Learning to Practice the Future
As I think about 2025, I keep returning to scenes from Star Trek Discovery, a show I completely binged all of 2024. My dear friend and colleague, Dr. Sandra Bloom, encouraged me to watch it. And, I can't overstate how glad I am that I did.
Collective Purchasing: A Lifeline For Small Businesses and Local Economies
Small food businesses like corner stores, food trucks, caterers, quick-service restaurants and the hybrid ventures that stitch neighborhoods together, and often run on razor-thin margins, limited staff capacity, and a maze of compliance, insurance and vendor headaches. Collective purchasing of shared services offers a practical way to change that math.
Surviving vs. Thriving in Philly: Getting Honest About What It Takes
At the Wealth + Work Futures Lab, we see economic mobility as two-sided: the floor – stability, security, dignity; and the ladder – opportunity, growth, choice.
Psychological Safety: The Foundation of a Thriving Workplace
Feeling comfortable, respected and connected at work matters. As one employer partner told us, “If you want the best talent, you have to provide the best environment.”
There Is No Future (And That's A Good Thing)
The future seems so bleak these days. Headlines tell us where we’re headed: war, environmental collapse, AI domination. Many of us are grieving. Not only the present state of the world, but also the future that seems to hang over us like a dystopian nightmare. It feels so inevitable. And that sense of inevitability makes that grief heavier.
Touch Grass: The Power of the Tangible
A low-fi instrumental softly plays in the background. Conversations carry throughout the room, some heavy and some light, but all with love and mutual respect. People speak about grief, loss, love, and the longing to belong. Others sit in quiet reflection. Laughter is a constant as people connect on the unique memories of what makes Philadelphia feel like home.
Lessons Learned in Walking Our Grief with Young Adults
At the Wealth and Work Future’s Lab’s Media Design Fellowship Program, we have been very intentional about our focus on developing knowledge and awareness of how grief impacts people, specifically the lives of young people in the city of Philadelphia.
Preconditions for Possibility: What Will It Take to Seed a Different Economic Future?
At the Wealth and Work Futures Lab (WWFL), one of our central inquiries revolves around what we call the preconditions for possibility.
Guarded Yet Hopeful: Young Philadelphians on Place, Loss, and Possibility
According to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model, 1 in 4 Black youth in Philadelphia will lose a parent or sibling by the age of 25.
The Intersection of Constraint and Grief: Rethinking Opportunity, Work, and Wealth
For too long, our national conversations around poverty, workforce development, economic mobility, and even at times our work, has hinged on a singular question: How do we lift people out of poverty?