Jess Farr

In 2010 we hosted an event for our infrastructure partners to review the futures work we’ve done together, and gather new intelligence about what they see as being the most important drivers for the civil society sector in 2020. We also invited a couple of futures specialists, including Stephen Aguilar-Millan of the European Futures Observatory to give us a fresh perspective.

Good news! Foresight is working with Community Matters to deliver future planning training for community and grassroots organisations working at a local level on 9th and 22th this month.

If you're concerned that the organisation you work for, or volunteer with, isn't planning enough for its long term future, then this is the training for you.

Find out more about our training, and how to book here.

We're also running some training with COVER for development workers in the East of England on 3rd November. This is going to build on the work we're doing with leaders in the area, and also what we ran through with delegates at COVER's Annual Conference in 2009.

You can take a look what the 40 participants from the Conference session we ran came up with as the main trends and forces for the third sector in COVER’s region over the next 5 years by downloading the PEST we put together here.

This month, the RSA is planning to address some of the key issues facing membership organisations at a free keynote speech event:

The Big Society: Challenges and opportunities for membership organisations
Tuesday, October 26, from 6- 7:15pm, RSA - book now

Nice article on smart cities - ties in neatly with what I've been reading about the British Council's Future City Game this week - although it's considerably less techy-orientated, it still keys into a wider rising trend in co-creation and de-centralised planning inititiatives. Move aside Mr Haussmann!

Thanks to Nick for passing me this excellent guest post by Jules Peck for Transition Culture on what the Big Society agenda might mean for the Transition Towns movement, and vice versa. Could we look at Transition Towns for clues about how the Big Society might pan out in practice? If you don’t already know what Transition Towns are – you can find out more about them here.

As a follow-up to our booked-out seminar, Campaigning Futures: What will campaigning look like in 5 years’ time, we’ll be running a companion e-seminar, From co-creation to mass participation, on the 28^th October 3-5pm.

Are you struggling to keep up with new campaigning tools? Or are you ahead of the wave and already designing campaigns with one eye on emerging trends, such as changing expectations of participation, and the growth of interactive technologies?

On the issue of empowered local communities, I have been intrigued by some of the recent developments in my own community, which arguably seems to be evolving along the much-mooted Big Society ideal.

If you're interested in looking into how web technologies and other emerging mass engagement techniques could impact on your future campaigns, book onto our breakfast seminar, Campaigning Futures: What will campaigning look like in 5 years’ time?

Issues we’ll be covering include

• The rise of social media and citizen journalism
• Fast changing expectations of participation
• "Controlling the message” in a viral communications era

Hi Megan,

They're great aren't they? They're been put together by Graphic Change I believe.

We're working on creating our own more visually accessible in-house PESTs as well right now, although I can't promise anything as beautiful as these!

We have just completed an in-depth collaborative project with Disability Lib to find out more about what the future could hold for disabled people’s organisations. We'll be posting the drivers that Disability Lib came up with during our work with them into our drivers bank very soon – so keep an eye on the site or sign up to our bulletin if you want to make sure you catch them as they go up.

With more and more “public” space under threat – both from the state due to government cuts, and through privatisation deals – do we need to start challenging the drive towards privatising public spaces?

space itself is being increasingly privatised via the back door

NCVO Third Sector Foresight are very pleased with how recent training with South West Forum went and - judging from our feedback - so were the participants:

“I found the workshop very insightful & stimulating and would love to work with colleagues on this process”

During both sessions of tailored training for South West-based leaders and development workers for infrastructure organisations, delegates were encouraged to identify the external trends or forces (drivers) most relevant to them.

On 10^th June 2010, Tessy Britton, Chair of the Royal Society for Arts Fellowship Council, Dave Boyle, CEO of Supporters Direct, and Charles Armstrong, Director and founder of One Click Orgs joined us to explore and deepen our understanding of what the future threats and opportunities are for civil society membership schemes.

In recognition of increasing need for professionalism in this area, Volunteering England has recently launched this Volunteer Management Portal, helping volunteer managers gain access to information on support, training and development opportunities.

Here at Foresight, we've been very struck by this online presentation on The Future of Email.

It has some great insights into what the future of online communications holds for us, and lists some significant trends, including the rise of public messenging services and people's increased identification with online communities.

What does the future hold for membership schemes?

With membership levels declining across many organisations, how can you make sure your membership scheme remains active and relevant in the next 5 years? How will your scheme respond to changes in technology, increased threats from the commercial sector, and changing expectations of participation?

NCVO Third Sector Foresight is very pleased to announce that we will be working with Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW) over the next few months to understand how the world is changing and how organisations in the North West region can use this knowledge to make better strategic decisions.

can anyone direct me to any good policy briefings analysing the major's parties positions towards the VCS?

Yes! NCVO have now produced summaries showing the commitments each party has made relating to the voluntary and community sector. You can check these summaries out here:

a unique and indispensible guide to anyone interested in the broad range of groups and organisations that make up the voluntary sector

Giving insight into how civil society organisations are changing, this year's Almanac is packed with essential information for policy makers and practitioners with an interest in voluntary organisations and civil society.

A free copy is now available to all NCVO full members (£125 for non members), but in the meantime, you can get a sneak preview here.

Gender and the Climate Change Agenda

The Women’s Environmental Network certainly argue that it is. In their recently launched report ‘Gender and the Climate Change Agenda’ (PDF), WEN state that

because of prescribed gender roles, and the fact that, the world over, women are more likely to live in poverty than men, women are disproportionately affected by climate change

Hi David,

Thanks for writing up you experience of training with Foresight - it's really interesting finding out how people put into practise the kind of strategic process outlined in our workshops.

If you're interested in reminding yourself about what was produced and discussed during training, you can now take a look at the PEST and the Headlines 'timeline' documents that were put together during this session.

I hope they're useful!

Bookings are now closed for Foresight training with VONNE.

If you're in the North East and couldn't make the training, you can find out more about how VONNE have worked with us to think about the future forces or trends (drivers) that will specifically affect the North East area by taking a look at some of the comments Jane Cater from VONNE has made on our national drivers.

More outcomes from our partnership will be made available on this site over the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled!