We are InWithForward, a participatory research & design organization addressing the root causes of social issues and strengthening wellbeing.
We’ve spent a decade co-designing & implementing new models of care, connection, and community engagement. Now we’re spreading what we’ve learned sparks change.
In these turbulent times, how do we find common ground for change? Learn to bridge divides and meet our shared human need to matter and belong.
Across our research & design work, we’ve found:
Wellbeing is as much about purpose, connection, and agency as it is material security.
Food, housing, and income are critical means to a good life, but do not constitute a good life. A good life is one where we feel connected to our body and self; to friends, family, and community; to land and ground; to culture; to the sacred; and to a sense of agency, meaning, and purpose.
This is what we’ve learned from spending time on and off the streets with thousands of people experiencing material deprivation. While many social programs subscribe to a hierarchy of needs, we’ve come to see our basic and existential needs as intertwined. Unless we offer food, housing, and income in ways that foster connection, we can inadvertently fuel disconnection. At the root of too many social problems is people feeling they do not matter or belong.
Big problems cannot be solved by professionals alone. Real change happens when we re-ignite our collective capacity to care.
Programs, services, and apps don’t change lives — relationships do. Over 15+ years of co-creating, testing, and evaluating new programs, services, and apps, we’ve come to see how wellbeing outcomes are predicated on two-way relationships: on bridging divides between professionals and clients, donors and beneficiaries, people who are housed and unhoused, people with and without disabilities, etc. The more we uphold fixed roles and power divides, the more we miss opportunities to cultivate our shared humanity. And embracing our shared humanity is at the heart of authentic (versus transactional) care.
Lasting impact requires more than new methods and tools. It takes deliberate mindsets and culture.
Over and over again, we observe culture eats methods and tools for breakfast. By that we mean that the values, purposes, and logics of organizations and systems, and the ways in which these underlying ideas shape relationships and practices prove to be consequential for change. Making visible current and alternative values, purposes, logics, dynamics, and practices is slow and hard. But, in our experience, it’s what makes the difference between sustaining versus disrupting the status quo.
We collaborate with:
Take a look at some of the work we've done:
We collaborated with the City of Edmonton to create, test and measure interventions that improve wellbeing.
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We partnered with Degrees of Change Design to address social isolation by building a platform connecting people with and without disabilities.
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We worked with Vancouver Foundation and Community Foundations Canada to develop podcasts, learning circles, and retreats that re-imagine the system of philanthropy.
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Learn alongside people, practitioners and policymakers at our Flourishing Field School
We bring together voices from encampments to elite institutions, from disability day programs to donors. This rare mix of lived and learned experience is our secret sauce. Come have a taste!
Let’s connect and chat!
Questions we’d love to think with you about:
