Infrastructure for imagination
The Collective Imagination Practice Community (CIPC) was rooted in a clear set of beliefs, articulated by JRF's Emerging Futures Team. First, that collective imagination - the capacity to sense, feel and dream toward other worlds - is one of the most important ways we have for turning away from systems that aren't working for people or planet. Second, that relationality is a core tenet of systems change work: we are deeply interconnected with other humans, plants, animals and the more-than-human world and our ways of learning and being must reflect that. And third, that imagination capacity is a muscle: it grows the more people practice it, in more places, in more ways.
In 2023, as part of their wider Imagination Infrastructures work, JRF initiated an experiment to put those beliefs into practice - bringing together Huddlecraft, Canopy, and the Centre for Public Impact to co-create the CIPC. Our role was to help create the conditions - to build and tend to the infrastructure that a community of practice could grow and flourish through. An ecosystem of learning and practice.
That meant co-designing and creating a Fund Circle model that put microfunding directly into community hands, building capacity and culture around peer learning through Huddles and Curiousity Circles, and nurturing the connective tissue - events, rituals, practices, documentation, platforms - that keeps a distributed and global community of practice connected and thriving over time.
What emerged belonged to the 1,700+ practitioners who made it. The breadth alone is hard to describe: a card deck using ecological metaphors for endings, now used in boardrooms and community halls worldwide; 300 young people in Portugal who surprised their own teachers by engaging boldly with questions of power and governance; live-action roleplaying games exploring Black futures; peatlands and grief held together in a workshop; ancestral wisdom practices and dance as tools for systemic change; a community in Kampala reimagining its relationship with a threatened wetland. Over four years, 92+ projects like these took shape.
Pedro Reis of AltGov Portugal captures something of what the community grew:
"Before CIPC, we didn't have a name for what we did. Now we can dream bigger."
These glimpses are just that, glimpses. The CIPC website, Seed Library, Medium blog hold far more. We'd invite you to explore them, and to talk with us about what's possible when a community of practice has infrastructure to grow into.
AltGov, Portugal — Pedro Reis and the Komuhn team in Peniche used micro-funding to run imagination workshops with over 300 disengaged young people, exploring governance, fairness and alternative futures. Teachers who had been sceptical were surprised by how the students responded. The work seeded a follow-on project, Imaginarium Commons, and helped the team find the language to describe and grow their practice.
Tending to Endings — a 3-month Huddle hosted by Ally Kingston brought together 12 practitioners to explore how imagination can help us work through death and loss. What emerged was a beautifully designed deck of 12 facilitation cards inspired by ecological metaphors for endings - composting, harvesting, pruning, the bonfire. Over 500 sets are now being used worldwide, from community gatherings to boardrooms, to help people navigate endings.
A regenerative future for Kiwaatule, Uganda — Abdul Semakula grew a regenerative imagination practice with residents and landowners in Kiwaatule, Kampala, working toward mutual flourishing of people and a threatened wetland. Three rounds of micro-funding grew the work from neighbourhood kinship dialogues to a new Obuntu-based governance system, with partners now spanning Makerere University, Columbia University's Climate School, and Kampala Capital City Authority.
Town Anywhere — Ruth Ben-Tovim received micro-funding to develop and communicate Town Anywhere, a one-day immersive experience enabling groups of 50–300 people to collectively imagine and prototype a regenerative future town. The funding helped take the practice from embryo to a mature, compelling offer - securing 5 new commissions and substantial follow-on funding for further development.
A screenshot of the Collective Imagination Practice Community blog page.