Building Lifeboats to the Emerging Futures with Sophia Parker of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Nov 22, 2023
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Sophia Parker, Emerging Futures Director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, discusses exploring paradigm shifts, challenging late stage capitalism, and supporting regenerative alternatives. They delve into trauma culture versus initiation cultures, address urgent poverty issues, and emphasize the importance of engaging the wider population to create a regenerative future. A call to action for immediate change is made.
The Emerging Futures Program focuses on nurturing emergent possibilities for social and cultural equity by connecting visionaries and exploring paradigm shifts.
Changing the dominant narrative and expanding people's imagination of what's possible is a key aspect of the Emerging Futures Program's work.
Supporting and resourcing organizations that are working towards building regenerative futures and questioning prevailing systems is crucial for meaningful change.
Deep dives
Navigating the Emerging Futures
The Emerging Futures Program at the Joseph Rountree Foundation aims to nurture emergent possibilities for social and cultural equity while addressing poverty and injustice. They connect visionaries, explore paradigm shifts, and support an ecosystem of transformation. Despite the sense of fear and uncertainty for the future, they emphasize the importance of maintaining hope and taking action today. They seek to change the narrative, challenge dominant rational views, and expand people's sense of what's possible. They also focus on leveraging resources and exploring hacks in systems like philanthropy and investments.
Changing the Dominant Narrative
The Emerging Futures Program recognizes the need to change the stories we tell and the narratives that shape our society. They draw inspiration from Margaret Wheatley's two loops model, understanding the decline of the old system and the emergence of a new one. They aim to name, connect, nourish, and illuminate the alternative possibilities already in existence. Through storytelling and creating longing for more beautiful futures, they work to shift the dominant narrative and expand people's imagination of what's possible.
Challenges and Courage in Transition
The work of navigating the emerging futures is not without its challenges. It requires courage, vulnerability, and resilience. Operating in a system that resists change and holds on to established power structures can be difficult. They acknowledge the discomfort and emotions that arise in this process. They emphasize the importance of addressing privilege, biases, and ongoing personal growth. At an institutional level, they strive to be transparent, open, and willing to learn, while encouraging others to do the same.
Deepening and Supporting the Emergent Visionary Ecosystem
The podcast episode explores the importance of dedicating time and attention to nurturing an emergent visionary ecosystem rather than solely focusing on winning over individuals stuck in existing institutions. It emphasizes that the success of this ecosystem is crucial and requires learning from each other and being open to new possibilities. The speaker highlights the disorienting and messy nature of transitional periods, stressing the need to let go of mental frameworks that no longer serve us well. They also discuss the importance of inner shifts and bodily experiences in creating meaningful and impactful change.
Resourcing Alternatives and Building a Regenerative Future
The podcast episode delves into the necessity of resourcing and supporting organizations that are working towards building regenerative futures and questioning the prevailing systems. It highlights the fragility of these alternative initiatives and the need for non-extractive, democratic, patient, and long-term forms of funding. The conversation touches on the limitations of mainstream investment models and impact investing, advocating for a reimagining of wealth and investment that aligns with transformation, equity, and solidarity. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of addressing change at multiple levels, including regulation, policy, governance, and narrative.
My guest this week is someone who is both right at the edge of the emerging futures and in a position to exert leverage at some of the highest points of the scale at which change happens.
Sophia Parker is the Emerging Futures Director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a philanthropic organisation with a long history of progressive work, aiming for social and cultural equity. It is still committed to the research that sheds new light onto the nature and scale of poverty and injustice in the UK. It is still advocating for change and supporting the people who are making it happen - but newly it is supporting those who are at the leading edge of paradigm shift, exploring all the myriad ways we could break out of late stage capitalism and towards that more flourishing future our hearts know is possible.
And there are so many ways - one of the many things I took on board from this conversation was the number of people and organisations around the world who are working in and expanding the radical spaces we've touched on recently with Indy Johar and then Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy.
In her role as the Director of the Emerging Futures Programme, Sophia is working at the heart of the change, connecting ideas, exploring how best to support them in ways that will grow us forward and not just keep propping up the old system and the old narratives. She's delving deeply into ways to change the narrative, the levels at which that happens, where are the tipping points in our culture and how do we support and entire ecosystem of transformation. Near the top of the hour, we talked about hope and truly, I came away from this conversation a lot more hopeful than when we started.
Bio: Sophia Parker was CEO of Little Village, the London-based charity she founded in 2016 that works to tackle child poverty. Now, she is the Emerging Futures Director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a philanthropic organisation with a long history of progressive work, aiming for social equity. The Emerging Futures programme was set up to imagine and grow radical new approaches to tackling poverty, in collaboration with partners and people with lived experience of poverty. Previously she has held senior leadership positions in think tanks and charities, as well as working in government locally and nationally, and was a Research Associate at Harvard's Kennedy School).
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