Sensing The Third Horizon

This report, published by Arising Quo, explores how funders and wealth holders can better recognise and support transformative social change, sometimes called "Third Horizon" work. Drawing on interviews with 19 practitioners, funders and framework designers, it looks at why bold, values-shifting projects struggle to attract funding compared to short-term fixes.

The report argues that this kind of work has distinct qualities: it's practical and lived, not just theoretical, and it often grows from relationships, intuition and community wisdom rather than traditional evidence. To help funders spot and back it, the authors propose 13 additional capacities, such as healing, unlearning and weaving, that can be layered onto popular systems change frameworks like Three Horizons and Berkana Two Loops.

It's a useful read for funders, philanthropists and systems change practitioners looking for new ways to think about long-term, transformative funding.