#09: Shaping better futures
A Q&A with Vicky Tongue
Pass It On is a bi-weekly newsletter bringing the tech and non-profit sectors closer together through knowledge sharing, written and edited by Lauren Crichton.
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Hello there!
It's been two weeks since I reflected on Pass It On and shared some of my ambitions for its future. As part of my commitment to lifting more voices from the non-profit sector, I've been in touch with some inspiring leaders and can't wait for you to hear their stories in the coming weeks and months.
I'm also really excited for you to hear from this week's Q&A guest: Vicky Tongue, Head of Futures & Innovation at the International Civil Society Centre (ICS Centre).
Vicky is a fellow Pass It On reader and another person I've had the pleasure of meeting through this newsletter. With her work at the ICS Centre sitting at the intersection of so many types of organisations, disciplines, and challenges, Vicky's answers remind us that our sectors' continued dialogue is vital for shaping a better tomorrow.
🔮 Shaping futures for social good with Vicky Tongue
What exactly is "Civil Society," and how does a Civil Society Organisation differ from a Non-Governmental Organisation?
You start with a hard one! There isn't one single definition, but put very simply, civil society is the 'third sector' of society: non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community groups, self-help groups, grassroots activists, social movements, trade unions, faith groups, academia, and more.
The difference between a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) and NGO isn't clear-cut either. But since NGOs often have a formal, typically charitable status that affects what they can and can't do, we can say that all NGOs are CSOs, but not all CSOs are NGOs.
Tell us about the ICS Centre's mission.
Our mission is to strengthen the impact and resilience of International CSOs (ICSOs) and support people to change their world for the better. The ICSOs we collaborate with work across environmental, sustainable development, human rights, social justice, and humanitarian issues. We're actually owned by 15 of the leading ICSOs, including Amnesty, Oxfam, Plan International, and Save the Children.
Our Centre aims to act as a:
🤝 Convenor
We hold peer workshops and leadership conferences that enable civil society practitioners to connect, collaborate, and co-create around ideas that challenge conventional thinking.
♾️ Platform for collaboration
We develop projects and partnerships that tackle common problems, such as challenges to civic space, and co-ordinate shared global initiatives like monitoring the inclusive progress of The Sustainable Development Goals.
💡 Innovator
I lead this area. Here, we seek out the latest innovations and analyse how they can help ICSOs achieve greater impact. We also scan for the future developments and major driving forces that civil society needs to prepare for and adapt to. Recent innovation reports include populism in a digital era and urban inclusion.
Your upcoming innovation report is on Inclusive Digital Transformation. What does digital inclusion involve, and why does it matter now?
Digital inclusion is about ensuring that everyone can access, use, and benefit from the internet. It is a challenging task: technology is evolving exponentially, but the select and empowered few setting the agenda for its governance and use are unaware of how their decisions affect people who aren't like them. This negatively affects marginalised and disadvantaged communities.
In my opinion, the pandemic has highlighted that the public and private sectors are more capable than NGOS at using technology to scale inclusive innovation rapidly. While small grassroots groups and startups have been launching new digital services and creating social good (like this project database for blockchain), established international NGOs have focused much more on using technology to optimise what they already do (e.g., fundraising, campaigning, research).
Part of the ICS Centre's role is to help these larger ICSOs understand what technological developments might mean—both the benefits and harm they can cause—and use their influence and reach to encourage the former.
The case studies in our innovation reports help us do that. This year, we want to highlight solutions and initiatives that have put people and nature first and put digital rights or ethical and sustainability values into practice. If you have a relevant case to share, please get in touch!
Your title is Head of Futures and Innovation, with futures in the plural. I'm sure that's no accident. Can you tell us why?
It is indeed no accident! The future is unwritten, so any number of possibilities could play out, some of which you may want to help realise because they're preferable to you. Since no one can be right about the future before it happens, there's an incredible opportunity for dialogue around these possibilities. But unless you include diverse perspectives and worldviews in the conversation, you risk shaping futures that are built on blind spots. Creating more inclusive and equitable futures is a key collaboration area for us at the ICS Centre.
Futures (or futures literacy or thinking) advocates for the long-term view. The practice helps ensure that today's strategic decisions and innovations can withstand the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) contexts of tomorrow. Futures thinking also recognises that everything is interconnected (as the COVID-19 pandemic has acutely exposed) and enables us to prepare better and aspire to do better.
Futures thinking has a reputation for being quite theoretical and time-consuming. What accessible resources would you recommend for individuals and teams looking to try it out?
The Long Time Tools - full of interesting techniques to cultivate a culture of long-term thinking within organisations.
The Uncertain Times Tools - helps individuals manage complexity and navigate uncertainty.
Imagining Feminist Futures after COVID-19 - a fantastic online workshop method we've been using thanks to our partnership with the International Women's Development Agency. Any team can use it to spark valuable conversations. I wrote about our experiences here.
The Future Is Ours - a brilliant introductory toolkit on strategic foresight from Save the Children and the School of International Futures (SOIF). We spoke to them about it in this webinar.
How can tech companies support the ICS Centre?
Beyond project funding and events sponsorship (which is always appreciated!), we're looking for collaboration and partnership. CSOs can learn so much from the experiences and ideas of tech companies and vice versa. How do we use emerging tech in ethical and inclusive ways? What use cases are relevant for ICSOs? These kinds of questions lead to fruitful discussions, like in 2019 when we co-organised a Blockchain for Good Summit with NetHope.
We also welcome thought leadership contributions. You could guest-write a blog post or be an interviewee on our Civil Society Futures and Innovation podcast. And you can join our monthly Digital Debates on topics like the digital gender gap. Ideas for future debates or panel discussions are welcome, too!
How can Pass It On readers stay in touch with you?
Email me at vtongue@icscentre.org or connect on LinkedIn.
Request regular updates on the ICS Centre or sign up for the monthly futures newsletter by contacting communications@icscentre.org.
And please submit any potential case studies for the ICS Centre's 2021 Innovation Report.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Thank you, Vicky 🙏
This past year may have seemed unthinkable, but it wasn’t. Where would we be now if we’d been more prepared? We owe it to ourselves, our organisations, and our planet to start looking further ahead in whatever ways we can.
I’d love to hear your reflections and questions. Reply to this email or why not spark a discussion:
See you in two weeks,
Lauren 👋