The problem with exceptionally creative ideas that have potential for genuine transformative impact is that they’re hard to explain to funders. They don’t translate into quick sound bites and they don’t guarantee delivery of a certain percent on investment. And unfortunately, it’s sound bites and guaranteed investment return that are the things driving innovation now .
So even organizations that fund scientific research increasingly eviscerate truly visionary work by prioritizing criteria that reduce risk over those that encourage real innovation. There’s always the hope that visionaries will still somehow manage to re-create the glorious whole with funds awarded to the drab shadow that is so much safer to fund. But that seldom happens.
Instead, truly exceptional and transformative ideas have to prove themselves step by step if they’re to take life, actualizing in stages that build a community of understanding, support, and finally joy as the vision’s spark ignites public imagination. The most important steps in this process are those for planning it. These planning steps seed all the rest of the project. But they require funders with exceptional visionary capacity that matches those of the people dreaming a new world into existence.
The payoff is well worth the risk. In this case, the larger vision this particular proposal seeds into reality is one in which the world’s Indigenous peoples reprogram the dominant culture’s relationship with the natural world. We can do it, too. Indigenous Knowledge is so powerful that our lands host nearly 30% of the world’s remaining healthy ecosystems, and 80% of its biodiversity, though we make up only 5% of the population.
A few funders whose visionary reach exceeds even that of contemporary research science, and who are ready to go places no one from Western culture has gone before, have begun to collaborate with as a special donor-participant in this ground-breaking work.
Contact us to learn more.