Given the urgency of the multiple crises we are currently living through, it is all too easy to get caught up in the immediate challenges of the present. In this session we will hear from people who are developing frameworks and approaches that are designed to free us from the gravitational pull of the status quo, and to open up a more transformative space for potential action. This session looks at the ‘how’ of shifting systems.
Gemma Mortensen
Co-founder, New Constellations
Jayne Engle
Participatory Canada, author of Sacred Civics & formerly McConnell Foundation
Graham Leicester
International Futures Forum and author, Transformative Innovation
Amhara Spence
MAIA Group
Gabriella Gómez-Mont
Experimentalista
For more information about our speakers, please check out our Full Speakers List
We want this panel to showcase the range of approaches, frameworks, and practices relating to system-shifting work that those working in funding (of all kinds) can draw on. There are emerging practices that can help funders move beyond ‘plaster-sticking’ work towards more transformational work that’s centred on building alternative futures rather than making the existing system better.
This is vitally important context for the remainder of the conference. A recent report showed that just 3% of social justice grants in the UK could be considered ‘transformative’: the vast majority of philanthropic resources continue to be centred on ameliorative work. While that is necessary - all the more so in times of rising poverty and suffering - we do also need to make room for deeper, more transformative work.
In the interviews we conducted with UK Trusts and Foundations as part of the scoping for JRF’s Emerging Futures programme we heard a widespread consensus that more of this transformative work is vital, given the types of challenges they’re seeking to address. But we also heard that there is deep uncertainty about how to frame this work; how to manage risk; and how to articulate and describe the intent. This panel will shed some light on these questions, and give participants a sense of the tools and frameworks that already exist to help them address these dilemmas.
Gabriella’s work