Civic space has been severely constricted over the last two decades as counter-terrorism and national security laws and policies have proliferated. Governments have been able to cynically exploit ‘keeping people safe’ to crackdown on rights to assemble, to organise and to protest. We believe it can be disrupted.

Civic Futures, FICS’ flagship philanthropic initiative, launched with founding partners the Fund for Global Human Rights, is a ground-breaking opportunity for funders to collaborate at scale to seed a global, cross-sector civil society response to the widespread abuse of counterterrorism and security laws and technological tools to stifle protest and dissent.

As part of Civic Futures, FICS is working with those on the frontline of this repression and those working to change systems at transnational level, investing in new research and analysis to understand in detail how a security playbook of tactics are being combined to criminalize, monitor, and delegitimize movements. We’re committed to building the field at the intersection of civic space and security, but we currently don’t make unsolicited grants through Civic Futures and we will publish on our website and in our newsletter if we have calls for proposals.

In a world beset with economic and environmental fragility, populist narratives and anti-rights agitators are making enormous gains in many countries. They are often well resourced and join with repressive governments in attacking rights-based movements and activists. We believe we can counter these harmful and fear-driven narratives.

At FICS we are incubating a new global network, bringing together activists, creatives and narratives practitioners to learn, connect and build their power to develop and disseminate powerful, positive and shared narratives that will build support for their agendas and activism and protect their civic space. We'll be publishing more information about this initiative in early 2023.

In Rethinking Civic Space, FICS found that increasingly concentrated economic power is a direct driver of shrinking civic space. Multinational companies and super wealthy individuals are not simply hoarding resources, but are buying access to government, profiting from the repression of civic space, and positioning themselves as go to partners for government in place of civil society actors (for example, in fora which review digital rights). FICS intends to work with partners to examine more closely how this specifically impacts civic space and to strategise responses.