John Kania
John Kania is a practitioner, researcher, writer, teacher, and speaker on how organizations and people can achieve change together. He is the Founder and Executive Director of Colletive Change Lab. Prior to that, he ran FSG, a nonprofit consulting firm and think tank working globally across issues and sectors to support social and environmental changemakers. From 2018 to 2020, he served as an Executive-in-Residence at national venture philanthropy New Profit, co-leading the launch of a systems change practice. John has explored with increasing depth what it takes to achieve change collectively. In 2011, he co-authored the article “Collective Impact,” which remains Stanford Social Innovation Review’s most-read article ever. The theory and practice of collective impact has spread across the globe, honed and enhanced by thousands of practitioners and initiatives. More recently, John’s practice, research and writing have focused on systems change, helping clarify for practitioners how to “shift the conditions that hold a problem in place.” John’s much-referenced article, “The Water of Systems Change,” (which includes the “Six Conditions of Systems Change” framework) is being used around the world today to bring clarity to systems change and to help people achieve collective potential.
