A 3-day immersive into systems leadership for people working in place-based change. You may be working in a backbone team, be part of a governance table, collaborative working group, funding organisation, a government department partnering with communities or a practitioner supporting place-based collaborations. This course has been run twice and is back by popular demand with a revised approach. It is an opportunity to grow your skills, expand your networks with others working for community–led change, and sustain your spark to exercise leadership for equitable change to occur locally, regionally and nationally.

This course draws on community-led systems change frameworks and practice models developed over the last decade in partnership with communities and their collaborators. Including for example, frameworks that support collaborations to map and reflect on progress together, plan for and develop a longer term change journey, establish and evolve collaborative governance practices and engage with the practices and roles required for different actors within the system.

Leading change in ways that transform the systems we are a part of requires us to continually stretch and grow. CFI’s Systems Leadership for Place-based change course has been developed to help people grow their knowledge and skills, expand networks and sustain the spark to lead in ways that are not yet the norm, but are what’s needed for our long-term collective work to deepen locally, regionally and nationally.

Why Systems Leadership for Place-based Change?

Place is the meeting point of community, country and culture. It is where the macro systems play out in ways that impact people’s every day lives. Place is also where our collective voice, agency and imagination is both possible and often most needed to be grounded in. Building on the many generations of community leaders that have come before us, collaborative, place-based, and community-led approaches are now being recognised as central to effective systems change.

Leadership of change in communities is highly complex, highly relational and often requires us to have an ever expanding backpack of skills, tools and new ideas. The same for leaders who are partnering with communities in power-shifting and sharing ways.

This type of systems leadership calls on us to transform our mental models about how we turn up as partners for community-led change, to work across difference in ways that enable us to have and stay in difficult conversations, and to consciously scale our practices and relationships so the ripples for an equitable and inclusive Australia reach further.

We are pleased to offer the next Systems Leadership for Place-based Change residential program. This builds from Collaboration for Impact’s extensive experience working with systems change leaders and organisations over the last few years in early childhood, community, philanthropy, collaborations with First Nations and other multicultural Australians, and government.

Hear from our alumni

“We have seen the outcomes of training make a pivotal change to both the authority and leadership seen in individual participants on their return and in the collective collaboration of participants as a result. Most significantly, I have seen a major shift in the leadership in our First Nations group as a result, and in the participation of our local government partner in stepping into the work in ways and on topics that previously there has been reluctance.” — Systems Learning Program Participant

“In my life I have been hesitant to be in a leadership role or be considered a leader. I have felt overwhelmed by a feeling of not being able to make a positive difference in the world and the people around me feeling constrained by existing systems. During my time participating in this program I have learnt about how systems work, the role that I play, that others play and how by changing my approach and how I show up I can create a space for new outcomes.” — Systems Learning Program Participant

The best leadership program that I have ever participated in. From complete sceptic to enthusiastic participant – a mind changing experience.” Systems Learning Program Participant

Course Details

Course Outcomes

What you'll learn

A 3-day immersive into systems leadership for place-based change offering practitioners, members of Backbone Teams and their partners, and community members from working groups or governance tables, the opportunity to grow your knowledge and skills, expand your networks and sustain the spark to exercise leadership for material change to occur locally, regionally and nationally.

Through this residential course, you will build capacity to catalyse, enable and support purposeful community-led change. This includes

The core practices and strategies for leadership in community-led approaches to systems change
Understanding your system, its boundaries and influences – and working with the constraints and opportunities within your context
Deepening your understanding of how other parts of the system work to enable you to be a more effective leader in your collaboration, including government, philanthropy, community
Identifying patterns, including how and when to leverage different types of power to shift these for a common purpose
Listening, observation and interpretation skills that enable diverse perspectives and polarised perspectives to be heard and worked with
Building your systems leadership practice with a commitment to reflection and learning as key capabilities for leading change together.

The course is designed and facilitated to help you see the habits in how you, and your collaboration, work and think, and identify how small changes in these practices can contribute to better understanding and engaging with other perspectives and experiences.. Reflective practices are integrated throughout to support development of self, organisation/collaboration and wider context . Participants will also focus on what they can learn together that can’t be done individually, through building a foundation of trust, relationships and shared knowledge for systems learning.

From our past experience we notice participants are then able to:

Generate together and with others faster
Develop collective action and coalition building approaches that build alignment among diverse partners in the system
Have an improved ability to hear each other and diverse perspectives
Recover faster when ‘things’ happen
Hold a longer, intergenerational and systemic view
Participate in a network to share and learn from the experience of systems leadership practice.

Learning Outcomes

Through this course, you will develop:

Your understanding of the opportunity for how leadership in and with community can be harnessed for wider systems change
Understanding of and empathy for how other sectors and institutions in the place-based system work
A deeper understanding of how your systems operate, their boundaries and influencing factors
Your practices for community-led systems change and a way of describing this with others you work with
The commitment to working across difference to co-create the emerging future through community-led change.

The intended outcomes are:

Cultivate collective leadership to enable learning, trust-building and action among leaders who share a common vision and aspiration for change.
Practices and approaches to community-led systems change to develop alignment and mobilize action among stakeholders in the system, both within and between organizations and communities.
An understanding of the complex systems shaping current challenges , allowing for more effective and longer lasting progress.

Community cohorts strengthen learning outcomes. Having a number of people (2 +) from the same group participate enables a shared understanding of the key principles and concepts of the course and bring new behaviours and learnings back to your community, organisations and groups.

Learning Process

How we convene & facilitate

Our sessions emphasise interactive, facilitated learning. This includes

Time to build the group connection and brave space for learning.
Discussion of concepts and reflection in different group configurations: full group, smaller groups and pairs.
Methods for peer learning from one another, and the whole group.
Group configurations to support discussion and dialogue, and use of powerpoint where it aids learning.
Examples from experience to demonstrate frameworks and concepts
Time to practice, apply concepts and frameworks.
You engage in content and practices to the extent that it supports your learning and contributes to the group’s collective learning.

We seek to create brave spaces for participants to support you and the groups learning together. We acknowledge as facilitators we are also part of the learning system and hold power and responsibility in our role. One responsibility is to keep you and the group on a productive learning edge, which requires a combination of heat, different perspectives and space for reflection and integration. We do this with heart, care and good intent for learning together.

Cohort - Is this for me?

The Systems Leadership for Place-based change residential course is designed for cohorts from the same collaboration. This course will work well for you if:

You are working within a place-based or community- led collaboration
You, or your collaboration, are early to mid-stage in your leadership experience in collaborative, place-based, or community-led approaches.
You and others in your collaboration are seeking to learn more about collective leadership and applying it to a challenge which is live to you now in your systems.
You learn well in experiential settings with practical and applied learning methods.

Community cohorts strengthen learning outcomes. Having participants (2 +) from the same collaboration enables a shared understanding of the key principles and concepts of the program. It supports you to collectively apply new behaviours and lessons once back in your community, organisations and groups.

Who else will be on the course?

We aim for a group of around sixteen people, representing:

A wide diversity of worldviews, lived experience, and perspectives
A range of contexts – community, organisations, non-profit, government, philanthropy, and other enablers of change
A variety of challenges being experienced in community-led systems change

Date and time

The Systems Leadership for place-based change course includes two online sessions (90 mins), one at the beginning to welcome and one at the end to adjourn our group learning experience. The face-to-face residential runs over 3 consecutive days, beginning with lunch on the first day, and concluding with afternoon tea on the third day. Through the format of a residential, you will be able to immerse yourself in the learning to gain different perspective, build connections as a group and an ongoing network.

1 x Welcome & Orientation – Online (Zoom)

Tuesday 8 April 2025, 11am to 12.30pm AEDT

3-day Residential – Face to Face (Central Narrm / Melbourne)

Tuesday 6 May 12.30pm AEST, to Thursday 8 May 2025 3.00pm AEST

1 x group check in – Online

Tuesday 3 June, 11am to 2.30pm AEST

In addition, participants can access (at an additional cost) 1:1 coaching, team coaching or facilitating to deepen the application of their practice.

If the dates don’t work for you for this round, express your interest and we’ll email you about future courses.

Time commitment between sessions

The Systems Leadership course is designed for preparation and reflection to be completed before and after the Residential. We suggest you allow a total of 4 hours between the Welcome Orientation and before the Residential, and (depending on what emerges for you) another 4 hours after the Residential and before our Adjournment session.

When you arrive for the Residential, we will be jumping straight in, and our expectation is that you have prepared and are fully present. We will provide further references during the Residential for those who want to dive deeper.

Technology

The online components will be hosted on Zoom. Participants will be required to download Zoom and Chrome in order to be able to participate.

We encourage all participants to use their video throughout. Internet access is required to participate.

We recommend participants use a desktop/ laptop whilst participating (rather than a mobile phone).

Participants will be given access to CFIs Learning Management Systems where workshop materials and resources will be made available.

Investment

Price per person:

The program fee is valued at $40,000 per participant. CFI and our partners contribute to reduce the fee. Participant contribution: $4000 + GST + travel to venue.

Please read the Learning Program: Terms and Conditions before purchase.

Please contact us at learning@cfi.org.au for package offers, large group discounts and tailored sessions for your organisation.

Convening Team

CFI’s leadership courses are designed and convened by the same team, and build on the insights, experience and practice of CFI and our partners over many years. The design and convening team for Systems Leadership for Place-based Change are Angela, Muktasree and Rodney.

Biographies

Practice Lead, Collective Leadership

Angela Rutter

Born in Rabaul, PNG of Scottish, English and Irish ancestry, Angela is living on border country of Djarra, Wurundjeri and Taunguraung lands. She is a values led engagement, civic leadership and social change practitioner.

She brings with her experience working across non-profit organisations, social enterprises, councils, corporate, government and political parties to create civic leadership capacity. She has over 15 years’ experience in civic leadership design, development & facilitation, and working with people, teams, & groups for collective leadership.

At CFI Angela leads design and delivery of our Collective Leadership courses and other Leadership initiatives such as The Apiary.

Project Manager

Muktasree Chakma

Muktasree is a distinguished advocate for women’s rights, sexual orientation, and indigenous peoples' rights with over 22 years of experience. An award-winning journalist, feminist, rights activist, and researcher with a law background, she founded Supporting People and Rebuilding Communities (SPaRC), an indigenous women-led organisation in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts. She is a Core Group Member of Sangat, A Feminist Network, and serves on the board of Action Aid Bangladesh. Muktasree works to reshape the philanthropic, feminist, rights, and development sectors through indigenous and feminist viewpoints.

Her contributions extended to organisations like South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) and the UN Women Bangladesh Civil Society Advisory Group. She has lectured at Asian University for Women and worked as a consultant and journalist with international agencies and leading Bangladeshi newspapers. Muktasree is the first indigenous woman from Bangladesh to receive numerous awards, including the UNICEF Meena Media Award and fellowships from the UN OHCHR among others.

At CFI Muktasree manages a range of movement and field building projects including our learning courses.

Practice Lead, Collaborative Governance

Rodney Greene

Rodney is an experienced practitioner and leader in place-based and community-led systems change. Most notably, he helped establish Burnie Works, a place-based community-led systems change initiative in northwest Tasmania and has grown the work there to be a national leader in place-based approaches. During that time, he has supported several other communities and initiatives across Tasmania.

At CFI Rodney leads our work with partners to apply and learn from governance models that support collaboration and shared decision making, including recently with Maranguka, Rockhampton, and the Tasmanian Department of Health.