There is a particular kind of spaciousness that comes with standing inside a centuries-old European attic after everything has been cleared out, but it is fleeting. My imagination is quickly stifled by the deep sense of responsibility I feel to protect the layers of labor carried out long before my time, and the worry that I am in over my head.

Over the last decade, I've seen systems change become an increasingly prominent part of the evaluation and programming landscape. There have long been practitioners and champions for a systems approach, but lately, it seems like more funders want to understand it, more grantees are trying to do it, and more evaluators are being asked to measure it. And yet, a common thread in many conversations I have is the same: systems change can be hard to see, hard to measure, and hard to communicate.

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