Inside The Plenary, Co.: Stephanie Fine Sasse shares the core tenets of the civic arts non-profit

In this episode of Questions of the Day, we take a tour inside The Plenary, Co. with founder and executive director Stephanie Fine Sasse. Based in San Francisco, The Plenary is a civic arts non-profit reimagining how we engage with science, knowledge, and one another through immersive, imaginative, and participatory experiences.

As their website states, The Plenary’s mission is “to inspire a culture of public imagination around sustainable and equitable futures.” Stephanie and her team bring that mission to life as she shares the core tenets behind their work that center on agency, storytelling, and public participation. “We get to create whatever kind of spaces and systems we want,” she says. “Why not make them beautiful, immersive, and designed for imagination?”

Drawing on her background in neuroscience and systems thinking, Stephanie explains how The Plenary uses research and community feedback to design experiences that disrupt the passive consumption model. “People want to be involved,” she says. “They want to feel like it’s about them.” Stephanie also adds some reflections around ripple metrics to better capture the impact of their work.

If you’re a scientist, storyteller, educator, or funder looking to collaborate, Stephanie outlines several ways to plug in and makes the case for working together. “We’ve been tricked into thinking we’re in competition,” she says. “I’m interested in building together.”

The Plenary, Co. goal: “to create a new category of experiences that are one-part exploration, one-part play, and one-part activation.”

Questions sparked by the conversation

• The Civic Imagination Hub in San Francisco is described as both an anchor and a prototype. → What initial steps should someone take if they want to prototype a Civic Imagination Hub in their own city?
• On ripple metrics → What are simple ways a small organization could start collecting and analyzing ripple-style data with minimal tech or staff? If funding wasn’t an issue, what kind of indicators would The Plenary want to capture that it currently doesn’t?
• On partnerships→ What kinds of partnership agreements or shared workflows have helped The Plenary avoid duplication and maintain alignment with other orgs?
• On The Plenary’s history→ What early assumptions in the design of The Plenary had to be rethought or adjusted over time—and what prompted those shifts?
• On explaining what The Plenary does→ What is most difficult to explain about the work that The Plenary is doing? (e.g., for funders, scientists, city officials, etc)

Fanuel Muindi

Fanuel Muindi is a former neuroscientist turned civic science ethnographer. He is a professor of the practice in the Department of Communication Studies within the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University, where he leads the Civic Science Media Lab. Dr. Muindi received his Bachelor’s degree in Biology and PhD in Organismal Biology from Morehouse College and Stanford University, respectively. He completed his postdoctoral training at MIT.