The Institute for Alternative Futures, after four decades of promoting foresight and anticipatory democracy, has closed at the end of 2019. IAF was founded in 1977, by Alvin Toffler, Jim Dator, and Clem Bezold, originally as part of Antioch University, and became an independent non-profit in 1979. 

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IAF has worked with over 700 organizations, including communities, governments, corporations, and non-profit groups on six continents; with large and small corporations; governors, legislatures, and court systems; and in health from the World Health Organization and largest U.S. health care systems to local community health centers. 

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We created approaches to developing alternative futures – sets of scenarios that considered differing paths in future space. In the process we developed our Aspirational Futures approach that focuses on developing visions and preferred futures as well as scenario sets that explore expectable, challenging, and visionary alternatives. 

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Perhaps our greatest contribution to more hopeful futures will be through the many young people who have come through the Institute as interns, researchers, and professional futurists. Through them and our teaching at colleges and universities we have engaged several generations in foresight. A number of people have become professional futurists and many others have told us that we changed their thinking when they entered their chosen fields of law, business, medicine, and public health. 

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Over the years we have made public, on IAF’s website, virtually all of our scenarios, reports, presentations, and “toolkits” that guide organizations and individuals through stepping into a set of scenarios, considering the implications and enhancing their vision. In partnership with the Internet Archive, we have  archived comprehensive copies of our IAF and AFA websites for educational, teaching, and learning purposes.

 

You can find our websites, projects, and publications in their new home: https://archive-it.org/home/altfutures. We invite you to visit this link and enter search terms in the “search” box.

 

Alternatively, you can go directly to the sites for popular projects in recent years by clicking the relevant “here”:

 

• Human Progress and Human Services 2035 here

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• Health and Health Care 2032 for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation here

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• Public Health 2030 here

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• The Health Equity and Prosperity Project here

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• The U.S. Army Medical Department AMEDD Futures 2039 Project here

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• Primary Care 2025 here

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• Public Sector Foresight Network here

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We are deeply grateful for having been able to work as futurists with so many wonderful colleagues and clients over the decades. And we are grateful to those who continue to this day to pursue visionary futures. As organizations and futurists seek to use our Aspirational Futures approach, we hope this archive will serve them well. We remain available to advise on those efforts. For advice on Aspirational Futures work, you can contact us using the form below.