Future Generations

Our organization is aiming to support local changemakers as they use innovative strategies developed by Future Generations [in conjunction with UNICEF and the Rockefeller Foundation] to empower their communities to build sustainable social change. We are the Center for Research and Practice in Future Generations University, and have formed a global network of local change-makers that includes primarily alumni, of Future Generations University, as well as affiliated local organizations in countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, China, and India. We aim to serve these change-makers as they build innovative solutions to the problems they face.

Future Generations has a unique community empowerment methodology called SEED-SCALE that guides all our actions. This methodology was deduced from careful global research on communities and programs that equitably and sustainably created empowered local development, and that scaled up. From that initial research and subsequent application and testing of the key strategies, we have a set of clear principles, steps, and criteria about how to leverage community success, promote evidence-based decision-making, develop effective partnerships, and pursue behavior change opportunities. All members of our network are trained in SEED-SCALE in the Future Generations University educational program and are following these principles. We seek to support our network members by helping them with their individual efforts for social change. This includes providing specific services (such as grant-writing and research proposal development support) and opportunities (such as small seed grants), documenting and highlighting their work on an international stage, and helping them leverage the expertise and diverse knowledge-base that can be found within the network.

Since Future Generations was founded three decades ago, we have been at the vanguard of community-driven social change. We have decades of experience in helping local change-makers in some of the world’s most challenging environments take local innovations and successes and grow them into broader movements for social change and sustainable development. SEED-SCALE is recognized worldwide as an innovative and practical approach to social change, and our network is home to the most respected global SEED-SCALE experts. Future Generations University is dedicated to teaching and researching the SEED-SCALE methodology. Two significant books by Future Generations founders that detail this methodology have been published by The Johns Hopkins University Press and Oxford University Press. The Future Generations Global Network was founded in 2015. It had been working to support alumni and is now incorporated into the university as the Center for Research and Practice.

The Future Generations University now has 140+ alumni who are working on community change in about 43 countries across the globe. The organization is pursuing its mission to encourage global network members, particularly our alumni and members of our country programs, to exchange learning and collaborate effectively among themselves to continually evolve their skills. The University seeks to increase its enrollment and add additional global learning centers to expand instruction locally within countries. The organization will seek innovative ways to support this growing network of practitioners with resources and continuous educational input to further enhance their effectiveness.