Every member of our community deserves agency, dignity and respect, access to resources, and the ability to shape a society that affords them a life of connection, meaning, and fulfillment.

Societies are open-ended, living, breathing systems of our own design. That means the platitude is true—we really do hold the future in our hands. What we do today determines what we’re capable of tomorrow. Our beliefs and the questions we ask are the material from which we conceive and construct the future. You might say we're all co-authors of our community, and it’s our shared opportunity—and personal responsibility—to write a story of an inclusive, equitable, and resilient world.

We're building programs and initiatives that mobilize communities to expand their capacity for change, deepen connectedness and belonging, and sustainably raise their standard of living without increasing our impact on the planet. Our advocacy portfolio is designed to bring attention to and grow the base of constructive, evidence-based ideas to support policy innovation and stimulate new consensus. Our advocacy addresses:

Education: Flourishing students and thriving schools
Systems of equity and inclusion
Area growth strategy
Accountability for elected officials
Addressing the loneliness epidemic

Growing public understanding of what enables communities to thrive empowers us to improve ourselves, strengthens systems of equity and inclusion, optimizes support for initiatives with the greatest ability to affect change, keeps elected officials accountable, and dissolves the bonds of bigotry and supplants systemic discrimination.

The future starts today.

When you support Action for Tomorrow, you'll accelerate the development of our advocacy programs and launch of new initiatives.

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

EDUCATION IN BIG WALNUT

The Board of Education's Ban on Pride Flags

Schools are critical to creating the “WE” of a community—the hallmark of its collective identity. Schools shape how we think about who belongs, who counts, how we work together, what we want to achieve, and what participation in deliberative democracy looks like. A school's ability to play this instrumental role isn't guaranteed; it requires intention and expert skill guided by moral imagination.

Classrooms are not only the portal for students to access their futures; they’re the tools they use to create them. Teachers aren’t merely conduits of content but co-creators of a student's possibility. When learning environments are compromised, students lose the ability to aspire and rise to the height of their full potential. The far-right extremists that have weaponized their positions on the Big Walnut Local Schools Board of Education threaten the heart of Big Walnut Local Schools and the lives of every student.

In December 2023, the Big Walnut Board of Education passed a policy to prohibit the display of pride flags in its schools. Action for Tomorrow issued a letter to the Big Walnut School Board signed by more than 250 members of the community urging them to act on ACLU Ohio's call to repeal the policy. The policy’s discriminatory intent is unconstitutional and wholly unethical, and its consequences are detrimental to student well-being and academic performance. Likewise, we have encouraged the board's extremist members to divorce themselves from their hostile discrimination of LGBTQIA+ people and begin to live as examples of the kindness and respect owed to every Walnut student.

Every Big Walnut student is entitled to psychological safety—a learning environment where they feel valued and affirmed—regardless of orientation, gender identity, or any aspect of their personhood. The presence of pride flags signals acceptance and belonging. Their prohibition in Big Walnut schools will establish structures of discrimination that encourage and normalize the overt marginalization of targeted students. To render the symbolic representation of someone's personhood unacceptable in Big Walnut schools is to say that person is inherently unaccepted at Big Walnut.

Fostering inclusivity increases student engagement, improves academic outcomes, and enhances student well-being. Positive school cultures reduce bullying and discrimination and increase students’ confidence and motivation in their academic pursuits. When the beautiful differences that make students unique and unified in their humanity are unerringly embraced and celebrated, they’re more likely to thrive emotionally and academically.

When you chip in, you'll help us break free from the hate holding Big Walnut's Board of Education hostage.

“Silence is consent.” — Plato

Keeping Students and Schools Safe

Education excellence is achieved through a mutually reinforcing relationship between student well-being and academic performance. And, it turns out the same things that build resilience and thriving school cultures and drive academic performance also keep our kids and schools safe.

Here’s the TLDR: Hardening our schools doesn’t work.

In their book, “The Violence Project: How to stop a mass shooting epidemic,” Jillian Peterson and James Densley write, “Across the United States, a $3 billion school safety industry trades in Kevlar backpack inserts, bulletproof whiteboards, impact-resistant film for classroom windows, “ballistic attack–resistant” door shields, armored safe rooms, surveillance cameras, facial recognition systems, software to monitor potential threats, gunshot and “aggression-detector” microphones, and even smoke cannons to disrupt an active shooter in progress. There’s no evidence that any of this “hardening” works.”

Safety is not the absence of a threat but the presence of connection and belonging.

Hardening our schools doesn’t make our kids tougher; it makes them more vulnerable. It’s soft skills and the way they’re supported in classrooms and school cultures that cultivate resilience and enhance academic performance. Failing to implement those "soft" things comes with some hard consequences. Action for Tomorrow’s Integrated School Safety Framework outlines seven evidence-based elements of an Integrated School Safety Strategy that account for physical and psychological safety.

The School Safety 7

Prioritize student well-being: Appreciative, strengths-based approach to character education, well-being competency, and social-emotional fluency; interventions targeting loneliness and bullying victimization; access to mental health services; early intervention programs; and alternatives to exclusionary punishment.
Universal behavioral and mental health screenings for all students: We’ve long monitored students’ physical health but do little to look after a child’s mental health and psychological hygiene. Universal MHB screenings are the best way to identify students who may be experiencing distress or may benefit from mental health services.
Mandatory staff training and well-being supports: Flourishing teachers means flourishing students. Gatekeeper and crisis intervention training ensure staff can identify signs a student may be struggling and initiate early intervention.
A family-based, community-school partnership: A sense of a “tight-knit community” is not the same as an intentional community-school partnership model capable of creating sustainable, dynamic collaboration.
Centralized, anonymous reporting systems: 86% of mass shooters (aged 20 and younger) “leak” their plans—usually to a peer. A reporting system could be a mobile app, web form, text line, phone number, note dropbox, or a combination thereof. A positive school culture is a prerequisite for reporting system utilization. Students only report concerns when they trust adults will handle them well—that something will be done—and that they will be protected if they say something.
Risk reduction and emergency preparedness: District and building safety task forces, appropriately staffed behavioral threat assessment teams, building access control, trauma-informed preparedness practices, and robust family reunification plans are vital parts of the school safety equation.
Build a culture of responsible firearm storage and advocate common-sense gun laws: The fewer guns in a school, the safer everyone is. Let teachers teach, not play Barney Fife.

Will you join us and take Action for Tomorrow?

Action for Tomorrow

Help us move communities forward by securing a path toward optimal living for everyone.