Systems Thinking for Community-driven Change
ROI’s 4-hour systems mapping training covers how to build a systems map in partnership with your community.
What is Systems Mapping?
Originally an engineering-based problem solving process, systems mapping is a way to analyze how behaviors and beliefs are connected and reinforced in our communities, like wires and nodes on a grid.
A systems mapping process is a way to:
- Make sense of complex environments
- Uncover the dynamics that have the greatest potential for impact
- Take a first step toward community-driven change
At the end of the process, you get a map: a visual representation of a community’s beliefs, systems, and behaviors. The map makes it obvious what is broken and causing the tough problems within a community. It also reveals a community’s assets and the places where your programs and initiatives could ripple in positive ways throughout the grid.
Understand how to solve the most pressing problems in your community
Striving to create enduring change in our complex, dynamic world can feel daunting — and sometimes downright impossible. Healthcare. Education. Employment. Housing. All of these areas are linked in every community. Systems mapping helps us find out how.
When you understand the system, you can identify the best solutions for your community. Systems mapping helps us take the guesswork out of designing programs, initiatives, and organizations that solve today’s most pressing problems.
Improve your impact. Solve complex problems more effectively by using systems mapping.
Join us for 2 FREE Interactive Workshops on Systems Mapping & Systems Thinking.
Connect with other resilience collaboratives across the state, and learn ways to apply simple tools to gain a new perspective on community challenges.
Systems Mapping in Edgecombe County, NC
We partnered with the community in Edgecombe County, NC to create a systems map. Mapping systems across a whole town required community members to devote hours of their time to sharing their experiences, ideas, and values.
After many cross-sector community meetings, the community produced an actionable and game-changing tool: a systems map that pointed to one core, underlying challenge that is at the root of all of Edgecombe’s other challenges—the Cycle of Trauma.
The systems map revealed that trauma impacts almost every aspect of life. With this information, the community identified the high leverage antidote to trauma: Replace punitive practices with responses that offer restoration. This strategy builds resilience at the individual, organizational, and community level.
Explore Edgecombe County’s Systems Map
Systems Mapping Training for Your Community
We offer a 4 hour training on systems mapping for social impact practitioners—nonprofits, funders, and entrepreneurs—who want to learn how to use systems mapping in their work.
- 4-hour workshop, given over 1 or 2 days
- Session 1: Intro to systems tools and habits
- Session 2: Apply systems mapping tools in your context
- In-person in North Carolina or virtual around the world
Testimonials from our Partners
Here’s what we’ve heard from communities and organizations that have taken our systems mapping training:
“I’m watching my grandson’s face go through this map.”
ROI Community Member, who explained that she could track her grandson’s difficulties in the school system almost perfectly on the systems map.
“I would highly recommend the systems mapping training to anybody who wants to understand better how their communities worked and how to prioritize where they need to invest some energy”
Request a Systems
Mapping Training
Get in touch with us to schedule a systems mapping training for your organization or community
Our Partners
ROI partners with Engaging Inquiry in
East Tarboro, North Carolina
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