Grantee Partner

British Future

Nonpartisan leader in using communications expertise to create majority support for an inclusive society

British Future is a leading independent, nonpartisan organization that is engaging people’s hopes and fears about integration and migration, and identity and race, to build public support for a confident and welcoming Britain, inclusive and fair to all. British Future has established a strong thought leadership position on immigration and integration, and on the political and policy choices ahead. British Future is expert in understanding public attitudes about immigration, including people with economic and cultural anxieties; their primary work is related to public attitudes, on research and messaging, communications, and alliance-building.

British Future develops and tests messages and messengers that engage more skeptical audiences, and advises refugee and migration advocates on approaches that are more persuasive. It also puts its theory into practice with ‘Show not tell’ public communications of its own.

One of the unique aspects of British Future is its ability to build partnerships outside of the immigration field to encourage opportunity and inclusion, and integration and citizenship. For example, British Future’s Remember Together initiative promotes integration and shared identity by remembering that soldiers of all ethnic and religious backgrounds fought alongside one another in WW2. In 2021, ICM Research tested the impact of the Remember Together films, and found that they prompted a 25-point positive shift in attitudes among people who felt least positive about diversity in British society.

 

British Future also partnered with HOPE not Hate on the National Conversation on Immigration, the largest exercise in direct public engagement on immigration in the UK to date, engaging nearly 20,000 people from over 60 locations across the UK. British Future also founded the Together Coalition, which aims to bring people together and bridge divides, to help build a kinder, closer and more connected society. To inform the coalition’s work, British Future conducted Talk/together, the UK’s biggest-ever conversation about what unites and divides us and what could bring us closer together. British Future also hosts the Welcoming Committee for Hong Kongers, an independent, non-profit umbrella group for all those who care about the integration of new arrivals from Hong Kong.Through these types of initiatives, British Future seeks to build a larger “us.”

Unbound Philanthropy has supported British Future since 2011; its work advances our Public strategy area.

Growing in stature and influence through its deep engagement with the immigration debate, British Future has a nuanced approach and is gaining attention at both ends of the political spectrum.

Prospect Think Tank of the Year Awards

A thought leader in understanding public attitudes about immigration, and offering messaging and political analysis to build a larger “us”

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People took part in British Future’s Talk/together research project, the UK’s biggest-ever conversation about what unites and divides us and what could bring us closer together.

Resources

 Photos courtesy of British Future