At a session at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas this past March, Forum for the Future (Forum) and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) asked attendees to describe their dream future society.

Responses were overwhelmingly positive, describing futures that are sustainable, harmonious, creative and peaceful. Yet, there is often tension between these hopeful future visions and the uncertain, disruptive realities with which we are confronted. This can be overwhelming, discouraging, and paralyzing.

So, we asked ourselves: how can we, as a diverse community of changemakers, actively work to create a positive future where dignity and hope thrive?

The session at SXSW was one step in the journey towards creating Forging Futures: A Strategic Decision-Making Game for Resilient Societies (“Forging Futures”), a game developed by RPA with support from Forum. It was presented at SXSW as part of the Dubai Future Foundation’s Museum of the Future House. The game, created by leaders in the philanthropy community for the global philanthropic sector, helps decisionmakers to think and act differently to enable a hopeful future.

There is often tension between these hopeful future visions and the uncertain, disruptive realities with which we are confronted. This can be overwhelming, discouraging, and paralyzing. How can we, as a diverse community of changemakers, actively work to create a positive future where dignity and hope thrive?

At Forum, we are constantly working in pursuit of a just and regenerative future. We use tools like futures and foresight to help us better understand the societal forces, niche innovations, and mindsets that shape the future—all with the aim of creating a future that is more sustainable, and desirable for all. We create change by supporting businesses and philanthropies who share our vision.

The session conducted at SXSW by Forum and RPA in March 2025, part of the process in creating the Forging Futures game.

Forging Futures: the game

Games have been proven to provide a creative, action-oriented way to experiment within the current system and imagine how we might create impact. They offer an immersive format where players can experience the future, play roles, and make decisions under uncertain conditions in a way that they cannot in their day-to-day settings.

RPA set out to create Forging Futures as an instrument that combines role-playing, storytelling and visual and experiential futurism as a subtle way of exercising important cognitive “muscles” without realizing it. While building seemingly fictional societies, philanthropies gain essential real-world skills that can strengthen their organizations, sharpen strategic clarity, and create conditions for innovative, unexpected and powerful solutions to emerge.

So, where does one start? In playing Forging Futures, participants must first think about the legacy inherited by their society that shaped what it is today.

For example, imagine you live in a society founded by a Green Transitionist. Starting with limited resources provided by your founder, you must first decide whether you want to continue the inherited legacy or depart from it. Then, you must use these limited resources to build the society you desire while navigating unexpected and disruptive events that impact your resilience.

Ultimately, the game is about strategic choices related to resources, and what you think will shape the future world for the better.

 

Samples of cards players use in the Forging Futures game.

Playing games to strengthen strategies, innovations, and effectiveness

Forging Futures invites players to weigh these considerations as they move through three rounds, aiming to build the most resilient society and become the architect of the future world. Similarly to challenges faced by philanthropic organizations and other changemakers, strategic decisions become increasingly complex as the game progresses and disruptions escalate. When there is only enough time, funding and resources for one project, but a sustainable and harmonious society needs support for all projects, how do you choose? How can you consider other perspectives when making these critical decisions?

Playing this game helps philanthropies and related organizations sharpen strategies, interventions and organizational effectiveness by:

• Enabling team building, alignment, and shared understanding around different visions of the future that sit across the organization, as well as different capabilities and strategic pathways for implementing those visions.
• Connecting the dots and bridging viewpoints, ideas, expertise, lived experiences, and realities across various verticals within organizations, as well as between funders and nonprofit partners.
• Practicing making disciplined strategic choices under the conditions of complexity, uncertainty and risk—a difficult but crucial organizational habit.
• Honing the ability to strategize and think imaginatively about the long term.
• Spotting signals of change and understanding what they mean for “the what” and “the how” of the organization’s work.
• Engaging in more authentic collective sensemaking conversations with a broad range of ecosystem partners, including frontline activists and communities.

When there is only enough time, funding and resources for one project, but a sustainable and harmonious society needs support for all projects, how do you choose? How can you consider other perspectives when making these critical decisions?

Our process of creating the game

RPA’s concept for the game grew out of its Foresight and Futures Initiative and the need for the philanthropic sector to be able to anticipate change, create more robust and equitable strategies, and hone organizational innovation. Forum joined RPA to support bringing the game to life through our Futures practice. The game came out of a need to bring more imagination and creativity in pursuit of a better future and officially launched in June 2025.

To create the game, a design team comprising Forum and RPA worked to gather insights from the Foresight & Futures Community of Practice and additional partners. We augmented these insights with desk research, interviews, and signal scanning to capture developments, ideas, and innovations that point to a future that is different from today, but still possible.

In working with RPA, we learned that, in addition to external challenges, many of the challenges faced by philanthropy are internal. These result from legacy constraints dating back to the founding of the organization, aversion to risks associated with funding, and having to allocate limited resources in an environment calling for so many diverse funding needs. From this, we began to consider the question:

How might the philanthropic community and nonprofit partners develop new strategies and embed futures-focused thinking to build anticipatory and imaginative muscles, and respond to fast-moving world challenges in the near and long-term future?

The input from the international philanthropic sector grounded the game in reality and informed the game mechanics. By engaging a broad international community of stakeholders, we ensured that the game was globally relevant and culturally sensitive.

Forging Futures enables individuals and organizations to practice acting and making decisions amidst uncertainty and complexity, mirroring the real world and strengthening futures dexterity. These skills are invaluable to co-creating a more just and regenerative future.

Get in touch at [email protected] or [email protected] to learn more.