Institute For The Future

Shaping the Future: IFTF’s Year in Review #Give2Future

As we turn to the New Year, I often reflect on the most memorable moments in my work. This past year was filled with such moments, but one in particular comes to mind: Institute for the Future’s collaboration with San Jose Unified School District.

As we were working with the district’s teachers and staff on envisioning new models for learning, a sense of excitement filled the room. Suddenly, seemingly impossible ideas seemed within reach and, indeed, were converted into actionable prototypes of new ways of educating and inspiring students.

After the session, one young teacher said to me: “If not for this experience, I probably wouldn’t be going back to teaching. And I can’t go back on Monday to doing things the same way.”

This sums up the essence of the Institute for the Future: it is a unique intellectual community that encourages individuals to think differently about the future and to envision ways that they can create a more desirable future.

With your help, we can engage more people in creating positive futures. This is why I am personally asking you to make a donation to IFTF by year’s end. I will match all donations up to $10,000. Please join me in making a year-end donation today!

IFTF highlights from 2014 include:

• Hosting a 3-day Open Cities Conference and Festival in collaboration with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco where 3,000 participants explored strategies for bringing the maker mindset into the civic space
• Opening the Gallery for the Future in our new space where hundreds of people in the past few months came to our public events with prominent authors, thinkers, and innovators, including Cory Doctorow, David Reed, and many more
• Catalyzing a new class of Future for Good Fellows, working side-by-side with these practical visionaries and social innovators to “futurize” and amplify their projects
• Redesigning our participatory gaming platform—Foresight Engine—and using it to engage 1.5 million people in imagining the future of the LGBTQ movement through the #my2024 hashtag
• Releasing 11 original research tools to the public including many new research maps, reports, and toolkits that are available for free on our website and are being used to develop curricular resources and facilitate community visioning and planning efforts

I hope that our work inspires you to help make the future in positive and new ways as well. Thank you for your continued support.

All my best to you this holiday season,

Marina Gorbis
Executive Director
Institute for the Future

P.S. Please give a charitable donation of any size up to $10,000, and I will match it! I look forward to seeing you in 2015. Thank you!