Working with roles in ecosystems
Actors in civil society and philanthropy increasingly adopt an ecosystemic perspective on their work, seeing their activities not in a simple cause-and-effect logic but as part of a constantly changing system. In such contexts, clarity comes less from sharper plans or tighter structures and more from understanding how we show up in relation to others and to what emerges at a given moment in time. As these conditions challenge established ways of thinking about strategy, impact, and organizational identity, thinking in roles becomes a helpful and grounding resource for strengthening relationships and supporting the system as a whole.
A role describes a function within a wider system and relates to what is needed in a specific situation, what can be contributed, and how this contribution connects with others. Roles are relational and context-dependent.
Seen this way, roles shift attention away from individual actors and toward patterns of interaction. Instead of asking who is formally responsible, the guiding question becomes what function is needed right now—and who can legitimately carry it. This makes it easier for multiple actors to contribute in complementary ways, reduces unspoken expectations, and allows roles to change over time without destabilizing the system.
In our work, roles have become a practical way to navigate questions of power, legitimacy, and commitment. Whether acting as a host, a catalyst, or a supporter, role clarity helps align intentions with interventions, makes tensions more visible, and contributes to a stronger relational infrastructure within the system.
The following contributions explore three different roles within different ecosystems we have been part of. They reflect on how specific roles were assumed and what they made possible in practice.
Impact Field Hosts
The Bosch Alumni Network brings together around 9,000 members from diverse regional, professional, and thematic contexts. To foster collaboration within this diversity, Impact Fields provide spaces for members to connect around specific fields of action. These serve as learning communities, allow different perspectives to nourish one another, and offer a trusted space to exchange on shared topics within the vast, decentralized network.
Impact Field Hosts are network members who convene and hold these spaces for a limited period of time. They gather network members who work on the same topic, facilitate conversations, and help members of the Impact Field group to connect, collaborate and learn together. They create communities of practice around topics such as “Placemaking” or “Technology and Inequality” by co-shaping how conversations are structured, how differences are navigated, and how ideas can emerge.
From a complexity perspective, this hosting role supports ongoing sense-making within the Impact Field and helps groups to remain adaptable rather than fixed. First introduced in 2021, the role is intentionally time-bound and passes on among members. Hosts are supported through peer learning with other Impact Field Hosts as well as by the network coordination team at iac Berlin. This prevents concentration of responsibility and reinforces stewardship as a collective task.
Impact Field Hosts show how holding collective learning spaces—rather than steering outcomes—enables collaboration without forcing alignment or relying on central control.
Network Catalyzers
Across regions and political contexts, efforts to advance democracy and belonging increasingly unfold in conditions of deep complexity. Democratic erosion, polarization, and authoritarian populism do not arise from single causes or linear dynamics; they emerge from interconnected social, cultural, economic, and political systems that behave unpredictably and vary by context. Working in these contexts, the Democracy & Belonging Forum begins from the premise that complexity cannot be simplified away, but must be engaged through adaptive, relational, and networked strategies that build trust and distribute leadership over time.
This understanding led to the creation of the Network Catalyzers role. Network Catalyzers are trusted actors who are already embedded in regional or thematic contexts and strengthen member-led communities, respond to emerging needs, and stay attentive to shifts in their environments—acting from within these contexts rather than coordinating them from the outside. Their context-sensitive role avoids both isolation and centralization and recognizes that the resilience of an ecosystem comes from diversity, redundancy, and collective learning. The role of a Network Catalyst entails not only the nurturing of the network but also the preparation to step out of the role to avoid dependencies on that level as well.
In 2025, six Network Catalyzers led communities that addressed a range of regional and thematic challenges, including bridging rural divides in France or fostering intergenerational dialogue within immigrant families in the United States. The Democracy & Belonging Forum supports their work by providing partial resourcing, long-term accompaniment, and spaces for peer exchange. This distribution of roles supports Network Catalyzers acting from within their contexts, while the Forum focuses on holding relational infrastructure across the ecosystem. The arrangement reduces dependency on single actors and increases the system’s capacity to respond to change.
Whilst in such environments, centralized approaches built for control and standardization often fall short, the Network Catalyzers demonstrate how trust-based, member-led communities can form a decentralized network that is capable of responding to complex democratic challenges beyond the reach of any single organization, strategy, or fixed agenda.
Field Supporters
In many fields, some actors focus less on being the doers and more on sustaining the conditions in which others can work. They stay close to what is happening in their field, notice where energy is fading or building, and support forms of connection that might otherwise be overlooked. Their work is usually quiet and relational, rarely formalized, yet central to the long-term vitality of a field. This work can be referred to as Field Support.
Instead of linking actors across systems, Field Supporters orient their attention toward the health of the field itself. They care for the vitality of its practices, resources, relations, actors, and capacities that can keep the conditions of a field alive. They contribute to its resilience by nurturing the field’s ability to learn, anticipate threats, and remain responsive under strain.
The role of Field Supporters is an emergent role. To explore what it entails in practice, iac Berlin is currently hosting an 18-month learning journey for Field Supporters in the MENA region. Twelve organizations share their experiences, revealing how fields are supported through complex systems of care, resistance, and creative adaptation. A central element of the journey is the creation of spaces that allow participants to pause, observe, and imagine alternative ways of convening and working together. Alongside this, they experiment with reflective tools and metaphors that support sense-making across scales and offer a language for addressing interdependence, regeneration, and resilience.
The Field Supporters put this into practice through designing decentralized support systems that adapt to local conditions across regions, creating resources and tools that communities can customize for their own contexts, and building resourcing models where supporters become embedded infrastructure rather than external funders. The Field Supporters’ role is sustained attention over time—staying close enough to notice what shifts and to support the field’s capacity to adapt.
This article has been taken from our Activity Report 2025.
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