Mainstreaming Healing Practices into

Systems Change Globally

Collective Change Lab helps social change practitioners and philanthropists transition into deeper ways of solving social problems.

New Article: What every leader needs to understand about Power and Harm

At the Collective Change Lab, we believe lasting transformation requires reimagining what power can look and feel like. Too often, power is seen only through hierarchy or control—something to be held or guarded. But what shifts when we understand power as shared, relational, and alive? To explore this, we’re sharing two new resources. Our Collective Power framework, developed with the Collective Power Community of Practice, highlights the conditions and transforming practices that allow collective power to grow—through story, care, and accountability.

Alongside this, our latest Medium article, What Every Leader Needs to Understand About Power and Harm, gathers reflections from practitioners asking vital questions: How do we recognize harm in leadership and systems? How do we repair and transform those patterns? And how can leaders step into vulnerability as a pathway to deeper trust and shared strength? We see these as sparks for ongoing dialogue about how power can be reimagined and practiced in service of systemic healing and change—and we invite you to read, reflect, and join the conversation.

Part II: Healing Centred Systems Change Journey

Part 2 of our learning series will focus on Trauma Integrating Systems Change, supporting practitioners who already have a foundation in systems change and trauma-informed theory and practice, including alumni of Part 1 and those willing to audit sections of the first course, to deepen their ability to lead and embody healing-centered change within complex, often trauma-led systems.

This experiential learning journey will focus on the “how” of healing-centered practice — how we become teams and communities that actively integrate healing values and trauma consciousness in systems that were not designed for wholeness or care. Participants will explore how to work as fractals of change that build islands of coherence in a wounded system, interrupting patterns of disconnection, fragmentation, and re-traumatization in real-world settings. We'll dive into the practices and conditions that help healing systems take root — safely, powerfully, and collectively.

Our inequitable systems remain stuck in cycles of harm and disconnection.

What will it take to heal and transform systems for everyone?

Our societal systems—designed within and perpetuating cycles of trauma—are not evolving into systems that prioritize healing and wholeness. From education and healthcare to housing and food, these systems continue to operate in ways that deepen harm rather than foster collective flourishing.

Philanthropic Toolkit to Support Transformational Systems Change

The Collective Change Lab is proud to introduce the Philanthropic Toolkit for Transformational Systems Change — a resource designed to help the giving sector adopt deeper, more relational approaches to addressing entrenched societal challenges. Drawing on three years of work with leading systems change practitioners and community leaders, the toolkit offers insights and experiential practices in four key areas of transformational philanthropy.

At its heart, this toolkit is more than a resource—it is an invitation.

Windows into our work

Latest News

  • Featured - Stories of What is Possible in Systemic Healing: Our Healing-Centered Systems Change Team, led by Dr. Laura Calderón de la Barca, along with our partner organizations, are introducing a special series titled “Stories of What is Possible in Systemic Healing,” featuring five cases that place healing at the center of systems change and, as a result, are seeing movement in the direction of transformed systems. - Explore

  • Recent article: The Powerful Role of Storytelling in Systems Change - read here

  • We are thrilled to announce a new collaboration between The Collective Change Lab and the Centre for Exponential Change. Together, we aim to push the boundaries of social change by exploring how collective power and exponential innovation can reshape our communities and systems.