- When: Tuesday, January 20th, 2026, 9 am to 5 pm
- Where: Coin Street neighbourhood centre, 108 Stamford Street, South Bank, London SE1 9NH
- Cost: 60 GBP. Lunch Included.
JUST ADDED: OUR WORKING AGENDA
Are you embarking on a strategic planning process for your organisation or programme in 2026? Are you working to define or refine goals, priorities and direction during these times of rapid change and upheaval?
The Strategy Design Festival is an opportunity to discover how participatory, adaptive approaches can make strategy a living, breathing practice that your organisation weaves into your ongoing work, and uses to guide real decisions rather than sitting on a shelf. The interactive and participatory format of the festival will provide participants with inspiration, lasting connections, best practices and concrete takeaways for strategy design in uncertain times.
What you’ll find on this page:
- What you’ll gain as a participant
- Who should come to The Strategy Design Festival
- Logistics
- Help us create safe spaces
- FAQ’s
As a participant, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of:
- Practical frameworks and tools for designing strategies that are flexible, participatory, and responsive to a rapidly shifting landscape.
- Clear steps to keep your strategy “alive” through regular reflection, learning loops, and adaptive decision-making, so it is used often rather than sitting on a shelf.
- Tested approaches, stories, and peer advice on engaging board, staff, community, and beneficiaries through inclusive, co-creative processes that build shared ownership of strategic direction.
- New language, narratives, and storytelling practices to communicate your strategy, invite meaningful contribution, and deepen alignment across diverse stakeholders
- Values-aligned rubrics to guide day-to-day decisions and prioritisation as your strategy is implemented.
- Insights, connections, and practical ideas for evolving organisational culture so diverse perspectives are honoured, and strategy is continuously discussed, questioned, and collectively refined.
- Simple ways to turn broad ambitions into measurable goals and light-touch approaches to noticing, tracking, and discussing the impact of your strategic choices over time.
- Criteria for navigating and prioritising as you operationalise the strategy, balancing plans made with unforeseen events and opportunities that arise.
- Concrete ideas, examples, and guardrails for talking about strategy, data, and risk in ways that are transparent and collaborative, yet mindful of operational security and what should not be shared publicly.
The Festival is for leaders and organisations wanting to:
- Explore participatory and dynamic tools and practices for developing your programmatic or organisational strategy against the backdrop of a challenging and shifting landscape
- Incorporate the broad range of stakeholder voices into your strategy while staying grounded in your core purpose and values.
- Strengthen your capacity to engage those stakeholders—board, staff, community, and beneficiaries alike—through inclusive, co-creative processes that cultivate shared ownership of your organisation’s direction.
- Enrich your narrative development and storytelling capabilities as you convey your strategic objectives and invite participation and contributions toward the same
- Develop clear, values-aligned criteria to guide decision-making and prioritisation as your strategy moves into implementation.
- Evolve organisational culture to better honour and incorporate diverse perspectives, expand who has a voice in decision-making, and establish strategies that are regularly discussed, questioned, and collectively refined.
- Set clearer, more measurable goals for their strategies and track whether their work is making the difference they intend.
- Consider and explore both appropriate roles and potential risks when employing AI to research, review, and stress-test your strategy.
- Connect with a diverse community of other practitioners focused on similar strategic-making purposes and facing similar challenges,
- Build skills and norms for working openly in strategic conversations while protecting what must remain confidential, so you can share learning without oversharing sensitive information.
Overall, this event is designed to enable participants to navigate 2026 and beyond with confidence, creativity, and a sense of shared commitment. The Strategy Design Festival will equip you and your people to keep strategy effective, alive and collectively owned in your organisation.
Our Working Agenda
08:15 Arrivals & Registration
Welcome tea and coffee, with time to settle in and connect informally.
09:00 Opening Circle
We’ll start with a warm, engaging kickoff that includes welcome remarks, brief participant introductions, and an overview of the day’s agenda, participation guidelines, and logistics.
09:15 Exploring Our Definitions of ‘Strategy’
An interactive plenary where participants compare and contrast what “strategy” means to them in theory and in practice. This session aims to establish shared language and understanding around the core concepts that will anchor our work throughout the day.
09:45 Bridging Theories of Change and Strategic Goals
Participants will articulate their respective theories of change and connect those with their real-world impact goals. The outputs of this session will help to establish the foundational components upon which stakeholder engagement and collaborative co-design can be centered throughout strategic planning cycles.
11:00 Break
11:15 Mapping Stakeholders and Power Dynamics
We will work collectively to enumerate the broad spectrum of stakeholders involved in each strategic planning endeavor, documenting both the internal–staff, board, volunteers, etc–and external actors–those who will be involved with and impacted by implementation of the implemented strategy. For each of these mappings, we will in turn consider power dynamics and discuss ways to more equitably apportion both input and influence in the process.
12:15 Lunch
Participants are encouraged to sit with those they have not yet met or engaged.
13:15 Strategic Planning Sessions – Round 1
These breakout sessions will be designed to enable each participant to focus on the specific strategy design objectives communicated during pre-event engagement. The afternoon will be structured to enable participants to explore two to three of the following topics.
Session facilitators will introduce objectives, and participants will join the session of their choice. Anticipated working sessions include:
- Setting measurable goals for evaluating and learning with your strategy
- Engaging stakeholders in ways that establish shared ownership, broader support and better strategic planning outcomes
- Leveraging strategic planning as an opportunity to evolve roles and decision making in your program or organisation
- Understanding the role of narrative and storytelling in your strategic planning process
- Working openly whilst stewarding sensitive information
- Centering organisational vitality in your strategic goals and plans
- Using AI to inform and stress-test your strategy
- Prioritizing in the day-to-day as you implement your strategy
- Navigating feedback, learning, and adaption as you implement your strategic plan
- “Threat modeling” your strategy to envision what could go wrong and respond accordingly
14:45 Break
15:00 Strategic Planning Sessions – Round 2
The second round of sessions will enable participants to explore additional topics and outcomes from the list above.
16:15 Closing Circle
We will wrap up the day with reflections on key insights, “aha moments,” and emergent themes. Participants will share learnings and identify next steps in their strategy design journey.
17:00 Adjourn
In partnership with
Logistics
- When: Tuesday, January 20th, 2026, Start at 9am, lunch at 12:30 pm and close at 5:00 pm
- Where: Coin Street neighbourhood centre, 108 Stamford Street, South Bank, London SE1 9NH
- Registration: 60 GBP, Lunch is included. A limited number of scholarships and sliding scale registrations are available. Apply here.
Help us co-create safe and accessible spaces
We invite you to review Aspiration’s Participation Guidelines and Event Expectations, which we adopt for sharing and exploration at FabRiders events. All participants are expected to help create the most inclusive and safe space possible by honouring the Participation Guidelines and Event Expectations.
We strive to host accessible events that maximise the opportunity of all individuals to participate and engage wholly in all spaces and activities, in full respect of cultural and linguistic identities, care needs, and abilities. For inquiries about accessibility, please email us.
We welcome suggestions and ideas for creating even more inclusive and accessible spaces at our events. Share your thoughts with us.
Strategy Design Festival FAQ’s
What is the Strategy Design Festival?
The Strategy Design Festival is designed for teams embarking on 2026 and multi-year planning cycles who want participatory, values-driven ways to navigate uncertainty and change. The gathering will be a space for organisations and programmes that want strategy to be a living, shared practice rather than a static plan that gathers digital dust.
The Strategy Design Festival will be an interactive space to explore and share ways in which strategy can be co-created, regularly revisited, and tied to real decisions and prioritisation in day-to-day work. Focus will be on developing programmatic and organisational strategies that are grounded in purpose, responsive to a fast-changing landscape, and shaped with the people most affected.
What can I gain?
You will leave with helpful ways of thinking to shape flexible, participatory, values-aligned strategies, plus simple rhythms and learning loops to keep them alive through 2026. You will also gain co-creative engagement approaches, storytelling practices, and decision-making rubrics that help you communicate your strategy, invite meaningful contribution, and make everyday choices that reflect shared priorities. You will also gain concrete tools, fresh perspectives, and renewed energy for designing strategies that link long-term aspirations with everyday learning and iteration.
Why does this matter now?
Organisations are navigating overlapping crises, shifting donor priorities, and fast-changing political and technological landscapes, all of which make rigid, one-off plans less useful. The festival responds to these realities with practices that emphasise clarity of purpose, inclusive engagement, and structured experimentation, helping teams recognise when change is needed and how to adapt thoughtfully rather than reactively.
How will the agenda be developed and structured?
The agenda will be co-designed with confirmed participants, and centred on the specific needs, challenges, ideas and questions identified in pre-event dialogue.
The agenda will be structured as a flexible framework rather than a rigid script, dynamically shaped by participants before the event and through the day.
We plan to start the morning focusing on articulating and comparing goals, stakeholders, and theories of change, as well as the ways we measure the impact of our respective missions.
The afternoon will focus on practical working and learning sessions, anticipated to include:
- Participatory, network-centered planning processes
- Practical approaches for engaging board, staff, community, and beneficiaries
- Internal and external power analysis in the context of strategy design
- Narrative and storytelling practices
- Implementation, learning and adaptation of strategies
- Evolving organisational culture and broadening stakeholder input
- Operational security considerations and practices
- Values-aligned criteria to guide decision-making and prioritisation
- Skills and norms for working open in strategic conversations
- Appropriate roles and potential risks for employing AI in researching, reviewing and stress-testing your strategy
How will we work together?
Throughout the day, participants will explore human-centred, inclusive methods that model strategy processes they can run with their own boards, staff, partners, communities, and beneficiaries. Sessions will mix, peer exchange with opportunities to surface best practices and lessons learned along with hands-on design, all aimed at widening who has a voice in decision-making and building cultures where strategy is regularly discussed, questioned, and collectively refined.
Will this be worth my time?
The Strategy Design Festival is designed to be a valuable use of your time if you are shaping strategy for 2026 and want space to think beyond day-to-day pressures. It creates a dedicated environment to connect with peers and build the mindsets, skills, and relationships needed to keep strategy effective, alive, and collectively held in your organisation.
Looking for immediate help with your strategy? Learn more about FabRiders strategy services.
In partnership with Aspiration
