Making philanthropy future-facing
Cat Tully writes: Philanthropy has traditionally paid relatively little attention to foresight, but the sector urgently needs a stronger focus on becoming ‘future-fit’. It needs to understand better how the trends of the next 10, 20 and even 50 years will affect its focus, operations and legitimacy. And if institutions want to innovate in untested or ‘frontier’ areas, they need new skills and a foresight mindset.
Following the publication of our article on future-fit philanthropy, SOIF, the School of International Futures (SOIF) is hosting a series of roundtable discussions exploring how philanthropy can harness strategic foresight to create transformative social change.
You can find the reflections from our first Roundtable here, in which we explored some of the big questions that face philanthropy that tries to become future-fit.
This article summarises the main discussion points from our second roundtable, held in July 2019, which discussed the opportunities and barriers to apply and embed foresight in practice.
I. Framing the conversation: insights from the first roundtable
Our first roundtable in April 2019 explored the growing trend of philanthropists and foundations using foresight and systems thinking to shape their agendas and activities.
That discussion identified three priority focus areas for exploratory, collaborative dialogue:
- How to support long-term thinking about complex social problems in a participative way
- How to enable adaptive planning and strategy development in a volatile environment facing disruptive change
- How to design interventions with impact, that are resilient over time and work to prevent as well as cure social problems
We posited these focus areas as a starting point for our conversation, inviting the group to stress test these priorities and explore existing barriers, capabilities, and opportunities for cross-sector collaboration.
II. The opportunity: Using applied foresight to create better futures in challenging times
Participants noted the complexity and unfamiliarity of today’s emerging global context, reflecting that many governments and other institutions were retrenching in the face of uncertainty. A hesitancy or lack of resources among social organisations to engage with complexity, or take a systems-view of societal and economic challenges was observed.
Facilitating change: Foresight to help integrate old and new ways
In this space, there was felt to be an opportunity for philanthropic actors to take the first step — to convene the system, facilitate conversations about transformative change, and take more assertive steps towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Philanthropists, it was felt, could play a role in making the third horizon real, acting as transformative change agents over the coming critical 5–10 years.
From an organisational perspective, the benefits of foresight were seen as manifold. A foresight mentality could help to create organisational agility, resilient governance and leadership, while preventing inward-looking, backward-looking strategy and planning.
III. The barriers: Proving the impact of foresight within today’s timeframes
Looking across the spectrum of philanthropic organisations, there was consensus that some were better placed than others to lead the way. While some may prefer to remain in the first horizon focusing on today’s needs through yesterday’s lens, there is a growing movement of early adopters who are experimenting more boldly with foresight.
The group observed a growing polarisation between more conservative, disciplinary-led ‘old ways’ of operating in the sector, and newer, more disruptive approaches to philanthropy driven by technological innovation. The former alone risked missing out on emerging possibilities. The latter in isolation risked falsely promising silver bullet solutions.
Overcoming doubt: Setting an example and moving forward together
Bringing the two worldviews together was felt to be critical — with the space between them needing active facilitation. Foresight had a role to play in overcoming fear or distrust of the new, while showing its place within what already exists. The group noted that familiarity with emerging trends made them less likely to trigger a defensive fear reaction, creating space to engage with intentionality with them.
The group raised broader questions about philanthropy’s changing role — where organisations should focus their efforts for maximum impact, the increasing merging of human and economic development, and the increasingly vocal critique of highly visible philanthropists following their own agendas. Foresight can help to set a future-facing direction for philanthropy as a sector — what it’s trying to do and how (e.g advocacy vs technical solutions), in particular to most effectively scale impact within the system.
Exploring key challenges to the uptake of foresight in philanthropic sector, participants pointed to the lack of strategic patience in many organisations. There was business pressure to show tangible results immediately, or risk losing leadership support or funding. Attendees pointed to challenges they’d faced in building concrete business cases, or measuring the impact of foresight-informed interventions in complex systems. The culture in many organisations meant that a ‘success story’ needed to be public announced, with big dollar signs and lots of partners — metrics that could be constraining.
IV. Looking ahead: embedding foresight in philanthropy
The group reflected that this challenge was not insurmountable, citing studies showing that longitudinal strategies pay off in the long-term in very tangible ways. A short-termist view can become self-reinforcing even when it goes against the interest of all stakeholders involved, for example investors and investees who are constrained into three-month time horizons instead of the ten-year outlook they would both prefer.
Stakeholder commitment was seen as another key challenge to creating organisational momentum around foresight and its value. Leaders need to feel reassured that peers are trying similar approaches — they want to be innovative, but not pioneers. The group also observed a level of scepticism in the sector about ‘shiny new things’, with leaders burnt previously by initiatives or methodologies that under-delivered on their promise (e.g social impact bonds).
This underlined the importance of collaborating across organisations — creating the reassurance of a movement. Collaboration was also seen to be a logical consequence of applying a truly systems lens to the sector, and acknowledging the unavoidable inter-dependencies between organisations, issues and geographies. Embedding foresight across the philanthropy sector would require collaborating to share lessons learnt, elevate success stories, and develop meaningful indicators of measurement to demonstrate impact and value.
Cat Tully is the Managing Director of SOIF. To join the conversation, or for more information on SOIF’s work in the foresight and philanthropy space, please contact cat[at]soif.org.uk. Our thanks to Mott MacDonald for hosting the second roundtable event.
A version of this article was originally published at https://www.soif.org.uk on 23rd July, 2019.
