Across cultures and geographies, there is a growing recognition that the solutions we need are not new—they live in the enduring practices of relationship, stewardship, and reciprocity that have sustained communities and ecosystems for generations. No matter where we come from, we can draw from ancestral lineages that once understood humans not as separate from nature, but as belonging within it. Many conversations with leaders from the South echoed the idea that the past, present, and future are not linear, but interconnected and in a dynamic relationship. The concept of Sankofa—an Akan (Ghana) term and Adinkra symbol meaning “to go back and fetch it”— invites us to recover wisdom that has been marginalized or erased, and to apply it to the urgent challenges of this moment. We are operating within extractive systems that have treated environmental destruction, food scarcity, and social inequity as acceptable or inevitable costs of “progress.” As writer adrienne maree brown reminds us, we are living inside the imagination of those who created these systems, and indeed inside a battle of imaginations: “It is our right and responsibility to write ourselves into the future.”

The theme Ancestral Futures invites us to reclaim what has been lost, and stand firmly in service to future generations. We are reminded that the future is not something distant or abstract: Ancestral Futures live inside our choices and practices today. As once-familiar social, economic, technological, and political realities come undone, how are we leaning toward the ancestral remembrance of stewardship of land and people? As funders, how are we resourcing the frontline keepers of this knowledge — those with lived expertise of failing systems who show us the way through destruction and pain toward a future that is sustainable, equitable, and inclusive? The call of these times is to remember, reconnect, and realign as we move boldly forward to demand and to create a future that works for all people and the planet.