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A Prefiguring Futures Lab: April 27 – May 1, 2026

Join us for an upcoming Prefiguring Futures Lab!

“I think about the lab as a practice space for what is possible.” 

– Lab Participant (June 2024)

We hope you’ll apply to join us from April 27 – May 1, 2026 for the next Prefiguring Futures Lab 5-day! The Lab is a rigorous, sacred, and creative learning space for people working to advance love, dignity, and justice. Together, movement builders and supporters deepen capacity for liberating transformation, nourish relationships across movements, roles, and geographies, and cross-pollinate effective strategies and practices to plant the seeds of a future we want—a future of interdependence and mutual thriving—while living it as much as possible today. Learn more and apply today!

The Lab Experience

This five-day in-person experience will bring together a small group of organizers, movement leaders, intermediaries, culture workers, and justice funders who are already experimenting and practicing the five elements of liberatory transformation. It will be an opportunity to share practices, learn, and unlearn together. 

Areas of Inquiry & Practice

“Leading from LANDS [liberation and sovereignty], multiple ways of knowing, energetics —fresh and grounded BIPOC theory with an acknowledgment of spirit—led to personal breakthroughs for me.”

– Lab Participant (June 2024)

We harness multiple entry points for deepening inquiry with the five elements of liberatory transformation.

  • Liberation and Sovereignty: Leaders cultivate shared historic and current power analyses and engage in healing practices through connection with the land, movement, ceremony, and storytelling with all sentience. Leading from liberation and sovereignty enables participants to root in their wisdom, lived experiences, and imagine interdependent futures.
  • Systems Change in Complexity and Chaos: Leaders learn what moving interdependently in uncertain and emergent terrain requires from real examples and by exploring how they can draw on this knowledge for powerbuilding in their various roles.
  • Shared Leadership and Power:  Leaders cultivate their leadership power and purpose. Advance their understanding of  engaging power over, with, and within, and embracing generative conflict as grounding and regenerative. 
  • Multiple Ways of Knowing: Leaders integrate and embrace cultural, ancestral, and embodied wisdom as guides, supporting connection with their inner and collective wisdom and power.
  • Inner Work: Moving with purpose, source, and the sacred is at the core of tending to the being necessary for liberating change. Leaders engage in somatic, breath, creative, and contemplative practices that nourish and generate new possibilities from the inside out. 

Praxis & Reflection

Fascism, white supremacy, and settler colonialism erode liberatory power by systematically fomenting disconnection from ourselves and each other—from our bodies, stories, emotions, and source. We disrupt these destructive forces of oppression and seed, grow, and nourish individual and collective power by connecting with: 

  • Body: Dance, Tai Ji, breath, and other neurosomatic practices
  • Source: Nature inquiries, meditation/prayer, creative wisdom practices and ceremony
  • Emotions: Learning and moving from and with our emotions
  • Stories/Wisdom: Storytelling, story-listening, and story-creation—orally, in pictures, in song, in movement

Experimentation design and implementation supports leaders in strategically moving forward in emergence with some rigor by offering a lightweight approach to iterative applied learning, putting the skills and strategies from the Lab into immediate use in communities, organizations, networks, and movements.

You can learn more about the Prefiguring Futures Lab here and apply for the April 2026 5-Day Lab below!

The Details

Start & End Time

Start Time: 11:00 am EST on Monday, April 27, 2026

End Time: 11:00 am EST on Friday, May 1, 2026

Location

About an hour north of New York City (exact location will be shared with participants)

Accommodations 

Hotel rooms will be provided on-site from Sunday night, April 26, through Friday morning, May 1, 2026, with checkout on Friday morning. We will cover meals from Monday lunch through Friday breakfast. 

Travel

The Lab is conveniently located near all the major airports in the NYC area. Preferred airport details will be shared with participants.

Registration Cost

We are asking folks to contribute based on a sliding scale. Change Elemental is significantly subsidizing the Lab’s costs (the actual cost is approximately $18,000/person). Please see below for suggested registration fees. 

Your registration fee covers the program, lodging, on-site group meals, and snacks. It does not include the cost of air and/or ground travel to the location. We will have a pool of funds to offer travel subsidies to those who need them.

Please select the option that best describes your situation and the amount you’ll pay.

  • $10,000+ – Free the money range (philanthropy or philanthropic sponsorship, organizational budgets, or assets over $10 million)
  • $7,500 – Build the lab range  (organizational budgets or assets of $6-9 million) 
  • $3,000 – Base range II (organizational budgets of $3-5 million) 
  • $2,000 – Base range I (individuals sponsoring themselves, organizational budgets of $1-3 million)
  • $1,000 – Solidarity range (organizational budgets less than $1 million) 

If these amounts prohibit your participation, please let us know so we can discuss an alternative that may better meet your needs. 

We do not consider the registration contribution you have specified above when reviewing applications. 

Prefiguring Futures Lab – April 27 – May 1, 2026

Application Due Date: December 13, 2025

If you have questions about applying, please reach out to us at PrefiguringFutures@ChangeElemental.org

Contact Information

Name(Required)
Address(Required)

Share a bit about yourself and your interest

Demographic Questions

To support our efforts to bring together a diverse group of movement actors and collect information that will help us convey the Lab’s community and impact to potential funders, we ask that you share some demographic data below. Answers are optional, but encouraged!
Race/Ethnicity (Check any that apply)
Age
Gender (check any that apply)
Sexual Orientation (check any that apply)
Are you a primary caregiver, either full-time or part-time? (Check any that apply)
Movement role (check any that apply)

Registration Fee

Please select the amount you/your organization can contribute to the cost of the Lab. Please note that payment is not required to complete the application. If your application is accepted, a deposit will be required to secure your spot.
Payment Amount(Required)
If you are staff of an organization whose budget is $2 million or above or an individual of considerable means (by your definition), we ask you to consider paying for your food and lodging as an additional flat fee of $1,600.
Yes, I would like information on the pool of funds for travel subsidies.(Required)

Once you hit submit, you will be taken to a confirmation page that lets you know the form went through. We will be in touch after soon to notify you about your application. Thank you!