Case Study: The Civic Almanac
From preserving leadership traditions to co-creating regenerative futures.
02026 | 35.2271° N, 80.8431° W | Foresight & Innovation Lab
The Threshold
Charlotte’s leadership community faced a growing gap between traditional governance and the systemic complexities of a rapidly changing city. Leaders were navigating an environment of high uncertainty, needing a way to honor the strengths of the past while building the capacity to solve problems that don’t yet exist. The friction lay in the transition from preserving what was to imagining what could be.
The Approach
We designed a participatory journey using Futures Thinking as the primary medium. By facilitating Reflective Dialogues on themes of disruption and regeneration, we invited leaders to step out of their silos. We held space for participants to engage in systems mapping, allowing them to identify which leadership traditions were foundational and which required bold innovation to meet the city’s evolving needs.
The Craft
To ground these insights into social infrastructure, the group built the Civic Almanac. Through collaborative "Creative Contributions" and foresight exercises, participants articulated actionable steps for systemic transformation. This wasn't a static report, but the construction of a dynamic, living resource designed to guide leadership through transformational change and strengthen trust across the coalition.
The Inheritance
The community moved from "Uncertainty to Resiliency," inheriting a shared vision for community-centered governance. By co-creating this Almanac, the leaders gained a collective orientation tool that empowers them to address complex societal challenges with a unified, forward-thinking approach. They left the process as a more resilient network of stewards, equipped with a renewed sense of purpose.
The Signal
A realization that Resiliency is a Relational Practice—that the ability to lead through crisis is directly tied to the depth of trust built during the act of imagining together.