Imagining a Future of Belonging and Beloved Community in Oakland, California.
A Vision Rooted in Community
The Oakland Horizon Story Project is our collective response to the fundamental question: How do we transition from a world of violence, domination, and extraction to one rooted in love, regeneration, and interdependence? It is an ambitious, community-led initiative to imagine, design, and organize toward a thriving future for Oakland, grounded in the values of Beloved Community. In a moment of overlapping crises – climate, economic injustice, systemic racism, disconnection – Oakland needs more than short-term solutions; it needs a long-arc strategy, 7 generations into the future, that is bold, inclusive, actionable, and provides Oaklanders with agency over their future. This long-arc strategy has 3 phases: horizon stories, tipping points, and campaigns.
A horizon story is a visionary, strategic narrative that looks 100-150 years into the future. Our approach draws from innovative fields that have not traditionally been applied to the domain of public health, including Futures Studies, Cultural Strategy, Deep Democracy, and Healing Justice. Horizon stories invite community members to imagine what life in Oakland could look like for generations to come, and then use backcasting to identify the tipping points; strategies and systemic shifts needed today to move toward that vision.
Creating future horizons is a practice in rebuilding our capacity to nourish and share our individual and collective wisdom about thriving – now and for future generations. We call it a practice because the only way we rebuild those connections is by bringing vivid life to our thriving future vision and stories over time. We start by inviting a small group of people who are curious about how to create a more thriving world, creating a welcoming space where people can be generative together.
This approach emphasizes:
- Intergenerational thinking across time and ancestry
- Imagination, creativity, and agency as forms of leadership
- Strategic tipping points that catalyze transformation
- Community-rooted action, not top-down planning
Through the horizon story process, we transform not only what we do, but how we understand the future, ourselves, and each other.
Tipping Points are a series of small changes or incidents that become significant enough to cause a larger, more important change. They are moments or conditions that create the potential for transformational shifts – positive or negative, bringing about thriving or collapse. These are not simply policy interventions or isolated goals – they are structural leverage points where pressure, alignment, and imagination can catalyze systemic transformation. In the Horizon Story process, they are identified through a rigorous backcasting method – mapping what changes are necessary now to bring about a community-defined future 100-150 years from today.
Tipping points often emerge in areas such as:
- Land and housing justice
- Youth-led cultural power
- Economic democratization
- Technology and data sovereignty
- Environmental regeneration
By aligning across sectors and communities, we transform these points from abstract ideas into actionable opportunities that alter the trajectory of Oakland’s future.
Campaigns are the vehicles through which vision becomes action. Grounded in the tipping points identified through the Horizon Story process, campaigns activate cultural strategy, grassroots organizing, and narrative power to mobilize collective will.
These campaigns are not reactive responses to crisis – they are forward-looking, community-rooted efforts designed to:
- Build lasting infrastructure for change
- Shift dominant narratives and policies
- Cultivate leadership across generations
- Reclaim public space and civic imagination
Whether expressed through murals, mutual aid, public assemblies, policy platforms, or digital storytelling, each campaign carries a piece of the horizon, guiding us toward a city shaped by care, equity, and belonging.
Grounded in Legacy, Informed by Strategy
The Oakland Horizon Story Project is approached in collaboration with, and deeply informed by, the teachings and methodologies of Zen Teacher and Movement Strategist, Norma Wong, whose publication When No Thing Works is a visionary guide to co-creating new worlds from one in crisis. This framework guides movements to look beyond crisis, develop long-arc strategies, and realign with deeper truths and values. They blend somatics, systems thinking, ancestral memory, and spiritual clarity into powerful tools for change.
Why Oakland? Why Now?
Oakland is a city of vibrant organizing, cultural innovation, and deep resilience. The spirit of Beloved Community is alive across neighborhoods, organizations, and generations. But extractive systems driven by capitalism, racism, and short-term governance have weakened the connective tissue that allows communities to thrive.
What Oakland needs now is not another five-year plan. It needs a shared long-term vision, grounded in community narrative, cultural memory, and radical imagination.
The project will:
- Invite community leaders, culture bearers, and residents to co-create future visions
- Build shared frameworks for collective action
- Reclaim imagination as a tool for strategy and systems change
- Seed organizing, policy, and narrative interventions aligned with a generational arc
Our Approach: From Imagination to Action
Design & Convening: A Core Design Team made up of trusted local partners will shape the process, invite participants, and create the foundation for the work.
Horizon Story Generation: Through community dialogues, workshops, arts practices, and deep listening, we will co-create multiple horizon stories, synthesized into a single narrative that represents Oakland’s multi-generational aspirations.
Tipping Points & Strategic Mapping: Using backcasting, we will identify the key tipping points across sectors that represent the most powerful places to intervene and shift Oakland’s trajectory.
Campaigns & Organizing: These insights will provide the blueprint for grassroots campaigns rooted in cultural strategy, popular education, and movement building – helping Oaklanders take ownership of their shared future.
Tools for Transformation: The project will produce several long-lasting resources:
- Oakland Horizon Story Framework – A replicable tool for long-arc strategy
- Thriving Index – A reimagined set of indicators rooted in community values
- Interactive Strategy Game – A gamified platform to engage people in testing pathways to transformation
Our core values are rooted in the 8 Essential Elements of Beloved Community, articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- Radical Love and Mutual Care: At the heart of Beloved Community is a commitment to love as a transformative force. We center love and mutual care in our relationships, decisions, and strategies, building a culture where everyone belongs and no one is disposable.
- Collective Imagination and Vision: We uplift imagination as a powerful tool for liberation, using collective visioning to break free from limiting narratives and shape futures rooted in possibility, dignity, and joy.
- Equity and Just Economy: Economic justice is essential to Beloved Community. We envision a regenerative economy that prioritizes equity, sustainability, and shared prosperity where wealth and resources circulate to support community wellbeing rather than extraction and exploitation.
- Democracy and Shared Power: True democracy is participatory, relational, and rooted in the experiences of the people. We practice deep democracy by shifting power to the community, building collective leadership, and fostering shared responsibility for shaping the future.
- Cultural Strategy and Expressive Power: We use art, story, and somatic practice to express truth, foster belonging, and move hearts and minds. Creative expression is a vehicle for healing, organizing, and transformation.
- Healing and Reconciliation: There is no justice without healing. We embrace healing justice as a framework that addresses intergenerational trauma, spiritual disconnection, and systemic violence, laying the foundation for authentic trust, alignment, and long-term change.
- Regenerative Systems and Infrastructure: Beloved Community requires systems that support life, not control it. We seek to reimagine infrastructure, across housing, education, technology, and public space, as tools of connection, dignity, and interdependence, not instruments of domination.
- Interdependence and Movement Ecosystems: We are not meant to do this work alone. We honor interdependence as a principle of resilience and strategy, cultivating strong relationships across movements, sectors, and generations to co-create a future greater than any single effort.
The project is led by Beloved Communities Network, a national network of cultural strategists, organizers, and creatives working to transform systems through collective practice and regenerative leadership.
Initial funding has been generously provided by the Akonadi Foundation, Movement Strategy Center, and the East Bay Community Foundation. We are actively seeking additional support to sustain and expand this vital work.
Invitation to Funders & Partners
The Oakland Horizon Story Project is a strategic and spiritual intervention. It is a call to imagine the city, and world, we long for—and to organize toward it with clarity, purpose, and love.
If you are a funder or partner interested in supporting:
- Long-term systems change
- Community-led innovation
- Cultural transformation
- Intergenerational movement building
…we invite you to connect with us.
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Get in Touch with Us
We would love to speak with you about the Beloved Community Network.
For any questions or comments, or to reach out to us about our programs or offerings, please submit the completed form and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
