What You'll Find Here
- What’s shifting and why now? (Trend Scanning & Signals of Change)
- What futures should we plan for? (Scenario Planning for NGOs)
- How do we work backward from impact? (Backcasting & Option Testing)
FUTURIST.NGO is a resource hub where nonprofits can anticipate tomorrow, today. We provide simple, actionable foresight tools to help NGOs plan ahead and adapt in a rapidly changing world. Because if you can see change coming, you can shape a better future.
Our aim is to demystify strategic foresight for the social sector. We cut through jargon and theory to focus on practical methods any team can use to think ahead. It’s not about predicting the future, but about being prepared to shape it.
Our Values
We believe futures thinking should be accessible and empowering. That’s why we avoid jargon and focus on practical approaches that any team can use. Our values — collaboration, inclusivity, and curiosity — guide everything we do. We expand your field of view beyond day-to-day pressures, helping you foster an agile mindset that turns long-term vision into present-day action. With a balance of creativity and evidence-based insights, we ensure that planning for the future feels less like speculation and more like a strategy for real impact.
Ready to Get Started?
Ready to start shaping the future? We invite you to dive into these guides and apply foresight in your organization. The future is coming — see it before it hits, and lead the change.
GUIDES
Change rarely happens overnight. In this guide, you’ll learn how to scan the horizon for emerging trends and subtle signals that hint at bigger shifts ahead. Whether it’s shifting demographics or a nascent technology, the goal is to pinpoint changes relevant to your mission early on. Trend scanning helps NGOs identify which social, technological, or policy changes are gaining momentum and why they matter now. By distinguishing meaningful signals from the noise, organizations can anticipate challenges and opportunities before they fully unfold, helping your NGO stay ahead of the curve.
No one can predict the future, but NGOs can prepare for several. Scenario planning empowers nonprofit leaders to imagine multiple plausible futures — from best-case breakthroughs to worst-case crises — and develop strategies for each one. For example, what if a new law drastically changes the funding landscape, or a sudden crisis spikes community needs? This guide adapts classic scenario planning methods for NGOs, helping you identify such critical uncertainties and turn them into narrative scenarios. By rehearsing these what if situations, your organization can test its assumptions and build flexible, resilient plans that hold up no matter what tomorrow may bring.
To create the future we want, we sometimes need to start at the end. Backcasting is a planning method where you envision a desired future outcome and then work backward to map the steps required to get there. This guide walks NGOs through setting bold impact goals for the long term and then charting a course back to the present, ensuring each step is aligned with that vision. Along the way, we introduce ‘option testing’ — a way to evaluate different actions or strategies against future scenarios to see which are most likely to succeed. By backcasting and stress-testing your options, you can make confident decisions today that lead to meaningful impact tomorrow.
Trend Scanning & Signals of Change
Change rarely happens overnight. In this guide, you’ll learn how to scan the horizon for emerging trends and subtle signals that hint at bigger shifts ahead. Whether it’s shifting demographics or a nascent technology, the goal is to pinpoint changes relevant to your mission early on. Trend scanning helps NGOs identify which social, technological, or policy changes are gaining momentum and why they matter now. By distinguishing meaningful signals from the noise, organizations can anticipate challenges and opportunities before they fully unfold, helping your NGO stay ahead of the curve.
Scenario Planning for NGOs
No one can predict the future, but NGOs can prepare for several. Scenario planning empowers nonprofit leaders to imagine multiple plausible futures — from best-case breakthroughs to worst-case crises — and develop strategies for each one. For example, what if a new law drastically changes the funding landscape, or a sudden crisis spikes community needs? This guide adapts classic scenario planning methods for NGOs, helping you identify such critical uncertainties and turn them into narrative scenarios. By rehearsing these what if situations, your organization can test its assumptions and build flexible, resilient plans that hold up no matter what tomorrow may bring.
Backcasting & Option Testing
To create the future we want, we sometimes need to start at the end. Backcasting is a planning method where you envision a desired future outcome and then work backward to map the steps required to get there. This guide walks NGOs through setting bold impact goals for the long term and then charting a course back to the present, ensuring each step is aligned with that vision. Along the way, we introduce ‘option testing’ — a way to evaluate different actions or strategies against future scenarios to see which are most likely to succeed. By backcasting and stress-testing your options, you can make confident decisions today that lead to meaningful impact tomorrow.
