The concept of legacy is fundamentally the most powerful concept we have for addressing the challenges of the twenty-first century. One definition of legacy is
"a gift." Legacy is the coming together of what you have been given, what you can create, and what you give back. As the Legacy Project logo suggests, our lives can be a path along which we ask questions and make choices. The questions we ask and the answers we find determine the kind of life we live, the relationships we have, and the ways we shape our world. Our legacy evolves as we move from childhood through adolescence to young adulthood and older adulthood.

The Legacy Project brings together diverse ideas to explore current issues like the importance of building intergenerational connections and the ideas passed from one generation to the next; who children are now and the dreams for who they will become; the lifelong learning potential of adults; our connection to and impact on the environment; the kinds of communities we want to create; and the choices we make every day that have both short-term and long-term consequences on personal and social levels.

Informed by scientific research in areas from human development to community building to the environment, the Legacy Project develops books, activity kits, guides, essay contests, workshops, traveling exhibits, and community programs. As a multigenerational project, we reach children, teens, young adults and older adults; participants include individuals, families, schools, community groups and other organizations.

Coordinated by TCP – a research and education group, and an independent press – the Legacy Project partners with the nonprofit Parenting Coalition and Generations United, both based in Washington, DC. It's also supported by a number of other Project Partners. Educator
Susan V. Bosak, MA, helped found the Legacy Project and currently serves as its Chair.

Education, emphasizing literacy and seven-generation systems thinking skills, is central to the Legacy Project's work since how we understand our world is key to how we act in it. The Legacy Project has four goals:

1. To help individuals of any age – children, teens, young adults, older adults – be their best by identifying, creating, and achieving meaningful life maps.

2. To explore and celebrate the personal histories, heritages, traditions, memories, values, hopes, and life lessons passed from generation to generation, and encourage closer relationships between generations.

3. To encourage and demonstrate big picture life thinking, from the personal to the interpersonal to the social.

4. To bring together diverse ideas and explore current issues from a seven-generation perspective, and demonstrate practical solutions to problems in a distinct and personal way that will reach ordinary individuals and encourage social change.

Legacy is expressed through your individual efforts, your relationships with others, and the ways you choose to shape the world around you – reflected in the Legacy Project's three banner programs LifeDreams, Across Generations, and Our World. LifeDreams explores individual potential and all aspects of living a life. Across Generations explores our relationships with others and encourages closer connections between generations. Our World explores the world around us and our role in it, looking at issues like the environment.

We have a number of award-winning books; our latest bestseller is Dream. Our free online activities and guides offer tips, special reports, and activities for families and community groups along with lesson ideas for schools (with curriculum connections), self-assessments, games, creative crafts, art projects, reproducibles, and recommended related resources.

We run several essay contests throughout the year for both children and adults. The Dream Exhibit is currently travelling to venues across the country. Workshops and school visits also take place across the US and Canada, and we can arrange a custom workshop for your school, group, or organization. Other community programs include the World Dream Chest and Connect Your Community. You can also create a Life Statement, and then record and share it through our permanent online Life Statement Library.

The new Legacy Center will be the focal point of the Legacy Project's activities. Guided by our Advisory Board, it will be an inspiring education and research center that will house a library, exhibit gallery, and workshop space. It will encourage new perspectives, engage in ongoing research, and embody the best thinking on environmental and design issues.

You can become a member of the Legacy Project, join a dynamic online learning community, and help support our educational work.

Be the first to find out what's new! Get the latest information about Legacy Project programs, free online activities and guides, books, essay contests, and more by subscribing to our free quarterly e-mail newsletter.

Here are some thoughts that guide us and that you may find interesting...

"A newborn infant babbles, gurgles, wriggles, and reaches out to touch the world. Each day of life commemorates that very first day. Each day you and I reach out to our surroundings and wonder. We are human and we are wonderers."
Joe Abruscato

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
Nelson Mandela

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then – to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn."
Terence H. White in
The Once and Future King

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I've got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."
George Bernard Shaw

"Those who do not look upon themselves as links connecting the past with the future do not perform their duty to the world."
Daniel Webster

"Some people have made great additions to the knowledge and the skills of humanity. These contributions to the inheritance of humankind may have been much greater than that of others, but we can never say that the effects of any life, however unseen they may be, are nothing. Day by day each life affects many others; the ripples from the existence of one pass outwards touching and shaping the lives of many, both known and unknown."
Margaret Laws Smith

"Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do."
William Ellery Channing

"Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future."
Corrie ten Boom

"Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds, will continue in others."
Rosa Parks

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
Mohandas Gandhi

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose."
Robert Byrne

"Hitch your wagon to a star."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The story is about you."
Horace