The Role of Social Service Software and Future Studies

The field of future studies, while continually growing, can often be met with skepticism by those who are unfamiliar with its practical uses. The dawn of in-depth data analysis through social service software will likely lead to more futurists applying their studies to more diverse fields, and creating real-world results through techniques such as trend forecasting and scenario planning. These long standing techniques of future studies, combined with aggregate data from accountability and impact scoring, could pave the way for a more efficient and efficacious nonprofit industry than ever previously imagined. 

Although the idea of an application for future studies in the world of nonprofits is speculative, the field itself is anything but. Scholars and other professionals in future studies use a variety of sources to create multiple versions of the future through a process known as scenario planning. When creating scenarios, futurists often rely on data from the past, turning hard numbers and historical accounts into multiple possible futures which can then be prepared for. Sets of different futures can vary greatly, and are rarely weighted by matter of likelihood, rather, all possibilities are meant to be taken as important to consider. 

The methodical concentration of future studies was first imagined by H.G. Wells in 1943, and the private sector has since learned the value of strategic future planning. Some have gone as far as hiring full-time futurists. If Ford Motors can utilize strategic models of the future to bring improved car designs to future generations, it leads one to ask whether this same strategy could be applied to the world of nonprofits.

Any futurist attempting to create accurate and useful scenarios of the future would be much more successful serving a nonprofit who has clear numbers to indicate past performance. As in the private sector, these indications work better when more data points over a larger period of time are available. Any given nonprofit using social service software would likely be aware of which methods presently maximize efficiency. But would that same nonprofit be slowed by a sudden change in population within the area it serves? Such a change might require time to adjust, reassess, and test out newer strategies before returning to a satisfactory state of efficiency. These are the problems I believe futurists could help solve while working in tandem with preexisting data provided by new technology.

Social service software, and the data it provides may help futurists increase the efficiency of nonprofits both presently and for years to come. It’s also possible that AI or other complex algorithms could do this job in different or more useful ways. The only thing that is certain is the utility of data in managing a nonprofit to reach its fullest potential.