As Minnesotans, we cannot continue to believe that our state is an idyllic and welcoming place - where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average. Not when Minnesota has some of the largest and most embarrassing racial disparities in the nation - in education, employment, home ownership and more - or when we watch Philando Castile die in our Facebook feeds.
As someone who works closely with nonprofit organizations, and who is responsible for helping grantmakers and foundations be more effective, it is hard to see the current state of our community and to hear the too common narrative: "Minnesota used to be great, but our future is bleak." "Our best days as a state are behind us." "We peaked when Gov. Wendell Anderson proclaimed Minnesotans were living the good life from the cover of Time magazine."
Yet I disagree with those sentiments. I think it is time for us to become hopeful again about our future. The increasing diversity of our state is a gift that will grow the economic and cultural vitality of our rural communities and inner cities alike. If we let them, our differences will make us stronger. People with varied backgrounds, experiences, skills and ideas, who respect each other, will deliver amazing results.
The future doesn't just happen. It is something we create with the decisions we make and the actions we take today and every day. We are not passive actors in our own futures or in the future of our communities or our state.
The future of our state is what we make it. So, please do your part through thoughtful actions, small and large. Smile at the person next to you in the grocery line. Get to know nonprofits and their work by volunteering. Give generously to nonprofits that are fixing the broken places in our society. Be an active and informed citizen who speaks up for and with those who are not as easily heard or listened to.
How a Jeffersonian Dinner Can Change the World
A few years ago I was introduced to the idea of a Jeffersonian dinner. When Thomas Jefferson was developing the idea of an American Democracy he invited people with different backgrounds and perspectives to share a meal and debate the future of the country.
I've created a version of the Jeffersonian model called 831 dinners. It is 8 people, sitting together for 3 hours over dinner, having 1 transformational conversation about an issue of critical importance. After the Charleston Church shooting, I decided that I would host a dinner on the future of race relations in America. I have also hosted dinners on topics like civic disaster preparation and the future of philanthropy. A few things I have learned after 2 years of dinners:
- A curated guest list is critical. Developing a guest list that gives you a diversity of backgrounds and experiences makes for a richer conversation. I aim for a balance of men and women, racial diversity, and people with a variety of professional experiences that relate to and are completely separate from the topic at hand. I have found that artists and organizers provide an interesting conversational balance to academics and foundation leaders. You don't have to know everyone at the table well, it is a great opportunity to deepen relationships. Don't invite people that won't listen. This is a conversation, not just an opportunity for one person to pontificate.
- Make sure that guests have background on each other. For each dinner I share a bio of each participants and a photo. It allows the guests to have a little bit of context before they are at the table and they are less likely to cancel if they feel like they are part of a group.
- Food and wine makes everything better. For each meal I make sure that I understand dietary needs and provide a family style dinner. There are flowers and candles so that it feels like a dinner amongst friends and not a focus group. I pick foods that aren't too messy to eat and keep a bottle of wine on the table and a variety of non-alcoholic drinks.
- Start with the personal. We start with introductions around the table and each guests answers the starting question that places them in the conversation as a human being not as a representative from a specific organization. An example is "when was the first time you felt hopeful about race relations in the United States".
- The host is a guide. The job of the host is to make everyone comfortable and move the conversation along. You also need to make sure that one person isn't dominating the conversation and that quiet voices get heard.
- Close with a commitment. Give participants an opportunity at the end of the conversation to talk about what they have learned or appreciated from the conversation and what they will do next as a result.
Have you hosted a dinner that made a difference? Share what you learned in the comments.
Sir Richard Branson: Signal of the Future of Philanthropy
I've spent the last 12 months on an expedition that has taken me to the far corners of the world trying to crack the code of the future of philanthropy. I've talked to visionaries, academics, space entrepreneurs, Afrofuturists, MacArthur Geniuses, and comment page trolls to try to get to the bottom of what philanthropy can do to create a future we can be excited about, instead of the dystopian wasteland of environmental and economic ruin that Hollywood has taught us to fear.
One of my most exciting conversation along this journey was with Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Companies and the Virgin Unite Foundation. We had a wide ranging discussion about his philanthropic impulses. From his first act of charity- giving the clothes off of his back to a homeless man as a teenager to his hopes on his legacy- an end to international conflict.
Richard is a walking, breathing signal of the future philanthropy. The same entrepreneurial spirit that grew Virgin Companies from Student Magazine to a 400 company juggernaut is now being used to identify solutions for humanity's toughest challenges.
Richard's Signals of the Future:
Go Big
Leverage Cross Sector Partnerships
Follow Your Passion
Create Room for Others to Align with your Big Vision
See the conversation below
Special thanks to the Council on Foundations, Virgin Companies, and the Minnesota Council on Foundations for making this interview possible.
Black Future Month
The term Black Future Month has been sitting on my heart lately and I think the term gets to the bottom of my concern about futurism, which is can futurism be a tool that is used to build a stronger, more equitable society and who is creating the future for African Americans? I have been so blessed to be in spaces over the past few years where brilliant people are sharing visions and technologies that will transform our communities very quickly but often I am the only woman, person of color, or young(er) person in those spaces.
For many people of color, African Americans in particular, it feels luxurious to spend time thinking about the future when you are focused on literal survival. But if we don't have a shared future that we are working on building together it is so easy for movements to get splintered over tactics and tv time. Spending time collectively getting to the bottom of what a utopian future would look like for the African American community will help us get out of this burdensome place of constantly focusing on what is wrong with society, which is a threat to our mental health, and instead orient us to what we are creating together. This doesn't mean that we all sing kumbaya and ignore the broken systems in our community that are destroying us but it means that we identify what is broken and have a vision of what we want in its place.
In futurism there is a concept called skipping the problem. It means that you pretend that the issue that you are working on is completely solved and then think about what the world would look like. By doing this, you can sometimes identify alternative strategies that can help you get to that preferred future. I think if we started spending time together over meals and during community meetings envisioning what our preferred future for the African American community looked like, we could harness the potential of the exponential change that is happening in society and not be held back by the chains of the past.
I'd love to hear how you are thinking about a future for the black community in the comments.
I Spent a Week in the Future, and There Weren't Any Foundations There
I saw drones create 3D scans of buildings, was hugged by a robot that will make human labor on the assembly line irrelevant, and heard that nanotechnology will defeat cancer by 2033. I learned that 3D printers are printing human organs, which is great since deaths in car accidents — now the greatest source of organ donors — will be eliminated with self-driving cars.
During this amazing experience at the Abundance 360 summit, hosted by Peter Diamandis, author of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, I couldn’t help but wonder: where are the foundations in these conversations? Isn’t it our responsibility to go beyond understanding to creating the future? Change in the world and our communities is happening at a breathtaking rate, driven by access to infinite information and exponential increases in computer processing speeds. This accelerating rate of change makes the challenging work of doing good even more difficult. Foundations are trying to make the world a better place, but we are often using yesterday’s information to do so.
What if we could predict the future and prepare for the realities that will soon impact our communities? I believe it is our responsibility, as philanthropic leaders, to learn the skills necessary to understand and create the future. I’ve developed a three-step process to help philanthropic leaders escape from the busyness of today to create the communities of tomorrow.
Step One: Stop Loving the Problem
We spend a lot of time in philanthropy admiring problems. This is evident in the many reports in my office at the Minnesota Council on Foundations on the racial opportunity gap in schools, the extent of climate change, and the number of homeless teenagers in my state.
Knowing the scope of an issue is helpful, but it is not the end. It is simply counterproductive to spend so much time and mental energy on understanding what isn’t working. Instead of thinking more deeply about a problem, the solution is often to skip it all together.
For many years foundations and philanthropists were concerned about the electric and telecommunications infrastructure that would be needed for Sub-Saharan Africa — an infrastructure that is expensive to build and hard to maintain, but was thought critical to quality of life.
Cellular phones allowed Africa to completely skip the problem. Mobile Telephone Networks, a South-Africa based telecommunications company, provides phone service to emerging markets, and they bring electricity via generators with them as they expand. With a cell phone in your hand, you now hold a personal computer, a bank, and access to market prices, education, and health care. The problem wasn’t building the infrastructure. It was ensuring that communities had access to the benefits of that infrastructure.
Sometimes the problem we are focused on isn’t the problem at all, so skip it and think of what the problem would look like if it was solved. It might bring you to new solutions.
Step Two: Look
You can’t only be flexible when change comes, you need to anticipate the change and prepare for it because a problem can be an opportunity if you can see it before it lands on your doorstep.
So how do you do this? Set aside five percent of your time, preferably in a single two-hour block per week, to think about what the issues or communities you care about will look like five to 50 years in the future. Also pay attention to trends in your field and innovations outside of your field that may have an impact. TED Talks are a wonderful resource for this.
There are also futurists that study megatrends and how they predict they will impact the world. Common megatrends include technological progress, environmental decline, and conscious capitalism. Spend some time thinking about what each may mean for your field of work.
Here’s how I think philanthropy may be impacted by these three megatrends:
Technological progress: If technology is getting exponentially cheaper and faster, how will that change the way that citizens are connected? We have already seen this trend in action with the Arab Spring and the Black Lives Matter movement. Will new voices be heard and is philanthropy prepared to hear those voices?
Environmental decline: As natural disasters become more common, how can philanthropy help communities prepare before disaster strikes? Are there residents who are less likely to receive storm warnings, especially in immigrant communities? Can philanthropy develop relationships proactively before these disasters happen?
Rise of conscious capitalism: People care about where they spend their money, and business owners care about the double bottom line of fiscal performance and social impact. We will see many more social entrepreneurs working on issues that have traditionally been under the domain of government, nonprofits, and philanthropy. What new solutions will they bring? Will we be at the same tables to talk about the solutions?
Step Three: Go
Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” This may feel counterintuitive, but as a field we need to learn to fail faster. We need to quickly prototype or implement new ideas and ways of working on the issues we care about (see Step Two: Look). This will allow us to more quickly figure out what does and doesn’t work.
Then you need to share what you’ve learned with the field — the good, the bad, and the ugly. We can’t be afraid of failure; it is the only way that we will get to new, transformative solutions.
Dr. Paul Ylvisaker believed “philanthropy is society’s passing gear.” The car is getting faster and the visibility is a lot less clear, so let’s spend more time reading the map, so we can both predict and shape the future of our communities.
Trista Harris is a philanthropic futurist and the president of the Minnesota Council on Foundations, an organization that works actively to expand and strengthen a vibrant community of diverse grantmakers who individually and collectively advance the common good. MCF members represent three-quarters of all grantmaking in the state, awarding more than $1 billion annually.
Follow Trista on Twitter at @TristaHarris.
This post originally appeared on the Center for Effective Philanthropy blog.