and vision-making. Ecosystem work develops and strengthens a shared, inclusive, distributed, strategic muscle.
Essential Practices
Collective sensing: Field builders must develop the ability to detect and amplify emerging patterns and practices. This involves creating spaces for collective observation and interpretation, where multiple perspectives can illuminate the way forward. These practices of shared learning, structured listening and sense-making is where the rigour comes from in emergent work. And it needs structure, regularity, and documentation.
Curation of the edges and outliers: It’s at the edges that alchemy happens and if you don’t keep seeking out the edges of a field or ecosystem, or sourcing from the unusual, it will lose its alive-ness. This isn’t about setting up a more predictable R&D function – but about finding ways to do collective edge-seeking as an ecosystem or field.
Convening with whom: Field builders are expanding and challenging what we mean by convening, bringing together alongside the practitioners and experts, the edgewalkers, the artists, the more-than-human world and multiple intelligences.
Internal and collective evolution: The work demands continuous personal and collective growth—developing capacities for: thinking about change differently, complexity consciousness, navigating uncertainty, collaboration and ecosystem working, hospicing and grief work, discerning the “third horizon”, valuing propositional approaches and embodying the change we seek. This includes examining and transforming our own operating beliefs and assumptions – and not losing heart because of the challenges of the often invisible work of transforming worldviews, power-structures and incumbent processes.
Reimagining resource flows: Moving beyond linear, transaction-based funding models (where x + y = z) toward more dynamic approaches that recognize and support the web of relationships, capabilities, and learning needed for systemic change.
Ecosystemic Infrastructure: The architecture of support itself must mirror the ecosystem it serves. This means developing funding mechanisms and support structures that foster connection, enable emergence, and strengthen the whole system rather than individual parts.
Another tension in the role is the practice of discernment. This is a capacity for nuance, working with a strategic mind alongside intuition. It includes knowing when to shape and when to let emerge, when to lead and when to follow, when to map the territory and when to simply provide a compass for collective navigation. The tension between actively shaping a field and creating space for emergence isn’t a problem to solve but a polarity to dance with – healthy fields require both intentional cultivation and room for the unexpected to flourish.
Final Words
“Systems shifting work is both generative and generational — it does not progress through or within programmatic, political and predictable approaches or time frames. So, it is unlikely that singular intermediaries will be able to play anything but a part in a much bigger process (despite rhetoric to the contrary!) Understanding the generational nature and the horizons of transformation can help us appreciate that such change requires an ecology of intermediary actors — and that this ecology will shift and change over time.” Good Shifts article
Playing a field-building role that also has resources to distribute is a powerful combination for nurturing and sustaining the field whilst increasing its sensemaking and anticipatory capacities, and its readiness for catalytic change. With that also comes a responsibility to take and hold risks on behalf of the ecosystem, to invest in things that have no market value in the current financial system, so that they can grow, and to make use of a freedom to operate beyond political, media and market cycles.
Field-building, I have learned, is a slow-burning craft. It is a work of trust, patience, and persistence and it is complex and often invisible. In my role at P4NE, alongside Sophie, we tried and tested our assumptions, we learned, we shifted, we tried something else and were challenged to find new understandings of what it means to play this role. And I think we have a better sense now of how to be useful in the ecosystem and more effective in nurturing, cohering and catalysing the field.
This has always been, at its core, a collective initiative — one that includes the P4NE team, the board, and the countless individuals and organizations who have shaped and reshaped this ecosystem.
As P4NE enters its 10th birthday year field-building remains central to their work. I believe this ongoing focus on the ecosystem, and the practices and postures required beyond ‘grant-making’ mean P4NE and the wider new economy field can make significant progress on shifting our economic paradigm. This has always been, at its core, a collective initiative — one that includes the P4NE team, the board, and the countless individuals and organizations who have shaped and reshaped this ecosystem. I am deeply grateful for them all.
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