Can we personally influence the future with our present resources?

Abstract

Influencing the future of mankind for the better, supporting sustainable development and realizing ambitious plans as the colonization of outer space? But how? In this paper we will differentiate two distinct approaches: (I) immediate action/projects - most NGOs follow this avenue and (II) long-term growth within an evolvable and improvable organization to accumulate both financial resources and methodical, scientific and procedural knowledge to support the goals.

We explain how the initiative Future 25 tries to develop a foundation whose goal is to maintain a platform for the second approach. The long-term perspective requires special organizational prerequisites to support a stable structure and by that the desired long-term growth. The direct member participation results as a possibility in contrast to most foundations that are governed by a small group of people. Our foundation will be heavily based on the utilization of the Internet to realize what we will introduce as maximum participation.

We show how current sociological research prompts for concepts such as monitoring and evaluation to support the stability of the organization and facilitate new developments and changes within the foundation. We discuss organizationial, sociological, legal, technological and financial issues.