Creating the Future, Open Participatory Engagement

The US Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-Apartheid movement, India’s Independence movement - what created their success? This question is at the core of Creating the Future’s work. By considering what created visionary change in the past, and incorporating those features into current change efforts, we are guiding changemakers to their potential to accomplish their missions and create the world we all want. What we’ve found: The power to create change lies not in innovative strategy, but in the assumptions underlying that strategy. Assumptions about what is possible vs. impossible. Assumptions about our potential for working together for a cause larger than ourselves. Assumptions about walking the talk of our values. By changing the way we see things - those habitual thought patterns / assumptions - things change. The Project: As its own demonstration project, Creating the Future has busted out the walls of our organization, to be completely open and participatory in all we do. All internal meetings - board meetings, resource development meetings, branding meetings, strategy meetings - are live-streamed for anyone to watch AND participate as if they are part of the team - asking questions, sharing ideas and observations. Doing this experiment as a live demonstration, Creating the Future is showing what is possible - that there is nothing to be afraid of in engaging openly, and that much of what groups assume to be proprietary is actually far more effective when it is owned by everyone. This effort began in January 2013. Already it has changed the expectations and assumptions of our board and immediate community, as well as outsiders who attend / participate in our meetings. We are all learning together that when we change the way we see things, things change.

Funded by Awesome Without Borders (May 2013)