February 2025 – The International Civil Society Centre

Anticipating Futures of Volunteering: Insights from Budapest’s Foresight Workshop

26th February 2025 by Eva Gondor

In early February, we were invited to facilitate a foresight workshop in Budapest, Hungary, as part of a study session on “New Trends in International Voluntary Service” (IVS). Organised by the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS), the Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisations, International Cultural Youth Exchange (ICYE), Service Civil International (SCI), and the Network for Voluntary Development in Asia (NVDA), in collaboration with the Council of Europe, the study session aimed to explore emerging trends in IVS and strengthen participants’ ability to anticipate and respond to future challenges in volunteering and youth work.

A group of 30 young professionals from around the world, representing international voluntary networks and organisations, gathered at the European Youth Centre in Budapest to explore the future of international volunteering through the lens of futures thinking. While this methodology was new to many participants, it was embraced with great interest and enthusiasm. The Centre’s experience with futures thinking, particularly through our “Scanning the Horizon” community and the “Anticipating futures for civil society operating space” initiative, provided a solid foundation for guiding participants in applying foresight tools to their own contexts.

Exploring Trends Shaping the Future of Volunteering

The study session was guided by our “Toolkit for tomorrow: Anticipating civil society futures,” a resource we designed to help (international) civil society organisations strengthen their ability to anticipate future challenges, practice foresight, and build resilience. Through group discussions, participants explored key trends likely to shape IVS over the next decade, such as decolonisation, climate injustice, artificial intelligence, and the rise of new social movements. The importance of thinking ahead was central to the event, as one participant noted:

“We should already start planning based on future trends and not only focus on the current ones.”

To dive deeper into how these trends might impact the future, the participants were tasked with narrowing down a long list of trends to two key issues that they believed would most significantly influence IVS by 2035. Their choices were:

Climate injustice – Ongoing environmental degradation, extreme weather events, and resource insecurity will disproportionately affect certain regions and vulnerable groups, exacerbating existing inequalities.

Voluntourism demands – Volunteers prioritising personal travel experiences over genuine contributions to community work will shape the future of volunteering.

Crafting Scenarios for 2035: From Volun-Caring to Volun-Collapse

Creating future scenarios allows organisations to step beyond current assumptions and envision a wide range of possible outcomes, helping them prepare for uncertainty and make more proactive decisions. In the workshop, participants used a 2×2 matrix, a widely-used scenario-building tool, to explore how two key trends – voluntourism demands and climate injustice from a decolonial perspective – could unfold by 2035. By examining the interplay between high and low impacts of these trends, they developed four distinct scenarios for IVS:

The crafted scenarios provided vivid insights into where volunteering could be headed, depending on how these trends play out. They encouraged participants to reflect on how these futures might be similar or different from today. As one participant put it:

“Considering different possible futures could actually show us how close we are to some of them.”

Shaping the Future: Taking Action

The scenario workshop sparked great enthusiasm, and many participants expressed a desire to continue exploring and applying futures thinking in their own organisations and community work. The session inspired participants to think about the future in new ways, question their assumptions and biases, and embrace diverse experience and perspectives when imagining futures. As one participant reflected:

“There is hope to solve the upcoming problems. Through discussions and different points of view, we can get concrete ideas about future opportunities.”

The following day, the group brainstormed actions that IVS organisations could take to address the challenges and opportunities identified in the scenarios. They discussed ideas such as partnering with educational institutions and humanitarian organisations, learning from grassroots social movements, embracing social entrepreneurship, and decentralising structures. A follow-up session will take place in a few months to assess how these ideas have evolved into concrete projects.

Embracing Futures Thinking

Overall, the workshop underscored the value of futures thinking in helping to anticipate potential challenges and opportunities, empowering people to make better decisions today. Participants left with a deeper understanding of their own agency in navigating undesired futures and working towards preferred outcomes. As political theorist John Schaar once said:

“The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating.”

Inspired to Explore Futures Thinking for Yourself?

If you’re interested in learning more about how to apply futures thinking, check out our “Toolkit for tomorrow: Anticipating civil society futures.” This step-by-step guide takes readers through trend scanning, scenario building, and action planning. Originally published in English, the toolkit is now also available in French and Spanish.

Feel free to get in touch to explore ways we can collaborate on futures thinking.

Photos by Tavares Ferreira, Youth Department of the Council of Europe

Eva Gondor

Senior Project Manager

International Civil Society Centre

Eva leads on the Centre's civic space work - the Solidarity Action Network (SANE) aimed at strengthening resilience of and solidarity among civil society actors, and the International Civic Forum (ICF), our annual civic space platform to network and identify opportunities for collaboration. Prior to joining the Centre she worked at the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Foundation) in Stuttgart where she managed the foundation’s projects focusing on civil society and governance in Turkey, the Western Balkans, and North Africa.

Trends and Signals for Policy Makers

25th February 2025 by Rachel Wilkinson

Earlier this month, our Director of Programmes, Rachel Wilkinson, was invited to speak to EU policy makers to share the Centre’s work on strategic foresight, signals and trends. The European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) is an inter-institutional collaboration among the officials of the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, and the European External Action Service, with the support of the Committee of the Regions and of the European Economic and Social Committee. It monitors global trends and offers strategic foresight to the EU’s decision-makers. The meeting saw policy makers from across all EU institutions come together and learn about trends and discuss their possible implications.

The value of futures thinking

Futures thinking can help us navigate uncertainty by revealing the interplay of dynamic trends, identifying risks, opportunities, and innovations, and creating a collective vision for the future. At the Centre, we have been promoting futures thinking to civil society organisations for many years. Scanning the Horizon is our established collaborative platform for trend scouting and analysis in the international civil society sector. It includes leading ICSOs, national CSO umbrella organisations, philanthropy, and futurists. Members utilise futures skills and methods to shape and adapt their strategies. From this community and other programmatic work on futures thinking, such as our toolkit for tomorrow, we have developed futures resources to support civil society.

It is important for civil society to have a voice and be included in conversations with policy makers. At the Centre, we bring forward different perspectives and can share a global view of trends and signals. At the gathering of ESPAS, we had a unique opportunity to share our approach on futures thinking and the methods we use to develop futures thinking resources, such as trends mapping and signal spotting, through which we seek diverse inputs and ask critical questions to challenging our assumptions about the signals and trends we see emerging.

Taking a participatory approach to futures thinking

We take a participatory approach to our futures thinking. This allows for more inclusive and transformative futures to emerge, enabling out-of-the-box thinking with diverse input building upon our past experiences. By seeking a broader range of opinions and situations from a global perspective, we enable more inclusive and transformative futures to emerge. For policymakers, these wider perspectives ensure the implications on civil society organisations are better understood and more robust and future-proof policies are developed.

Trends and Signals

Our recent work highlights several key trends impacting the civic space. This includes Mis, Dis, and Mal information: AI-driven manipulation, erosion of trust in public institutions, and the rise of opinion engineering through social media. These trends can harm trust, democracy, and social cohesion, and CSOs need tools and strategies to address mitigating these effects.

Our work on anticipating futures examined trends on civic space. Key trends in this area are the increase in global conflicts, crises of multilateralism, tech solutionism, the influence of corporations, securitisation, disinformation, demographic shifts, growing inequalities, and climate injustice. All these interlinking and overarching themes need to be addressed to strengthen civic space. How we react to these challenges is vital for maintaining social stability, promoting human rights, and upholding the rule of law within the EU and globally.

CSOs and Futures Thinking

In an increasingly uncertain world, CSOs must look beyond immediate challenges and consider the long-term possibilities that could shape their work. Strategic foresight and futures thinking enable CSOs to make better decisions today about tomorrow.

Rapid changes are adversely affecting CSOs and the communities we serve, making it essential to adopt a proactive and forward-thinking approach. By considering various possible futures and recognising key signals of change, CSOs can build resilience and agility. This strategic mindset not only enhances decision-making but also ensures that CSOs remain adaptable in an ever-evolving landscape.

For more information about our futures work and that of the ESPAS please see:

ESPAS (external website homepage)
Toolkit for Tomorrow: Anticipating Civil Society Futures (toolkit) – Now also available to download in French and Spanish.
Insights and Foresights: Learnings on mis-, dis-, and malinformation (resource collection)

Rachel Wilkinson

Programme Manager – Futures and Innovation

International Civil Society Centre

Rachel leads the Futures and Innovation programme at the Centre. She is responsible for managing the portfolio of projects and events as well as leading and developing the Scanning the Horizon strategic peer learning platform. Rachel has more than 15 years of experience working in the third sector, on a national and international level, working for various ICSOs in international development and human rights in both London and Berlin.

Scanning the Horizon: Exploring futures with Horizon 2045

12th February 2025 by Alexandra Schlegel

In a world defined by complexity – climate crises, technological revolutions and geo-political shifts – how do we move beyond reacting to today’s problems to proactively preparing for the future? At a recent Scanning the Horizon community session, we turned to the Horizon 2045 Foresight Radar, a cutting-edge tool, to explore this question. The session was facilitated by our member Climate-KIC along with Horizon 2045.

The session introduced the Horizon 2045 Foresight Radar – a participatory tool that maps signals of change across seven broad themes, from technology and geo-politics to the environment and social dynamics. What sets it apart is its ability to go beyond cataloguing trends, instead inviting users to explore interconnections, imagine plausible scenarios, and engage in collaborative, systems-level thinking.

As we delved into the radar during the session, participants were struck by the diversity and scale of signals it tracks – more than 500 spanning the globe. It challenged us to ask: How do these signals connect? What stories do they tell about the future? And how can we act on them?

One breakout activity, “Radar Roulette”, was a playful yet revealing exercise. Participants explored random signals on the radar and debated their implications. Whether discussing advancements in AI or shifts in global health governance.

For CSOs, the radar can be a practical tool. Futures thinking equips organisations to step out of crisis-response mode and adopt longer-term, systemic approaches. The session reinforced that horizon scanning can help CSOs to spot early signals of disruption or opportunity for transformation, build adaptive strategies that are flexible to change, and strengthen collaboration by connecting diverse actors across disciplines and geographies.

Push and pull of futures triangle diagram — Source: Inayatullah, S. (2008) Six Pillars: Futures Thinking for Transforming Foresight, 10(1): 4-21.

For civil society organisations, the Horizon 2045 Foresight Radar is more than just an intellectual exercise – it’s a transformative tool. Futures thinking empowers organisations to step out of reactive, crisis-response modes and adopt long-term, systemic strategies. The session underscored that horizon scanning helps (I)CSOs identify early signals of disruption or opportunity, craft flexible and adaptive strategies, and foster collaboration across disciplines and geographies. By using the radar, (I)CSOs can make informed decisions today that will pave the way for a more resilient and equitable tomorrow.

Let’s use tools such as the Horizon 2045 Foresight Radar to anticipate challenges, seize opportunities, and build a future that works for both people and the planet. Together, we can move beyond merely reacting to crises and instead create strategies that transform and inspire.

Links

Feature image: Adapted still of the Horizon 2045 Foresight Radar designed by Pupul Bisht.

Alexandra Schlegel

Programme and Events Officer

International Civil Society Centre

Alexandra joined the Centre in January 2022. Her background is in Political Science and International Relations. She holds a MA in International Relations from Leiden University in the Netherlands next to her BA in Political Science and History from the University of Tübingen, Germany. In her master thesis, Alexandra wrote about the humanitarian impacts of migration agreements. During her studies, she was strongly engaged in voluntary work with different international organisations. She has lived in Germany, the UK, the Netherlands as well as Jordan and is currently living in Berlin.