Dear friends,

Since the wrapping of our December convening for a Constitution for 2076, our team has been hard at work compiling the insights and learnings from that convening to inform and refine future strategies.

At 2 PM EST on January 22nd, 2024, we will gather for a virtual briefing to go deeper into both the report and the facilitation guide, which we developed so that partners and organizers can easily incorporate our strategic foresight processes into their work. We will also share more about our strategies and next steps, and answer any questions you might have. You can RSVP for the briefing here.:

For those of you who will not be able to join us but are interested in reading reflections and results from our December convening, we are excited to share this report with you now (PDF version is here). The report includes:

• An outline of the strategic foresight process we ran at the convening;

• The proposed amendments that emerged from that process, which  run the gamut from universal basic income to rights for future generations to changing how elections are run and how Congress’s governs; and

• Data and analysis from participants on how this more long-term oriented effort will influence their work at their home organizations and the democracy field more broadly.

For just a sampling of the magnitude and impact of this convening on participants:

• Over half of participants had never participated in scenario planning before, and for those who had, an overwhelming majority had done so on timelines of 10 years or less. After the convening, 78% of participants plan to replicate or incorporate elements of the strategic foresight process we developed into their work.

• At the beginning of our time together, only 7.5% of participants felt that the democracy ecosystem has sufficient solutions to meet expected challenges over the next 50 years; by the end of the convening, nearly 75% of participants were confident that there are clear effective solutions we can advocate for to meet those challenges. 

• 100% of participants said they deepened existing relationships or formed new ones. This is essential because one of our goals was to create a diverse community devoted to forward-thinking, intersectional approaches for renewing American democracy.

To hear about participants’ experiences in their own words, see this video for another look at the impact of our time together.

All of this work has laid fertile ground for what we plan to accomplish in June. As the 2024 election cycle brings the challenges to our democracy to the forefront, Democracy 2076 aims to support the existing ecosystem by providing focused, long-term anchors to the field without detracting from organizations’ priorities on urgent, short-term work. When our cohort of organizers, advocates, scholars, and futurists reconvenes in June, we will be well-prepared to create and launch our long-term strategies to bring these amendments from the drawing board to the governing chamber. 

It might seem strange to be talking about fifty year timelines when the stakes for this election year have never felt more urgent or existential. But building sustainable and flexible infrastructure for effective, responsible, and representative governance requires long term thinking and engagement. Previous constitutional changes have come at pivotal periods in American history, when tensions have impelled the need for structural change, such as during Reconstruction, the Great Depression, and the Progressive Era. With the technological industrial shifts and polarization of the last decade, we are poised for similar political innovation. The opportunity is there, provided the democracy movement has the resources and support to take advantage of it.

If you’d like to learn more about any aspect of this work––including Democracy 2076’s efforts to shape political party realignments and encourage protopian storytelling in popular media––I’m only an email away. Looking forward to having many of you join us on the 22nd.

Onwards towards a better, brighter, more democratic 2024,
Aditi