"My theory of change is that there are already millions of people working day in and day out on the ground to deliver on promises on global change. We need to strengthen those institutions and help those people in the field"

The theory centers change not on dramatic breakthroughs or charismatic leaders but on the everyday labor of teachers, nurses, agricultural extension workers, local bureaucrats, organizers, and engineers who already move the needles of health, education, climate resilience, and justice. Global promises are translated into reality by these practitioners, whose routines, relationships, and tacit knowledge give policies traction. If the frontline is where outcomes are produced, then the highest-leverage intervention is institutional strengthening: better funding models, reliable salaries, training and career ladders, upgraded tools and data systems, and governance that protects integrity and enables adaptation.

Such a stance rejects the cycle of reinvention and pilotitis. Rather than launching new entities to chase novelty, it urges channeling resources to proven delivery systems, public clinics, schools, water utilities, farmer co-ops, municipal agencies, and community-based groups, and fixing the bottlenecks that slow them down: procurement delays, brittle IT, donor restrictions on overhead, and staff burnout. It values local expertise over external saviorism, arguing that people closest to the problem are closest to the solution if entrusted with flexible funding, decision rights, and political cover.

There is also an implicit claim about durability. Change that lives inside institutions outlasts electoral cycles and media narratives. Strengthening internal capabilities, monitoring and evaluation, financial management, participatory planning, builds muscle memory so programs continue to perform under stress. Collaboration becomes practical: philanthropies align with public budgets; researchers and practitioners co-produce evidence; technology augments workflows rather than commanding them.

This perspective reframes ambition. Big goals like the Sustainable Development Goals or climate commitments become credible when aggregated from millions of small, reliable wins. Help for people in the field is not charity but infrastructure: fair pay, safety, mental health support, interoperable data, community accountability, and the time to learn and iterate. The pathway to global change runs through patient investment in the mundane, the measurable, and the already-in-motion.