American Future
Helping everyday people imagine and believe in a future that is “worth it.”
Beneath the multi-crises of our time, we have a fundamental crisis of imagination. American Future catalyzes our creative vision, first with self-interest, and then connects it to community and civic engagement where we begin working together.
The mission of the American Future project is to inspire and catalyze Americans to co-create a brighter and better future for ourselves. Over the project life, American Future will grow through five phases; we are currently in phase 2.
COMPLETED PILOT: Interviewed 75 people to develop the interview tool and training materials.
Gathering and expanding: Train facilitators and community members to expand story-interviews via partnerships, collect demographic information for accurate representative sampling, catalog stories into themes, and create online content for sharing.
Sensemaking and weaving: Begin curation of an overview of the possible future narrative, review with participants and media, draft an outline for a documentary and book, and secure funding for both.
Community building and connecting: Engage with partners and participants with preview stories, recruit more participants, produce the documentary, and write the book.
Cheer and promote: Release the documentary and book, host a media tour, and continue adding participants to the project.
This project is grounded in what Americans want for their own lives, weaved together to create a new American Future that is worth the crap we’ll have to wade through to create it. The information gathered can be used by futurists, media, policy writers, the entertainment industry et al, to work in concert with the American people. Or they can continue to use conflict profiteers to destroy our sense of human decency. American Future as a project allows all to profit from our togetherness in co-creation rather than continuing to feed our current dystopian future.
American Future stories are available to read here and via the Terrified Nation podcast here.
Results of the pilot project from 2024 are available via a 14-minute video.
Project Director Bio:
Debilyn Molineaux is a longstanding leader of organizations working towards American healthy self-governance. She is also a political mystic, storyteller, collaborator and connector. Her life’s work is oriented to bring about a thriving, just and healthy democratic republic in the United States. As a pioneer in the democracy ecosystem, Debilyn offers consulting services to nonprofits, philanthropists, corporate leaders and foundations. She has co-founded or led initiatives over her 20+ year career to reach millions of Americans. Past leadership roles include Bridge Alliance, Citizen Connect, The Fulcrum, National Week of Conversation, Living Room Conversations, Coffee Party USA and various board roles.
The latest expression of her work is American Future, noting that Imagination lays the tracks for the reality train to follow. Through simple questions, people can create their own future life story and unleash our collective American imagination. This positive future visioning is an antidote to the malaise left by the conflict profiteers. Empowering her fellow citizens and scaling the work of her fellow leaders continue to be Debilyn’s passion and mission. Her actions help nurture and drive the large-scale collective action that moves our democracy forward.