28/08/2025
Imagine a world where AI, open data, and forward-thinking philanthropy converge to help us solve humanity’s most complex challenges, from climate breakdown to rising inequality and fragile peace. That’s the bright future envisioned by John G. Palfrey, President of the MacArthur Foundation, in his latest Dædalus essay he envisions a future in which AI, data, and philanthropy are reoriented toward the public good, where “a brighter future for the climate, international peace, economic inclusion, and other broad societal goals is within reach.”
Palfrey argues that solving the challenges of the 21st century requires more than better tools: it requires a different mindset. His vision rests on two key shifts:
- From private gain to public good, making platforms, datasets, and technology openly accessible to civic-minded actors.
The knowledge, platforms, and datasets driving innovation today are largely controlled by corporations or, in fewer instances, governments. Access is restricted, often monetised, and rarely designed with civic actors in mind. Let’s imagine the opposite: a world in which these resources are treated as public goods, accessible to researchers, advocates, and communities working for social progress. In practice, this could mean open-sourcing algorithms, sharing climate data with frontline organisations, or building AI applications that directly support democratic participation. The shift is simple to describe but radical in impact: it repositions technology as infrastructure for collective problem-solving, not as a tool for maximising profit.
- From transactional philanthropy to systems-level change, supporting strategies that address interconnected challenges rather than isolated causes.
Too often, philanthropy operates like a grant marketplace: short cycles, fragmented projects, and a focus on outputs rather than long-term outcomes. The essay calls for a deeper transformation: supporting strategies that tackle the interconnected roots of problems rather than isolated symptoms. For example, fighting climate change cannot be separated from tackling inequality or strengthening democratic governance. A systems lens recognises these interdependencies and funds organisations to work across boundaries, over time, and in collaboration. It is philanthropy not as a patchwork of projects, but as scaffolding for sustained, structural change.
Hope Meets Pressure
The vision is inspiring, but it is also demanding. Because it asks us to dream big precisely at a time when many organisations feel small. Civil society advocates and funders alike are working under enormous stress: shrinking civic space, political headwinds, and fragile funding ecosystems. At The Good Lobby, we’re currently exploring these dynamics through our Impact Under Stress initiative. Palfrey’s call for openness and collaboration resonates strongly here: resilience in advocacy may not come from doing “more with less,” but from rethinking relationships between funders and advocates, between technology and society, between local struggles and global systems.
A Collective Responsibility
If Palfrey is right, the future will not be solved by innovation alone. It will be addressed in the spaces where donors, advocates, technologists, and citizens come together to build something bigger than themselves. That is the challenge before us. And perhaps also the opportunity: to make stress a catalyst for reinvention, to break the silos that keep sectors and movements apart, and to turn shared ideas into infrastructures, strategies, and coalitions capable of lasting impact.