Which horizon are you looking to?

It’s a damp late summer day in Glasgow. Staring out of the window, there are lots of layers of the cityscape I could look to, and the weather is ever changing.

I am thinking about the International Futures Forum’s (IFF) Three Horizons model and wondering about how this maps onto our approach and the work we’re supporting. It’s a framework I’ve been aware of and found helpful – at least in the abstract – for several years and we’ve recently been exploring how we could use it within the Foundation.

What are the Three Horizons?

Well, in my basic understanding, the Three Horizons framework helps us to think about the kind of big change we want to see in a system or field, how that relates to the current situation, and what is needed to make that big change a reality.

Horizon 1 is the status quo, representing ‘business as usual’. For a funder like us, this might look like helping to sustain activity in a well-established area of work.

Meanwhile, in response to the apparent failings of the business-as-usual model, there may also be the beginning of innovations happening that are based on fundamentally different premises to horizon 1 – these are the seeds of horizon 3, which represents that vision of a different future. IFF explains that these beginnings of radical innovation will feel ‘fringe’ just now but will ultimately over time become closer to business-as-usual as the world changes.

Horizon 2 then involves a pattern of innovations on the present model, as the conditions change and the shortcomings of the status quo become apparent.  Some of those innovations will improve the current model, others will feed the emerging future horizon 3.  For us, this horizon 2 activity might look like supporting explicitly innovation-focused work, re-designing how things are done or piloting new approaches.

How to know the third horizon when I see it?

When thinking about what the Foundation supports, I can’t deny I find it harder to think of third horizon examples! I think my own imagination muscle needs stretching more to picture what a transformed world might look like in any of the spheres we operate in, so I could better spot when these kinds of opportunities arise or where this kind of work is happening already.

However, the 10-year vision of the Regenerative Futures Fund comes to mind.

It is a new community fund for Edinburgh that was born out of dissatisfaction with a funding system that is often restrictive and short-term. The Fund will put decision-making power into the hands of those who are most often excluded.

Over a decade, the Fund will support approaches to improve the lives of people living in poverty and experiencing racism, and contribute towards a just green transition, enabling equity, power-sharing and long-term change.

It might sound utopian, and yet – through its compelling vision, a brilliantly open and reflective development process, and the huge commitment of those involved – it’s happening.

I like this example because it’s about changing funding practices, not just requiring those doing the work on the ground to change, recognising that funders help to create the conditions for the future to emerge.

Flying the plane and redesigning it

Although the third horizon might hold radical allure, it’s important to remember that there is no hierarchy here. There is a need for action in the present and within the status quo as well as to be engaging with what needs to come next and beyond. As IFF explain:

We need to ‘keep the lights on’ today and think about how to keep them on a generation from now in very different circumstances. IFF calls this the gentle art of ‘redesigning the plane whilst flying it’.

At the Foundation, we try to think carefully about what role we can usefully play in any of the systems or fields that we’re in – there will likely be times when it will be best for us to be part of work that falls into different horizons. What’s useful is having a shared language to discuss and recognise this – and that’s where the Three Horizons framework could help.

It also gives us a whole-system view on how change can happen over time, giving us a wider picture of potentially helpful points at which we could contribute.

Navigating from here to the future

The environment – much like our Scottish summer – will continue to be uncertain and changing, and the view outside multi-layered.

If you, like me, find the view out the window looking fuzzy and unclear, I invite you to explore and discuss which horizon you’re looking to and why – or where you think the Foundation should be focusing its attention for that matter.

Further reading and resources we’ve found helpful

• NPC’s guide to using the Three Horizons framework in practice
• IFF Three Horizons Resources
• H3Uni – Three Horizons

Photo above: Mums into Business group, WHALE Arts Agency, Edinburgh