Future Demo ry was founded in Finland in 2025. Our mission is to advance democracy education and democracy innovation, with a particular focus on young people.
We host the Student Network on Future Democracy (SNFD), an international network of students and recent graduates, whose goal is providing democracy education for youth.
History
Brainstorming during the first Student Forum on Future Democracy in 2023.
2023: A German organization, Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der Demokratiegeschichte e.V., organized the first Student Forum on Future Democracy in Eisenach, Germany, with the aim of promoting democratic values among youth. Our founders took part in that Forum and were inspired to create an international network, the Student Network on Future Democracy (SNFD), to enable their cooperation beyond the Forum.
Student Forum 2024 participants at the Wartburg Castle.
2024: We further organized ourselves, taking part in our first international event (Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy, organized by Democracy International e.V.). We also became co-organizers of the Student Forum on Future Democracy, taking part in planning the programme and holding workshops, where the Forum’s theme was polarization. We began to develop our first projects, investigating threats to electoral fairness and exposing how modern censorship operates in authoritarian regimes.
Student Forum 2025 participants writing our yearly democracy declaration.
2025: We wanted to formalize our network further, so we established Network on Future Democracy Finnish Office ry. This Finnish NGO currently hosts the SNFD, with the intention that multiple national offices will be formed in different countries in the future to act as co-hosts. We also took part for the second time in organizing the Student Forum on Future Democracy, with the theme this time being electoral fairness. We took part in multiple events internationally and expanded our projects, laying plans for democracy education workshops and curricula, as well as the teaching of democracy innovation to youth.
Office day in February 2026 at Future Demo ry in Jyväskylä, Finland.
Looking at 2026: In Finland, we have begun to gather weekly as an office, and our workflows are professionalizing. In March, we also renamed our Finnish association into Future Demo ry. We have our first interns and look forward to co-organizing the Student Forum on Future Democracy 2026. We are also looking to pilot an event of our own creation, Arki, which focuses on how democracy and civil society appear in everyday life. We hope to do accompanying research on the topic as well. We also look forward to organizing our members in different countries, so that we create a basis for national offices.
What are the goals of Student Network on Future Democracy?
SNFD is an international youth network focused on democracy education. Our activities are built on four core pillars:
- Internationality
We intend to learn from one another: Young people living in authoritarian societies inform those living in democratic societies of the dangers that citizens face in such societies. Young people in democratic societies give examples of how democracy functions in their countries. Youth cooperate with each other to learn building democratic governance.
- Democracy education of youth
We produce publications and organize events aimed specifically at a youth audience to provide democracy education and to enable development of democratic governance proposals through brainstorming.
- Youth participation
Young people run many of our activities themselves, rather than merely being a target group.
- Teaching young people work skills
SNFD functions as a learning environment where participants gain practical skills in international project work, including project work software and English-language skills.
SNFD aims to equip young people with the professional skills and experience needed to pursue careers in democracy education, democratic innovation and democratic governance.