By amalia deloney
In the evolving landscape of societal transformation, the concept of public interest has long ensured that essential services — legal advocacy, healthcare, and education — are accessible to all, particularly marginalized communities. Public interest law ensures that justice isn’t just for those who can afford it, while public health initiatives address systemic inequities in access to medical care. These professions exist because we recognize that some fields should not be driven purely by market forces or government control but instead should serve the broader social good.
Yet when it comes to futures thinking — the ability to anticipate, imagine, and shape long-term possibilities — there is no public interest pathway. Foresight careers are still largely confined to corporate strategy departments, government agencies, public policy think tanks, management consulting firms, and military strategy departments. Meanwhile, communities on the frontlines of social, economic, and environmental change are left reacting to futures they did not design.
This is a problem.
In my own work, I see firsthand the growing demand for more inclusive, community-driven foresight practices. Across the U.S. there are communities that need tools to anticipate climate migration, reimagine community safety, and rethink civic engagement in the digital age. But too often, futures thinking remains an elite field, inaccessible to the people who need it most.
It’s Time for a Public Interest Futures Brigade
Public interest careers exist in other fields. Consider Equal Justice Works, which funds fellowships for law school graduates to pursue social justice work. Programs such as the Public Interest Law Center, train lawyers to use their expertise for systemic change. The Public Interest Network offers early-career professionals opportunities to advocate for environmental and consumer protection.
But no such public interest track exists for foresight professionals. If we believe that futures thinking should not be the exclusive domain of the powerful, we need to create structured pathways for futurists to work in service of the public good.
The Public Interest Futures Brigade is not just another fellowship or professional development program — it is a mobilization. A brigade is a movement, a collective force that works in sustained partnership with communities to democratize access to foresight tools and methodologies. Unlike short-term fellowships that parachute experts into communities for a few months, a brigade creates embedded futurists —practitioners who work long-term, shoulder to shoulder with local organizations, activists, and civic leaders to shape more just, regenerative futures.
Just as public interest lawyers work to challenge unjust laws and public health professionals focus on disease prevention, public interest futurists would ensure that communities have the ability to proactively design their own futures.
Where a Public Interest Futures Brigade Could Make the Biggest Impact
Through my own work, I’ve witnessed four critical areas where a Public Interest Futures Brigade could radically shift outcomes for communities:
1. Climate Emergency Resilience
Every day, communities experience the impact of climate change — flooding, extreme heat, wildfires, food insecurity. Yet, much of climate adaptation planning happens at the national or corporate level, often excluding those most affected.
A Public Interest Futures Brigade could:
Work with frontline communities to co-create adaptation strategies, ensuring that disaster response planning prioritizes the most vulnerable populations.
Run community-led scenario planning workshops to help people anticipate and prepare for extreme climate events.
Design speculative prototypes for regenerative food, water, and energy systems tailored to the realities of local ecosystems.
These strategies would shift climate planning from top-down crisis management to grassroots resilience-building.
2. Community and Neighborhood Development
Gentrification, displacement, and crumbling infrastructure threaten the fabric of many communities. Traditional urban planning often prioritizes developers over residents, treating communities as data points instead of partners in their own futures.
A Public Interest Futures Brigade could:
Partner with housing justice organizations and neighborhood coalitions to imagine alternative land ownership models that prevent displacement.
Use foresight-driven participatory design to ensure that new urban developments are centered in equity and sustainability, not just profit-driven growth.
Prototype community-owned digital infrastructures, ensuring that future smart city initiatives actually serve local populations rather than increase pervasive surveillance and data extraction.
Foresight in urban planning should empower neighborhoods to shape their own development rather than be shaped by external forces.
3. Civic Engagement & Democracy Innovation
Public trust in democratic institutions is eroding. Mis/disinformation, political polarization, and AI-driven manipulation threaten the integrity of civic discourse. Instead of reacting to these crises in hindsight, public interest futurists could help communities design new democratic models before they collapse.
A Public Interest Futures Brigade could:
Work with civic leaders to imagine new forms of participatory governance, including deliberative democracy and citizens’ assemblies.
Develop foresight strategies to combat misinformation, ensuring that communities have the tools to navigate a rapidly shifting media landscape.
Prototype AI-assisted civic engagement models that enhance — not erode — public trust.
The future of democracy cannot be left solely in the hands of policymakers and tech corporations. Communities must have a seat at the table in shaping governance models that reflect their values.
4. Community Safety Redesign
The current justice system disproportionately harms communities of color, criminalizing poverty and mental illness while underinvesting in alternatives to policing. Many cities are searching for new approaches to public safety, but without a structured way to explore futures beyond the status quo, change is incremental at best.
A Public Interest Futures Brigade could:
Work with community safety advocates to imagine alternative public safety and wellbeing models that prioritize mental health, restorative justice, and de-escalation.
Develop scenarios that forecast the impacts of AI-driven surveillance and predictive policing, ensuring that new technologies do not reinforce racial and economic inequities.
Prototype community-led safety interventions, ensuring that public safety is not reduced to policing alone.
Foresight could help communities move beyond reactive reforms toward proactive, visionary solutions.
Removing Barriers to Public Interest Foresight
Despite its importance, foresight education is largely inaccessible.
Graduate programs in foresight — such as those at the University of Houston and Ontario College of Art & Design University, — cost between $30,000–$50,000 and offer few (if any) scholarships, for any student.
Most foresight jobs exist in corporate consulting, tech, and government, with no clear pathway for those who want to work in civil society.
Funding for public interest foresight is virtually nonexistent, meaning that those who wish to bring futures thinking into community spaces often do so on their own dime.
If we truly believe that foresight is not a luxury, but a necessity, then we must remove the barriers.
What will it Take to Build a Public Interest Futures Brigade?
We don’t have to start from scratch — there are successful models to learn from. The Public Interest Law Program (PILP) and the Public Interest Fellowship (PIF) have created structured pathways for lawyers and policy experts to work in social justice. Why not foresight?
A Public Interest Futures Brigade would require:
Scholarships and Paid Fellowships – Dedicated funding to train foresight practitioners who want to work in public interest spaces.
Long-Term Community Partnerships – Embedding futurists in neighborhood organizations, social movements, and local governments.
Policy and Advocacy Work – Pushing for public sector funding for futures thinking, just as we invest in public health and public interest law.
Open-Access Futures Toolkits – Making foresight tools available to grassroots organizations, so futures work is not reliant on expensive consulting firms.
The future should not be dictated solely by corporate strategy teams and government agencies. It’s time to train and fund public interest futurists who will bring foresight into community spaces — because the future belongs to all of us.
The Future Cannot Be Left to Corporations and Governments Alone
We are at a pivotal moment in history. Climate instability, democratic erosion, and widening economic inequality are reshaping the world around us. If foresight remains an exclusive tool for corporate strategy teams and unaccountable government agencies, then the future will continue to be designed for profit and power — not for people.
A Public Interest Futures Brigade is not just a bold vision — it is an urgent necessity. Without dedicated public interest futurists working alongside communities, we risk deepening existing inequities and reinforcing structures that exclude the very people most impacted by change.
Foresight should not be a luxury. It should not be confined to think tanks, elite consulting firms, or billion-dollar innovation hubs. It must be democratized, resourced, and placed in service of civil society.
The time for action is now. Let’s move foresight out of boardrooms and into communities.
Let’s build the brigade.
© amalia deloney, 2025
amalia deloney was bitten by the futures bug in fourth grade through Future Problem Solving, sparking a lifelong passion for foresight and systems change. As a strategic foresight practitioner, design strategist, and founder of point A studio, she helps organizations and communities navigate complexity and build regenerative futures. With a background in law, philanthropy, and human rights, amalia has spent decades working at the intersection of power, policy, and systemic transformation. She is particularly committed to participatory methods that empower neighborhood and community leaders, ensuring those closest to the challenges shape the futures they envision. amalia can be reached here.
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