Future Signals – what we’re watching for in 2025
From Nesta…Our annual series about the trends and developments that are set to shape the coming year
The militia and the mole
by Joshua Kaplan in Propublica…A Freelance Vigilante: A wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover, climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell his family or friends.
The turbulent world of resilience: 2 Interpretations and themes for transdisciplinary dialogue
by Susanne Moser, et al. in Climatic Change…In this paper we have tried to delineate – from a workshop and a literature review – fundamental
differences in perspective found across disciplinary and practical resilience discourses, differentiate these different perspectives, and then outline seven themes that are repeatedly discussed in the extant resilience discourse.
Zero-problem philanthropy
by Christian Seelos in SSIR…Moving away from endless problem-solving and toward creating healthy context.
Octavia Butler on creativity, the power of our obsessions, and how we become who we are
by Maria Popova in The Pocket…“Love quiets fear. And a sweet and powerful positive obsession blunts pain, diverts rage, and engages each of us in the greatest, the most intense of our chosen struggles.”
Strategy 2030 mid-term review and forecast
From IFRC Solferino Academy…As we reach the midpoint of Strategy 2030, we are entering a new humanitarian era. A complex mass of emerging trends is changing the world around us and affecting our ability to act…
Looking Forward
by Steven Ascher in his film Looking Forward…“W.H. Auden called the postwar era, ‘The Age of Anxiety.’ It seems we’re in another one now.”
Empowering residents to drive the redevelopment of a trailer park
from Habitat for Humanity Cost of Home report…Rosensweig adds that Southwood has the potential to be a model for sustainable and equitable redevelopment of both trailer parks and other redeveloping communities nationwide.
The Strategic Foresight Book
from The Strategic Foresight Book by IFRC Solferino Academy…Effective strategic foresight is an ongoing process. Developing the ability to monitor trends, understand how they interact and influence each other, and imagining
how they might develop over time, is a powerful addition to our strategy design and decision making. Foresight should also be deeply participatory, drawing on our
connections to communities all around the world to ensure that the projects, plans and organisation we aspire to be reflects their hopes for the future.
The impossible math of philanthropy
by Hans Taparia and Bruce Buchanan in The New York Times…With one hand they generate supernormal profits by plundering society, and with the other they dole out a few crumbs to “save the world.” But they never will. The math simply doesn’t work.
Resilience revisited 011: Resilience as ‘capacity to embrace uncertainty’
by Tamzin Ractliffe on LinkedIn…Perhaps true resilience emerges when we stop asking “How certain are we?” and start asking “How adaptively can we respond?”
What should philanthropy do about the US freeze on aid?
by Benjamin Bellegy in Alliance Magazine…We can worry that some philanthropies might reorientate their giving to align with the new zeitgeist, for instance divesting from issues such as climate or social justice.
An emerging third option: Reclaiming democracy from dark money & dark tech
by Otto Scharmer in Medium…In short — the key to the profound changes that our current polycrisis is calling for lies in the cultivation of the social soil. Every one of us can be (and is) a gardener or farmer of that soil. In our forthcoming book Presencing we outline the core practices for doing so.
Yuen Yuen Ang argues that we need a fundamentally different way of thinking about our biggest global problems
by Yuen Yuen Ang in Interest.co.nz…The polycrisis is paralyzing only for those who are attached to the old order. For those who are not, it offers what I would call a “polytunity” to usher in new paradigms that invert the way we think about the development process, the sources of solutions, and the role of the state.
A ‘second tree of life’ could wreak havoc, scientists warn
by Carl Zimmer in The New York Times…Research on so-called mirror cells, which defy fundamental properties of living organisms, should be prohibited as too dangerous, biologists said.
The hunger gap
by George Monbiot in his blog…A gulf in public understanding prevents us from seeing how and why our food supply is at risk.