A shared architecture for
how social change occurs

Whiria Ngā Ara provides stable, empirically grounded architecture beneath investment, design and measurement decisions – a common structure that helps different actors reason from the same underlying logic about where effort should go and why.

~10

Years of research, evaluation and practice behind the architecture

5

Determinant groups spanning upstream drivers to downstream lived effects

24+

Distinct levers of change across the determinant architecture

3

Practical applications: portfolio, programme design, measurement

where it comes from

Built from practice, grounded in evidence

Whiria Ngā Ara did not emerge from a single theory or discipline. It emerged through repeated encounters with the same practical challenges across investment, design, evaluation and systems change work – and from three important strands of evidence.

he ara
waiora

Under the leadership of pūkenga Māori, He Ara Waiora contributed a broader understanding of wellbeing and value creation – recognising that wellbeing emerges through interconnected conditions rather than isolated domains or outcomes.

whānau ora
evidence

A decade of Whānau Ora evaluation and practice repeatedly surfaced patterns that sat beyond conventional programme logic: turning points, shifts in agency and aspiration, strengthening of identity and belonging, and spillover effects across multiple domains of life.

pattern analysis
across domains

Practical experience across social innovation, investment and evaluation initiatives revealed recurring patterns in how deeper, more sustained impact occurs – and why some initiatives generate effects far beyond what the activity itself would predict.

Taken individually, none of these strands fully resolved the challenge. Together, they suggested there is a more stable underlying structure through which social change unfolds – and that making it visible would strengthen investment, design and measurement decisions at every level.

the determinants

From upstream drivers to
downstream lived effects

Whiria Ngā Ara organises the drivers of social impact into five determinant groups. Tikanga is deliberately structured as two distinct sub-domains – systemic and material – because they operate through different mechanisms and call for different investment responses, even though they are deeply interconnected.

Kawa

upstream

human potential determinants – trajectory drivers

Belonging, agency, identity, aspiration and collective purpose – positioned as causal mechanisms, not soft outcomes. Empirical analysis of Whānau Ora practice shows these factors activate life turning points, sustain trajectory changes, and amplify gains from interventions at every other determinant level.

Tikanga

mid-upstream

systemic & material determinants – two distinct sub-domains

The rules, institutions, operating environments and material conditions that shape opportunities, experiences, stability and wellbeing. Systemic and material determinants are treated separately because they operate through different causal mechanisms – and changing one without attending to the other is a common source of limited impact.

systemic determinants

Rules, institutions and operating environments that shape what is accessible, fair, and possible. These include the way services are designed, how systems connect (or fail to), the pathways people can use to access support, and the resource and regulatory settings that expand or constrain opportunity. Systemic change often requires working at the level of policy, practice design, and service architecture.

material determinants

The concrete conditions that provide or withhold the material foundations for dignity and wellbeing – housing, income, essential needs, place and environment. Material stability is not a soft precondition: it is an active determinant of what is possible. Insecurity, scarcity and housing stress narrow the space for every other form of change.

Ritenga

mid-downstream

behavioural determinants

The decisions, habits, expectations and patterns that shape everyday action. Not about placing responsibility on individuals – about recognising that behaviour is patterned by context, relationships, norms, stress, opportunity and belief, and that change often requires supporting new patterns of action and participation.

Āhuatanga

downstream

LIVED REALITY DETERMINANTS

The immediate conditions people are experiencing – hardship, crisis, instability and daily pressures. Relief and stabilisation are not lesser forms of impact. They are often the ground from which deeper change becomes possible, and high-impact responses address them without losing sight of upstream drivers.

The Upstream Insight

The most distinctive contribution of Whiria Ngā Ara is the positioning of Kawa at the most upstream point.

Things often described as intangible – belonging, agency, identity – are treated here as root cause determinants, not soft effects that follow the real work.

Empirical analysis of Whānau Ora practice shows activating these factors carries two principal effects:

TRAJECTORY SHIFT

Changing life pathways from constrained or harmful trajectories toward stable, expansive ones

AMPLIFICATION

Multiplying the gains from interventions at other determinant levels

Why Tikanga is two sub-domains

Systemic and material determinants are grouped under Tikanga because both concern the structures and conditions that shape what is possible.

But they are distinguished because they operate through different mechanisms and call for different investment responses:

SYSTEMIC

Works through rules, access, service design and institutional settings – change requires policy, practice and architecture

MATERIAL

Works through the concrete foundations of daily life – housing, income, essential needs – where insecurity actively narrows all other change

A note on heirarchy

Upstream does not mean more important. Downstream does not mean less valuable. The architecture is not a ranking.

High-impact work requires mutual reinforcement across determinants. The impact comes from the configuration, not from any single lever acting alone.

impact pathways

How change unfolds through causal steps

Each determinant group has an associated set of impact pathways – the causal steps that appear, across multiple bodies of evidence, to be commonly involved when that determinant contributes to meaningful change. They are building blocks, not fixed tracks.

what impact pathways are

A pattern library developed through synthesis across multiple studies, evaluations and practice settings. They are not precise universal sequences. They show the steps that appear repeatedly when particular determinants contribute to change.

A programme can start in one determinant, move to another, split into parallel routes, or carry one dominant pathway with reinforcing steps from others.

what they make possible

They reduce the need to start from a blank page. Practitioners can adapt a coherent causal scaffold to their context rather than reinventing the logic from scratch each time. They also enable comparison and learning across programmes – because when different initiatives use the same underlying scaffold, their evidence accumulates rather than sitting in silos.