Grow the Future - a network of green voices promotes the next generation of progressive voices in Germany by offering exceptional opportunities for international learning and dialogue on urgent policy challenges. It aims to create a network of promising young activists and professionals who are leading movements and initiatives to tackle the biggest challenges of our time—from fighting climate change, to protecting human rights and open societies, to ensuring a sustainable future for the next generation. We achieve this by bringing together groups working to create change in two of our topic areas on a study tour to the US in the spring or early summer and hosting an alumni meeting at the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Headquarters in Berlin in the fall.

In the face of an increasingly radicalized right, the future of our liberal democracies depends on the willingness and ability of pro-democracy actors to forge strong alliances. During the 2024 Grow the Future study tour, the participants will travel to Washington, DC and Michigan to share lessons between the US and Germany about how democracy practitioners can effectively communicate what is at stake and build broad, stable, and successful alliances for liberal democracy. The group will meet with progressive policymakers and campaigners as well as civil society organizations, trade unions, local journalists, climate movements, and experts from academia and think tanks. The tour will provide opportunities to share experiences and discuss challenges and strategies with partners.

Following the study tour, participants will share their experiences with their local networks back in Germany. They will also become part of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung's Grow the Future network, through which alumni support each other to strengthen progressive and green policies.

Conversations will focus on the following issue areas:

• The 2024 elections in the United States and the stakes for democracy

• Facilitating collaboration and alliance-building between pro-democracy actors for a green, inclusive and prosperous future

• Countering disinformation and the rise of right-wing extremism in Europe and the U.S.

From June 21 - 29, 2023, our 2023 cohort of policy experts, politicians, urban planners, and union staff and activists visited South Bend, Indiana and Washington, DC to explore how coalitions between the climate movement and labor organizations serve as crucial facilitators in bringing about green, progressive legislation such as the Green New Deal. They met with organizers at the forefront of the new labor movement, leading facilators between climate organizers and established unions, and on-the-ground activists fighting for a just transition.