Frameworks
Finance Innovation Lab – Strategy for Systems Change Framework
Overview
The Finance Innovation Lab’s Strategy for Systems Change is a practical framework that helps people and organisations in the finance system understand how to create transformation that is purpose-driven, equitable, and systemic. It recognises that finance is not just a technical or economic system, but a living social system shaped by values, power, and culture. Changing it requires both tangible interventions and deep shifts in how we think about money, purpose, and relationships.
This strategy draws on systems thinking and community-building principles. It supports changemakers to connect their personal leadership with organisational transformation and wider systemic change.
The Four Strategic Pathways of Systems Change
Amplify – Growing Awareness and Connection
Transformation begins by shining a light on new ideas, pioneers, and communities that challenge the status quo. Amplifying emerging work helps people see what’s possible and connects those who might never otherwise meet.
Focus: Expanding awareness, building networks, connecting ideas.
Key Activities:
Conduct research and share thought leadership to surface innovations and insights.
Host events and convenings that build bridges between sectors.
Use storytelling to shift narratives about what finance is for and who it serves.
Demonstrate – Prototyping Alternatives
Change accelerates when new ideas are tested in practice. The Lab supports individuals and organisations to design, prototype, and implement finance models that align with social and environmental wellbeing.
Focus: Experimentation and innovation.
Key Activities:
Leadership development programmes that integrate purpose, empathy, and systems thinking.
Incubation support for mission-led innovators and startups.
Tools and methods for systems mapping, reflection, and experimentation.
Reform – Shifting Structures and Policies
Transforming finance also requires work at the institutional and policy level. Reform efforts focus on shifting the structures and rules that shape decision-making and capital flows.
Focus: Influencing mainstream power structures.
Key Activities:
Build coalitions across civil society to advocate for systemic reform.
Co-create shared narratives that redefine the purpose of finance.
Engage policymakers, regulators, and financial institutions to embed long-term thinking.
Build – Strengthening Capacity and Resilience
Lasting systems change depends on people and relationships. The Lab invests in its own core team and partners to ensure resilience and the capacity to steward change over time.
Focus: Building the organisational and human foundations for systems change.
Key Activities:
Develop governance and operational models that reflect Lab values.
Cultivate reflective, relational, and resilient leadership.
Sustain relationships, funding, and learning structures that support long-term impact.
How to Use the Framework
Map your system – Identify where activities, organisations, and leaders fit across the four pathways (Amplify, Demonstrate, Reform, Build). Notice where energy and investment are concentrated, and where gaps exist.
Reflect on power and relationships – Ask who holds power in your system, and whose perspectives are missing.
Strengthen the core and the network – Invest in leadership and organisational capacity that anchors the work.
Connect the pathways – Systems change happens when the four pathways interact: Amplify connects ideas, Demonstrate brings innovations to life, Reform shifts rules, and Build sustains the ecosystem.
Why It Matters
Finance shapes the systems that govern resources, opportunity, and sustainability. The Lab’s Strategy for Systems Change recognises that true transformation doesn’t come from innovation or regulation alone — it requires an interconnected ecosystem of awareness, experimentation, reform, and capacity-building.
By working across these four pathways, we can:
Catalyse a financial system that serves people and planet.
Empower communities to lead change from the ground up.
Build organisations capable of navigating complexity.
Shift the story of finance from profit-first to purpose-driven.
Example in Practice
The Lab supports cohorts of purpose-driven financial innovators to prototype new models (Demonstrate), connect with peers and share learning (Amplify), engage policymakers (Reform), and receive leadership coaching and organisational development (Build). Together, these activities create a living ecosystem for transformation — one where learning, power, and purpose are continually renewed.
