Our Guiding Principles

  • We believe the future is an open space, full of possibility and a space that belongs to everyone. We also believe that the future is political, plural and complex - evolving in ways that are nonlinear and resist prediction.

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  • We align with both critical and participatory foresight philosophy and methods – to both invest in constant power analysis among various futures being considered – and – to consistently engage community voice in an active and dedicated effort to be inclusive (especially with regard to voices too often excluded from future agenda setting) and to democratize the power inherent in future-making.

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  • As members of the social work profession, we believe that we have a moral and ethical obligation to hone skills of foresight. We do this to help us to imagine more expansively, and to analyze risk more productively so that we minimize the time spent reacting unproductively to the unexpected as it unfolds around us. We anticipate the complexity of the future - comprised of imprecise elements of utopian and dystopian possibilities. We believe that futures thinking has liberatory potential if used in the service of the future of humanity, and we commit ourselves to work towards those futures.

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  • We believe that carcerality, coloniality, heteropatriarchy, racism and other interlocking forms of oppression seek to renew claims on the future and that intentional work must be done to interrupt, redirect, decolonize and dismantle them.

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  • We believe that the future a community most wants and sees for itself is sacred and should guide all other activities.

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  • We share foresight frameworks and tools actively and seek to facilitate rather than be viewed as experts on the future.

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  • We do not predict the future – rather we subscribe to the idea that futures thinking and foresight practice can a) assist communities in expanding their imaginations about possible futures, b) explore unintended consequences, c) marshall the power that comes with understanding the distinction between “official” and “emergent” futures, and d) lead to more robust actions and more carefully considered decisions about various courses of action.

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  • We honor and respect Indigenous peoples who have long expressed a commitment to the future. This was described in the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which expressed a sense of responsibility and love towards "seven generations” ahead. We also extend respect to all global cultural traditions seeking to assert and protect people and the earth. Additionally, we seek to balance the ethics of foresight with the ethics of social work, and have them create synergy with each other as new circumstances widen and expand the need for ethical evolution in these spaces.

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