‘All That Is Needed Is A Dream’: A Regenerative Futures Fund Anthology

December 2024

Written by Leah Black

In 2021 I started with a dream, a funding utopia an imagining of a different future for communities in Edinburgh. My funding utopia was that community organisations could have long-term unrestricted funding to do their work more deeply, more meaningfully, more collaboratively and that we could achieve this by working together, pooling funding at scale and shifting and sharing decision-making power with those closest to the issues.

In 2022 I started working on Regenerative Futures Fund seconded from WHALE Arts to EVOC and since I come from a creative background it made complete sense to me that we would develop some kind of creative programme alongside the design and development of the fund. Around the same time as this I was discovering the time machines of Rob Hopkins; Cassie Robinson’s work on collective imagination; Sophia Parker and team at Joseph Rowntree Foundation; Phoebe Tickell at Moral Imaginations, Gabriella Gomez Mont’s work in Mexico City. and the Future Generation work happening in Wales led by Sophie Howe and in Scotland being ushered by Sarah Davidson and others at Carnegie Foundation. More about this way of working here in a blog from 2023.

After Shasta Ali, Suzy Glass and I experimented with a little bit of time travel at workshops and events, a conversation with Chris Speed who was leading Edinburgh Futures Institute at the time and Nicola Osbourne at Creative Informatics at The University of Edinburgh resulted in Regenerative Futures Fund being awarded funding to develop a collective futures programme. The stars aligned meaning that Shasta Ali, who had been working freelance on Regenerative Futures Fund since the start, who is also a poet, was connected up with Jennifer Williams (JL Williams), poet, and founder of the Utopia Lab at Edinburgh Futures Institute.

So in 2023 Shasta and Jennifer worked their combined creative magic to create Future Fridays: Write Now. These were monthly creative writing workshops on Friday mornings attended by a range of people who have been involved in the design and development of Regenerative Futures Fund. Shasta and Jennifer guided, supported, nurtured a group of people, many of whom had never written poetry before. And this is where the magic happened.

The result of Future Fridays is this beautiful riso-printed anthology All That Is Needed Is A Dream: Poetry to Inspire Change. Shasta and Jennifer worked with Anupa Gardner on the dreamy design and illustrations and with Tee from Typewronger in Leith who printed the anthologies with love and care.

These poems written by Kate Griffin, Caroline Cawley, Steven McLaren, Helene Van Der Ploeg, Debbie Douglas, Linda Craik, Shasta Hanif Ali and JL Williams are personal, moving, powerful, aspirational and inspirational. Please do take a look.

In August 2024 I shared the Edinburgh International Book Festival stage with Shasta Ali and Vicky Nyanga-Ndiaye, poet and leader of Project Esperanza, talking about why poetry, creativity, imagination and futures play an important role in designing a long-term funding programme and shifting power.

And also in August 2024 during the ALT Book Fringe in Edinburgh hosted by Typewronger on Leith Walk, a group of our poets read their work from All That Is Needed Is A Dream. This was a powerful and moving experience for me to watch, luckily I was at the back taking photos as I might have distracted the poets with my emotional reaction.

Huge thanks to our contributing poets:

Kate Griffin, Caroline Cawley, Steven McLaren, Helene Van Der Ploeg, Debbie Douglas, Linda Craik, Shasta Hanif Ali and JL Williams.

And special thanks to Linda Craik whose poem ‘There Will Always Be Questions’ inspired the title of the anthology.

Left - Right: Leah Black, Debbie Douglas, Helen Van Der Ploeg, Shasta H Ali, Jennifer Williams, Steven McLaren, Anupa Gardner, Caroline Cawley, Kate Griffin

What’s next?

We plan to hold another reading and sharing session in Edinburgh for more of the poets to share their work - if you are interested in attending this please join our mailing list.
We have lots of hard copied of our beautiful anthology - if you would like one for yourself or a batch sent to you for a workshop, community group, space, café, etc email me leah@foundationscotland.org.uk.
More collective imagination and collective futures work will be happening, and will be woven throughout the entire Regenerative Futures Fund programme. All going to plan the 10-year fund should launch in 2025 - more on this soon.

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