Start an Ecosystem Strengthening Initiative

Bring together organizations, institutions, communities, and people around a shared challenge and strengthen their collective capacity to act.

An Ecosystem Strengthening Initiative does not begin by creating another organization or project.

It begins by asking:

Who is already working in this space, how are they connected, what is preventing the ecosystem from doing more, and what could become possible if its actors worked differently together?

Use this pathway when the challenge is bigger than any single organization.

Your Pathway

1. Define the Ecosystem → 2. Map → 3. Listen → 4. Diagnose → 5. Convene → 6. Strengthen → 7. Experiment → 8. Learn → 9. Sustain

1. Define the Ecosystem

Start with the challenge, not the list of organizations.

For example:

Climate and health in African and Asian cities

Farmer enterprise development in a province

Blue economy development across coastal municipalities

AI-enabled local governance

University-city climate collaboration

Ask:

• What challenge brings this ecosystem together?

• What geography does it cover?

• Who experiences the challenge?

• Who has influence over it?

• Who is already trying to address it?

• What would a stronger ecosystem be able to do that it cannot do today?

Avoid defining the ecosystem so broadly that almost everyone belongs to it.

You're done when: You can describe the ecosystem and its shared challenge in a few sentences.

2. Map the Ecosystem

Identify the actors already present.

Look for:

Government

National agencies, ministries, provinces, cities, municipalities, and frontline public institutions.

Universities

Faculty, students, research centers, extension programs, and university leadership.

Communities

Community organizations, local leaders, citizens, practitioners, and people directly experiencing the challenge.

Civil Society

NGOs, INGOs, associations, foundations, and advocacy organizations.

Private Sector

Companies, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, and industry associations.

Finance

Banks, funders, development finance institutions, investors, philanthropy, and social-finance actors.

Knowledge Actors

Researchers, think tanks, professional associations, technical experts, and networks.

Map not only who exists, but also:

Relationships • Resources • Knowledge • Influence • Trust • Information Flows • Incentives • Gaps

[Map with ChatGPT] [Work with Claude] [Create Ecosystem Map in Shared Canva]

You're done when: You have a useful first picture of the ecosystem, including important actors who are usually overlooked.

3. Listen Across the Ecosystem

Do not assume that different actors understand the challenge in the same way.

Talk with people occupying different positions in the system.

Ask:

• What do you think is happening?

• What makes this difficult?

• What has already been tried?

• What is working?

• What keeps failing?

• What do other actors misunderstand?

• What capability is missing?

• What relationships need strengthening?

• What could become possible?

Pay particular attention to perspectives that are usually underrepresented.

The objective is not immediate consensus.

It is to expand the ecosystem's collective understanding of itself.

You're done when: Several different interpretations of the challenge are visible.

4. Diagnose the Ecosystem

Look for what is preventing the ecosystem from performing better.

Possible constraints include:

Fragmentation
Actors work independently despite overlapping goals.

Weak Relationships
Important organizations have little trust or interaction.

Knowledge Silos
Useful knowledge exists but does not travel.

Capability Gaps
Actors lack skills, systems, technology, or institutional capacity.

Missing Actors
Important voices or capabilities are absent.

Coordination Failure
Everyone is active, but activities do not reinforce one another.

Resource Gaps
Promising initiatives cannot access people, finance, data, or infrastructure.

Incentive Problems
Organizations have little reason to collaborate.

Weak Learning Loops
Projects happen, but lessons are not captured or shared.

Limited Imagination
The ecosystem keeps reproducing familiar interventions.

Ask:

What would need to become stronger in the ecosystem itself, rather than simply launching another project?

5. Convene

Bring together a useful combination of actors.

Do not convene everyone simply to demonstrate inclusiveness.

Design the convening around a purpose:

Sensemaking

Understand the system together.

Connection

Help actors discover one another.

Problem Solving

Work on a specific challenge.

Co-Design

Develop possibilities together.

Learning

Share experience across projects and locations.

Commitment

Move willing actors toward joint action.

A convening may lead to:

[Start a Social Lab Project →]

[Start a Design Project →]

[Start Research →]

[Start an Institutional Partnership →]

[Start a Fellowship →]

6. Strengthen the Ecosystem

Choose a small number of ecosystem capabilities to strengthen.

These might include:

Relationships

Create stronger connections among actors who need one another.

Knowledge

Make useful research, experience, and local knowledge easier to find and share.

People

Develop Fellows, practitioners, leaders, researchers, and mentors.

Platforms

Create spaces where actors can repeatedly interact.

Data

Build shared ways of seeing the system.

Finance

Connect promising work with appropriate resources.

Institutional Capacity

Strengthen organizations that play important ecosystem roles.

Innovation Capacity

Help actors experiment rather than repeatedly implementing familiar solutions.

Narrative

Develop a stronger shared understanding of the challenge and what might be possible.

Do not try to strengthen everything at once.

Choose the few capabilities that could unlock wider movement.

7. Experiment

Turn ecosystem possibilities into small actions.

For example:

Two universities + three municipalities test a shared climate-health project.

A university hosts a Lab connecting government, communities, and researchers.

Several LGUs jointly test an agricultural governance model.

A network creates a shared Fellowship across countries.

A funder tests a new financing mechanism with project teams.

Researchers create a shared evidence platform for practitioners.

Use:

[Design an Experiment With a Lab →]

Keep early commitments small enough that the ecosystem can learn.

8. Learn Across the Ecosystem

Do not evaluate only individual projects.

Ask what is happening to the ecosystem.

Are there:

• new relationships?

• stronger organizations?

• new flows of knowledge?

• more collaboration?

• greater access to resources?

• new leaders?

• stronger local ownership?

• faster experimentation?

• more cross-institutional projects?

• greater ability to respond to emerging challenges?

Create feedback loops so learning from one part of the ecosystem can travel to others.

Project → Learning → Ecosystem → New Connections → New Experiments

9. Sustain the Ecosystem

Avoid making ASG permanently responsible for holding the ecosystem together.

Ask:

What would allow this ecosystem to continue generating collaboration without depending on ASG?

Possible mechanisms include:

University-Hosted Labs

Local Conveners

Communities of Practice

Fellowship Networks

Shared Knowledge Platforms

Joint Research

Recurring Convenings

Institutional Partnerships

Shared Financing Mechanisms

Government or University Ownership

ASG's role can gradually shift:

Initiator → Convener → Connector → Capability Builder → Network Participant

Work With ASG Labs

An Ecosystem Strengthening Initiative can enter through one Lab or connect several Labs.

For example:

Farmer Enterprise Ecosystem

Zero Hunger Lab

• Social Finance Lab

• AI for Governance Lab

• Climate Action Labs

Coastal Resilience Ecosystem

Blue Economy Lab

• Climate Action Labs

• Social Finance Lab

• university and local-government partners

Municipal AI Ecosystem

AI for Governance Lab

• City Futures Lab

• universities

• LGUs

• technology partners

When a successful ecosystem model begins moving across provinces, countries, universities, or networks:

→ [Design ScaleUp With a Lab]

→ ScaleUp Lab

Explore ASG Co-Creation Labs

Possible Outputs

An Ecosystem Strengthening Initiative does not need one predetermined deliverable.

It might generate:

Ecosystem Map

Shared Challenge Agenda

New Partnerships

Social Lab

Fellowship

Joint Research

Shared Data Platform

Community of Practice

University Network

Joint Projects

Financing Mechanism

Policy Initiative

New Experiments

ScaleUp Strategy

The most important outcome may be less visible:

An ecosystem that has become better able to see itself, connect its capabilities, learn, and act collectively.

The Ecosystem Strengthening Principle

Do not build another organization when stronger relationships might be enough.

Do not assume coordination requires central control.

Strengthen the actors already in the system.

Connect capabilities that already exist.

Build learning loops across projects and institutions.

Help the ecosystem become increasingly capable of acting without ASG at the center.