The future is now. The pace of change and innovation has never been so fast or relentless. As a result, organisations need to plan for impact and growth with an eye on the future - which means using futures intelligence: trends, signals, emerging changes data to build foresight.

The ACNC data set selected for analysis comprises 3,914 Large ($1M+ annual revenue) Australian charity entities with DGR Item 1 or 4 and ACNC Group entities who have submitted audited financial statements and conducted activities in 2019. These entities represent $102B of annual revenue, ~%60 of the total 2019 revenue reported by Australian charity entities to the ACNC.

Innovation is a tricky beast. It's not always clear that the risks outweigh the rewards. For those of us in for-purpose organisations, getting the business case right to fund innovation is critical; uncertainty can be a roadblock, but it doesn't have to be.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to using strategic foresight in your business. The key is to experiment, find what works for you, and adapt as needed.

CPQQRT stands for Context, Purpose, Quality, Quantity, Resources, and Time. It was developed by Elliot Jaques, a Canadian organisational psychologist, and first referenced in 1994 in the book "Executive leadership: a practical guide to managing complexity".

A good way to create alternative views of futures is by building scenarios. This involves bringing together different trends, phenomena, and uncertainties to understand their interdependence and joint implications.

One way that long-range planning is enhanced is through the creation of various alternative futures, which are significantly different from one another. The scenarios that planners create can be based on different assumptions about technology, demography, economics, politics, and other factors.

When it comes to planning, looking at what's in the rearview mirror is not enough. You need to look ahead through the windshield at the road ahead.

You can use the process of identifying Black Elephants, Swans and Jellyfish in your planning to drive new thinking, support diverse plans, build responsive systems and stretch your planning paradigms into longer time horizons.

Here’s two frames to help you with your planning and decision making:

Plans=knowledge+assumptions,

and

performance=Plans(reality)

Building foresight capabilities supports long-term growth plans because foresight assumes that the future is not pre-determined. The future can move in a variety of directions, to some extent influenced by the plans and decisions you make today. Foresight adds value by providing a view of possible, probable and preferred futures, which supports your planning and decision making to deliver impact and future growth.

Forward thinking leaders need to develop the ability to scan for signals, issues and trends that are developing now and create a view on how they might play across a range of futures. We also need to be able to anticipate change and get ready for what might happen next. In some cases, we need to be able to create change ourselves and help build the futures we want to see.

It can be easy to believe that tomorrow will be like today—that customers will have the same demands, that businesses will operate in the same way, or that Governments will make similar decisions. These beliefs are comforting, in part because they suggest that nothing fundamental will change in our futures. But if we believe these things about futures, then we are limiting those who come after us to live in a world that is less than what it could be.

Forward-thinking CEOs and Boards are using foresight to plan for tomorrow. They're looking 5,10,20 years into the future to see what might happen. By doing this, they're able to make today's decisions with more confidence and greater reliability.

The Futures Triangle is a tool developed by Dr Sohail Inayatullah in 2008 that not-for-profit CEOs and Boards can use to create a frame from within which to view the current forces at work on their organisation's planning and decision making for impact and future growth. It's a great place to start a foresight project as it can bring to life the different forces at play.

Discover why you should use foresight in your planning and decision making for impact and future growth.

You need to be able to have the flexibility in your ideas, but also in how you get things done. There are lots of benefits that come with this approach including greater customer engagement, increased revenue streams and improved operational efficiency. This ability to make quick adjustments means that organisations can respond more quickly to changing market conditions or customer needs. This means you can adapt, compete and succeed in a market that is more dynamic than ever before.

At insight & foresight we define foresight as the skill of looking forward to preparing for what might happen next. This is not about predicting the future with but rather using proven foresight tools and skills to explore a range of plausible, possible, probable, and preferred futures so we can better understand what could happen and…

CEOs and Boards who stay curious about what's around the corner can find numerous ways to deliver impact and future growth. You can resist becoming paralysed by fear, allowing your actions to be driven by opportunity rather than uncertainty. Here’s 7 ways to help you stay curious…

Before not-for-profit CEOs and Boards decide what to do to deliver growth its best to start with a refresher on how businesses grow. Business growth can occur in two categories; Organic growth and inorganic growth. Understanding which is which can help your decision making….