Why Springboard?

Climate change poses an existential threat to the Earth and all its species. The engagement required to prevent further climate disaster and deal with challenges already upon us calls for a generation of leaders willing and equipped to meet these demands.

Former Administrator of the UNDP and founder of the World Resources Institute Gus Speth said, “I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that with thirty years of good science we could address those problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy. And to deal with those, we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.” (Source)

Emma Sternström, Researcher and Course Director at Stockholm School of Economics said, “I realize more and more that we cannot reach our sustainability goals if we do not work with our inner development.” (Source)

Springboard seeks to foster the inner development of young adults with the long-term goal of achieving the spiritual and cultural transformation needed to address the climate crisis. Other challenges that lie ahead will also require more than the usual depth and commitment.

Inspired by Lene Rachel Andersen and Tomas Björkman’s book The Nordic Secret, Springboard works with the premise that inner development can be fostered through deeply transformative education–or Bildung–that inspires the young person to embrace the deeper forms of fulfillment and meaning that come by taking on ever growing personal responsibility toward family, friends, the community, our globe, and the global heritage of our human species. (Source) According to Andersen, Scandinavian Folk School students “built a sense of accomplishment and ‘I can do stuff.’ What happened in the 1850s was that young people who went to Folk Schools came home and they had a sense of agency and direction. It started spreading. It went viral.”

David Brooks writes of Folk Schools, “The idea was to create in the mind of the student a sense of wider circles of belonging–from family, to town, to nation–and an eagerness to assume shared responsibility for the whole.” (Source) Andersen and Björkman credit widespread matriculation at Folk Schools and their intentional cultivation of students' inner compass with being the “secret” that enabled Sweden, Denmark and Norway to peacefully transition from feudal, agrarian societies to thriving industrialized democracies.

Today, Springboard raises the rallying cry for deeply transformative learning that engages the whole person–body, mind and spirit–and reorients a young person’s focus from a state of narrow self-regard to an ever broadening commitment to the well being of the planet and the good life of all. We do this with the sense that, in the words of Jonathan Rowson, “the intellectual and cultural resources of modernity have been exhausted, and are no longer sufficient to protect the ecological foundations of life.” (Source)

Working with and leveraging the strengths and interests of allies and like-minded organizations, Springboard aims to play a catalytic role in growing the movement for deeply transformative learning for young adults in the US. Bringing together practitioners, thought leaders, philanthropists, and young adults, we will work to ensure this movement has the pedagogical depth, financial capital and political will necessary for it to grow and thrive. As the movement grows, we believe we can play an important role in manifesting the cultural and spiritual transformation needed to address the climate crisis and other urgent issues of our time.