Inner development goals

About Inner development goals

Inner Development Goals (IDG) is a not-for-profit, open-source initiative focused on the inner capacities needed to address complex sustainability and societal challenges. It presents inner development as a complement to external solutions such as policy, technology, and institutional reform, arguing that lasting change also depends on skills like self-awareness, empathy, collaboration, and purposeful action.

The organisation serves a broad ecosystem of individuals, educators, researchers, leaders, businesses, public institutions, and communities that want to integrate inner development into their work. It positions itself as a global movement and steward of a shared framework rather than a top-down implementer, supporting co-creation, research, translation, and local adaptation across many contexts.

Core Values

• Inner and outer transformation: IDG emphasizes that sustainable change requires both external action and the development of inner capacities, not one or the other.
• Co-creation and openness: The initiative is built as an open-source, collaboratively developed framework shaped by scientists, practitioners, educators, and communities worldwide.
• Collective flourishing: Its work is oriented toward human and planetary wellbeing, regenerative cultures, and long-term societal resilience.
• Inclusivity and accessibility: IDG invests in translations, local adaptation, and broad participation so the framework can be used across languages, sectors, and cultural contexts.

Unique Aspects

• Global open-source framework: The IDG Guide is co-created by more than 1,000 experts, scientists, and practitioners and is intended as a shared language for inner development worldwide.
• Large distributed ecosystem: The initiative reports 700+ hubs and networks across 90+ countries, showing a highly decentralized model of adoption and community building.
• Institutional and business reach: IDG works across business, academia, public sector, and civil society, with programs and partnerships designed to embed inner development into strategy, leadership, policy, and education.
• Stewardship model: The organisation describes itself as moving from managing projects toward stewarding an ecosystem, with the role of safeguarding the guide, research, and shared learning rather than directing the movement centrally.