The Experience
The Future Project is a national call to action that challenges young people to turn their passions into projects that change the world.
The Future Project launched in October 2011 with more than 500 Future Fellows and Future Coaches in four public high schools across three founding Future Cities: New York, Washington, D.C., and New Haven, CT. We aim to mobilize the rising generation of leaders, innovators, and humanitarians and build a movement of young people committed to transforming education and creating a world in which everyone is inspired.
What We Do
The Future Project recruits and selects the most passionate, driven college students, graduate students, and young professionals living in cities and unites them with local high school students for a guided, year-long adventure. Future Coaches (volunteers) and Future Fellows (high school students) meet each week to explore themselves and their communities, and, alongside other pairs, take on team challenges that build leadership, expression, and creative thinking skills. Over the course of the year, Fellows design and execute a Future Project that dares them to do the impossible.
Read more about our founding story here.
The Weekly Huddle
At the heart of The Future Project experience is a weekly 90-minute Huddle – which takes place after school or on Saturday and serves as the regular meeting time for Coach-Fellow pairs and their Dream Teams (of 3-4 pairs total). Dream Teams provide built-in support and accountability for Coaches and Fellows and provide space for creativity and leadership that is not possible in partnerships alone. Team members also hold each other to Impossible Actions – challenging personal commitments made during Huddles and accomplished in the weeks between – so that they can each take leaps forward in school (for example, college acceptance or better grades), work, and life.
Future Projects
With support from their Future Coaches and Dream Teams – and up to $300 in funding from The Future Project – Future Fellows spend the year turning a passion into a project that changes their lives, school, or world. Future Projects can take many forms: they can include a 1) new club or initiative, 2) a mini-movement or campaign, 3) a creation, performance, or event, 4) an intrapreneurial innovation that transforms an organization or system from the inside out, or 5) pretty much anything else you can dream up. Above all, they must be true to the Fellow and fun to create.
For examples of projects in progress or stories about our Fellows and Coaches, check out The Future Daily.
Community Days
Several times a year, the Future Corps – including Fellows, Coaches, Corps Leaders, and supporters – come together to learn, share and celebrate. The 2011 fall community day, Vision Day, saw Corps members coming together in New York, Washington, D.C., and New Haven to imagine an ideal future and begin gathering the tools to go out and build it. The semester ended with Project Panels, when Future Fellows presented their ideas to a panel of community leaders and innovators who provided them with guidance, feedback, and suggestions before officially endorsing their Future Projects.
The year will culminate in the Day of Affirmation, when Future Fellows across our launch cities will unveil their Future Projects to the world. Contact us if you would like to help support this extraordinary culminating moment.