2020 FORESIGHT

6 min readJan 5, 2021

A Year of Pivots — see HATCH’s 2020 IMPACT REPORT.

2020 was the year in which it became clearer than ever that humanity is truly one community — one global living room. We faced the shared pain of a pandemic, raised our voices in unison against inequality, and offered what we could for our neighbors in terms of support and solidarity. Fires that ravaged Australia, the Amazon, Siberia and the western United States offered frightening evidence that we collectively need to act now to mitigate change and restore the health of this planet, so save the human species.

We also witnessed our country continue to be torn apart by political divisions surrounding the election that culminated in the siege on our country’s Capitol building in the first week of 2021. As President Barack Obama wrote, this was not altogether a surprise but was nonetheless a moment of great dishonor for the U.S.

Never has there been a more critical time for us to seize the opportunity to recognize our shared human needs and dreams in that one global living room, and this is where HATCH will be focusing our brains and hearts for the coming year.

HATCH is a global network founded 17 years ago, to accelerate solutions for the most critical challenges of our time. Historically, we accelerate change through curated summits and in-person impact labs. (This fall would have been our 25th Summit).

We entered 2020 with a solid strategic plan, developed over the previous two years. All of our careful planning instantly evaporated in March, with the arrival of COVID. After several hours of pacing, teetering on panic, I had the realization that COVID didn’t just impact our organization — it is — and would be — impacting everyone’s lives, families, and communities across the globe.

People needed collective sense-making. Now — more than ever — is a time for community. Not communities.

The ah-ha moment for me was a mindset shift. Stop worrying about “me” and where our revenue would come from, and lead with community and service.

Move from ME to WE.

In 2020 we scrapped everything we had built over 17 years and re-invented new programs from scratch. We launched The Global Living Room, The Impact Labs, a Mobilize the Vote Initiative which aggregated 25 Million in audience reach and designed the Global Classroom to support our core work in equity — education — environment — and youth empowerment.

(READ LEARNINGS FROM THE GLOBAL LIVING ROOM)

The community banded together, raised funds and leveraged HATCHer supply chains to hand-deliver PPE supplies to the hardest-hit frontline healthcare workers.

This first year of COVID peeled back layers of a facade masking entrenched systems, exposing deep wounds that have existed for centuries. The pandemic put a glaring spotlight on the growing gaps of wealth and race inequities. Thousands of family-owned businesses have closed for good, schools closed to in-person learning, and as of publishing this, over 350,000 people in the U.S. and 1.85 Million people in the world have died. The country — and our earth — is out of balance.

People in every facet of humanity, moving through upheaval and crisis scrambling to harvest shards of hard learnings.

Amidst the heaviness and weight of a global pandemic, George Floyd’s murder was a breaking point — triggering mass protests and united mobilization for human rights, equity, and racial justice.

Despite their own failures, the authors of the Declaration of Independence outlined a bold vision for America: a nation in which there would be equal justice for all. More than two hundred years later, it has yet to be achieved. This past July, the Boston Globe printed the Declaration of Independence so that its text and ideas can be interrogated by a new generation. (On that note, here’s a recommended read: Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality.)

The events of 2020 revealed to many, how thoroughly white privilege is entrenched into our systems — and that now is the time for everyone to step off the sidelines and unify allies, in a call for a moral revival, seeking pathways toward equity for all humanity.

Want to be a part of the solution?

Take a look at this Civil Rights Advocacy toolkit.

AN OPPORTUNITY TO REIMAGINE & REINVENT

No one could have imagined that it was possible for every industry in every country across the world to grind to a halt in ten days. And now that we know that IS possible, it opens the door to imagine what else is possible?

COVID has offered us an opportunity to re-imagine systems — to ask hard questions, re-examine our realities… and to re-imagine systems previously immovable.

We’ve seen planet earth’s response to the slowdown of industry, travel, and consumption — and she responded with resilience. The world’s coronavirus response proves that the world can act on climate change. WATCH THIS video by HATCHer/musician Seb Beresford.

NORMAL WAS BROKEN

In April, I called HATCHer and long-time Silicon Valley mentor John Hagel to get a pulse on what he has hearing from his high-level CEO clients — Me: Are they seeking guidance?” “Yes.” he said flatly. Me: “What are they asking?” John: “HOW DO WE GET BACK TO NORMAL?” Me: “What do you tell them?” John: “Not to get back to normal, because normal was broken.” Indeed. This year has been a learning opportunity for humankind…. IF we listen.

Remote learning is making schools rethink educational systems, remote work is impacting brick and mortar, and mass commuting and systems built on white supremacy were suddenly spotlighted and questioned in ways, unlike the decades that preceded. No amount of ‘abundance mindset’ will change your situation if the systems that have been built, are built to keep you out.

And that is how we’ve spent most of the year. Trying to find answers to this powerful question: How might we co-create a future we aspire to live?

I am proud of HATCH as an organization, our team, our board, and as a community for how we responded this year — and how quickly we were able to pivot, actively working on accelerating solutions for the U.N.’s SDGs.

What did we learn in 2020?

That NOW is the time to design a better future.

(in fact, we are long overdue)

Gratefully, this next generation is extremely passionate and capable.

See our NextGen program. Nominate a NextGen (under 21).