DiBadili Institute Connect

Imagine this..

You are walking to work one morning.
The path is familiar. The air is calm.
Your mind is already racing ahead to meetings, deadlines, and the long list waiting for you.

Then you notice something.
A small pond by the path.
And inside it… a child.
The child is struggling, with arms flailing and
ater splashing.

You panic and stop in your tracks.
You look around and realise no one else is there.
Without hesitation, you step into the water.
Your shoes are ruined, and your clothes are soaked.
Your day is suddenly disrupted.

A very important thing has happened though,
You saved a life.
You may not see yourself as a hero, but to that child, you are.
When suffering is right in front of us, responsibility feels obvious.

The uncomfortable reality though is that,
across the world, millions of children are drowning in slower waters.
Not ponds.
Systems.
Systems that deny them education.
Systems that deny them healthcare.
Systems that trap families in poverty generation after generation.

The drowning is quieter.
But the risk is just as real.
It happens through policies and broken institutions.
Through decisions made in rooms far away from the people they affect.
Where unfortunately, there is far less urgency.

Why?

Because the pond is not in front of us.
It is not on the road we take to work every day.
We do not hear the child calling for help and sadly, their suffering becomes a statistic.

This is The Drowning Child Theory.

It asks a simple question many societies struggle to answer.
If we feel morally compelled to save the child we see, why do we feel far less compelled to save the children we do not?
Distance should not change the value of a life.
But sadly, it changes our psychology.
Our empathy is strongest for what is close.
What is visible.
What interrupts our path.
And that is why many of the greatest failures in societies are not failures of knowledge.
They are failures of proximity.

The problem is obvious.
But it feels far away.
So people keep walking.

This is where systems thinking becomes important, because systems thinkers understand something many people overlook.

Many drowning children are not accidents.
They are outcomes of policies, of incentives.
and leadership choices.

When systems are poorly designed, suffering becomes predictable.

So let me ask you something honestly.

What ponds are we walking past today?
Who is responsible for stepping into the water when the pond is no longer in front of us?
How do we remember that distance does not cancel responsibility?
How do we stop walking past both the visible and invisible ponds around us?
Because systems only begin to shift when enough people decide they will step into the water, even when it is inconvenient.

Become Change.

Many change efforts fail before they even start.

Not because of strategy.

Not because teams don't work hard.

They fail because no one asked the right questions.

That's where the 7 R's of Change Management come in.

A simple set of questions that reveal blind spots before they derail your transformation.

Ask yourself and your team:

What's the Reason for this change?

What Return do we expect?

Who Raised the change request?

What Risks are tied to it?

What's the Relationship to existing processes?

What Resources are needed?

Who's truly Responsible for delivering and sustaining it?

Here's how to apply it:

1/ Run through all 7 before launching anything.

2/ Pause if you can't clearly answer one, that's your red flag.

3/ Use them in team meetings to align everyone's understanding.

4/ Revisit regularly to keep the change on track.

Why it matters?

The 7 R's stop blind spots, create accountability, and bring order to the chaos of change.

The best leaders aren't always the ones with big ideas.

They're the ones who ask the right questions before they act.

Funders to watch in 2026:

As philanthropy continues to shift toward systems change, locally led solutions, Al, climate, and collaborative capital, a few funders stand out for their recent moves and momentum going into 2026:

Coefficient Giving - recently rebranded from Open

Philanthropy, signalling a shift toward scaling impact by enabling other major donors to give more effectively, alongside deploying over $4B across global health, Al, animal welfare, and global aid policy.

https://coefficientgiving.org/

Co-Impact - a global funder driving systems change in health,

education, economic opportunity, and gender, now partnering with ICONIQ Impact on the Women's Health Co-Lab to channel pooled capital into maternal health, SRHR, and GBV solutions.

https://co-impact.org/

Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) - reshaping its

grantmaking and redirecting funding to work directly with non-US NGOs, while doubling down on its core priorities in child health, nutrition, education, climate, and gender equality.

https://ciff.org/

ICONIQ Impact - quietly mobilising patient, collaborative capital from leading philanthropists to tackle complex global challenges through long-term, systems-level solutions.

https://lnkd.in/d6tHGGAR

Judith Neilson Foundation - boosted its grantmaking with an extra A$10M in 2025 to respond to global aid cuts and deepen strategic support for public health, inclusive economies, and leadership, especially for women, girls and young people.

https://lnkd.in/d6yKPRgk

Minderoo Foundation - deploying large-scale,

systems-focused grantmaking across climate, gender equality, indigenous empowerment, and community resilience, with growing international reach and ambition beyond Australia.

https://www.minderoo.org/

Segal Family Foundation - Africa-centric funder supporting

local leaders with flexible, multiyear funding and expanding into West Africa.

The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation - shaping how artificial

intelligence and data science are applied ethically for social good, from climate and health to digital literacy and civil society tools.

https://www.mcgovern.org/

Sequoia Climate Foundation - rapidly scaling climate

grantmaking and has become one of the largest new climate philanthropies globally, focused on rapid emissions reduction and energy transition solutions at speed and scale.

https://lnkd.in/dstUuGGP

And beyond this list, several major players remain firmly on the radar, including the Gates Foundation, following its announcement to accelerate giving; Pivotal Ventures, continuing to shape gender equity and systems change; and MacKenzie Scott, whose large-scale, unrestricted grants continue to redefine trust-based philanthropy through Yield Giving.