NEWS
Briefing No. 43
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place Bedside Table
The Coming Wave
Our Christmas reading is Mustafa Suleyman’s guide to the AI revolution that is just beginning, and the transformed world it will create. Suleyman outlines the opportunities and challenges ahead and establishes “the containment problem” - the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies - as the essential challenge of our age.
Open AIo1
We’ve had a mind-blowing experience testing OpenAI’s latest model, o1 (nicknamed Strawberry). It suddenly feels like the coming wave that Suleyman discusses is a lot closer. The game-changer is the new version’s reasoning ability - it shows its train of thought and tries different strategies to reach a solution. It can solve Maths Olympiad questions as well as PhD level physics, chemistry and biology problems.
Join or Die
Just as a nation couldn't function with half its roads gone, Robert Putnam - author of Bowling Alone and the Upswing - argues our society cannot thrive when the pathways connecting people to one another have disappeared.
Persuasion and the Power of Storytelling
When people think of advocating for their ideas, they think of convincing arguments based on data, facts, and figures. Professor Jennifer Aaker’s animated film discusses how, if you share a story, rather than statistics, people are often more likely to be persuaded. And when data and story are used together, audiences are moved both intellectually and emotionally.
George Mitchell: War and Peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East
Diplomat, lawyer, former Senate Majority Leader and nonagenarian George Mitchell discusses a long life in public service in a fascinating conversation with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell.
Secret Life of Prisons
For insights into the UK criminal justice system, the Prisons Radio Association’s podcast is well worth listening to. This episode features a lecture delivered by Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was imprisoned in 2016 at the end of a family visit to Iran. She vehemently denied the charges made against her but remained in prison until 2022. She talks about what she learnt from the experience and explains her passion for penal reform.
Maria Popova’s Life-Learnings
Somewhere along the way, you realise that no one will teach you how to live your own life - but here are a few things that Maria Popova, writer and thinker, has learned over the years.
Winter Stories
Rebecca has a friend who reads Bleak House by Charles Dickens every winter. Rebecca herself is re-reading A Winter Book by Tove Jansson - a collection of short stories that Ali Smith describes as “pieces of shattered light.” We’d love to hear the books that you turn to for replenishment when the days are short and the world feels difficult and complicated.
UPCOMING EVENTS
We are planning our 2025 roundtable series, a community trip to Skoll in April and the 2025 Pathways to Change programme. We’ll share more detail in the New Year but, in the mean time, it was lovely to see some of you at our Christmas drinks this week and we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Peaceful New Year.
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make the most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 42
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place Bedside Table
Paul Collier’s Left Behind is a brilliant, wide-ranging account of how centralised authority and economic orthodoxy have deepened the divide between well-to-do and “left behind” places, hollowing out communities and damaging life chances. It is one of the best books we’ve read in a long time. Highly recommended. Chapter 6 of our office copy is almost entirely underlined.
Pathways to Change
“Thank you for an energising, mind stretching, emotionally uplifting retreat this week. There was a spirit of kindness and a commitment to relationships, in the room as well as beyond, that made our time together a lot of fun as well as intellectually fulfilling.”
The first Pathways to Change programme is drawing to a close. We loved the opportunity to bring together a cohort of philanthropists and social entrepreneurs focused on tackling global poverty, and it was fantastic to see almost every participant at the Pathways residential a few weeks ago.
If you’d like to learn more about the programme and to consider participating in 2025/26 please let us know. In the meantime we’ve uploaded the factsheets that accompanied the programme, click the button below.
Six Inches of Soil
Six inches of soil feed 8 billion people. Soil is probably the most valuable resource on the planet. This is the inspiring story of British farmers transforming the way they produce food - to heal the soil, benefit our health and provide for local communities.
What3Words
what3words divided the world into 3 metre squares and gave each square a unique combination of three words. It is the easiest way to find and share exact locations. It is used now by 85% of UK emergency services to quickly locate people in need of help and by an increasing number of NGOs globally to improve response times and ensure critical aid is delivered exactly where it’s needed. Rebecca’s husband also uses it to label his landscape paintings. Add it to your phone.
Step Into the Pages
Disney veteran Glen Keane, himself son of a cartoonist, has animated some of the most compelling characters of our time. Step into his world as he uses VR to draw in 3 dimensions where, as he says, “That doorway to the imagination is a little wider”.
Child Mortality: 1751-2022
A child born into one of the poorest countries today faces a one-in-ten chance of dying within the first five years of her or his life. In rich countries, the rate of survival is as high as 99.8%. We have made tremendous progress in reducing child mortality globally, but we still have a long way to go.
The Body Keeps the Score
We came across this simple, animated summary of Dr Bessel van der Kolk’s ground-breaking book, the Body Keeps the Score. Van der Kolk is one of the world’s leading experts on trauma, exploring how mental unwellness doesn’t just take a toll on our minds; it affects our physical selves as well.
FROM OUR COMMUNITY
The Big House's crew of young people are finalists in the 2024 Lovie Awards - in the running alongside some serious heavyweights like CNN and BBC. We loved Dryden, Dyke and Wade: Britain's First Black Millionaires. Check it out here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
We’re hosting an under the hood session on grant-making, with colleagues from Greenwood Place and the Gates Foundation, on 15th October. If you are a funder in our community and haven’t signed up already please do let us know if you’d like to come along. There will be drinks afterwards as well!
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make the most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 41
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place Bedside Table
Slow Productivity by Cal Newport introduces a philosophy for productivity based on three simple principles: Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality. Every Summer we close the Greenwood Place office for two weeks of reading, research and exploration. Newport’s book heads our list this year - see what else we’re reading here.
The Velvet Queen
High up on the Tibetan plateau. Amongst unexplored and inaccessible valleys lies one of the last sanctuaries of the wild world, where rare and undiscovered fauna live.
Three Words That Nick Cave Likes
As the world divides into its various factions, these are words that are increasingly important.
The Beautiful Game
The first Homeless World Cup took place in 2003 in Graz, Austria. Ever since then, Mel Young and team have been using football to support and inspire people who are homeless to change their own lives and to change attitudes towards homeless people. Bill Nighy brings their work to life, watch here.
And football can do even more. Here’s how.
We Will Not Be Saved: A Memoir of Hope and Resistance in the Amazon Rainforest
In 2019, Nemonte Nenquimo helped win a historical lawsuit against the Ecuadorian government protecting more than half a million hectares of Waorani ancestral territory from being auctioned to oil companies. Nemonte and her partner Mitch left a copy of the book with us in the Greenwood Place office this month. It’s full of wisdom, sadness and joy.
Building A Socially Conscious Business
Sir Peter Vardy has been an inspiration and a mentor for us at Greenwood Place for many years. This interview with Sir Peter and his son Peter - talking through their approach to socially conscious business, social action and legacy (listen to Sir Peter at 20 minutes in on how he views legacy and the value of entrepreneurial thinking in social action) - is full of lessons to take away. Thank you to Phil for sharing it.
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
We regularly buy Charlie Mackesy’s book as a gift for families and friends, and find the 2022 animated film reviving every time we return to it. “Most of the old moles I know wish they had listened less to their fears and more to their dreams.”
The World Is A Mountain
The world is a mountain. Whatever you say, it will echo it back to you.
Greenwood Place’s Annual Report
Our Annual Report for 2023/24 is now online. This year, Greenwood Place has achieved a significant milestone…We have surpassed £100M in our directly managed grant-making. In 2017, our first year in business, we oversaw £500K in giving and we have seen our giving grow steadily year on year since that date. A huge thank you to everyone in our community who has been part of this milestone and our journey.
FROM OUR COMMUNITY
We Are Juno and its investors won the NatWest SE100 Award in the Social Investment Pioneers Category.
Pip Wheaton has studied the work of hundreds of Ashoka Fellows in putting together a practical playbook of approaches for unlocking our collective power to take action on climate change and biodiversity loss.
Sophie Livingstone, CEO of Little Village was featured on Stella Creasy’s podcast, the Mummafesto.
And…. Drum roll….LandWorks took the top award at the 2024 Charity Awards. Huge congratulations!
AND FINALLY…
How machine learning is helping refugees to succeed. Learn more.
And (with thanks to Justin Adams) a medieval English Summer song to take with you into the holidays. Listen out for the cuckoos.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The Pathways to Change residential is just around the corner - on 17-19 September 2024. We’re excited to see many of our community there - and deeply grateful to our partners at the Gates Foundation for making it possible.
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make the most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
The Greenwood Place Annual Report 2023-2024
Each year, we carry out a survey of our clients and our grantee partners and we publish the results.
These survey results, together with case studies of our partners’ work, form the heart of our Annual Report.
Briefing No. 40
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place Bedside Table
"Out of the Ordinary" by Marc Stears is an elegant essay on the need to recognise the value in down-to-earth, small scale activity as well as the grand scheme. Stears draws on the work of mid-20th century British writers and artists to propose a way of building the future that focuses on a tangible shared history. It’s inspiring.
Tunainuana (Together We Rise)
CAMFED is a pan-African movement supporting girls to go to school, thrive and become influential leaders and changemakers in their communities. Below is a private link to CAMFED’s powerful film, Tunainuana, which shares the life story of Lydia Wilbard, CAMFED’s Executive Director of Learning and Engagement. As it will be premiered at a film festival in the coming weeks, we ask you not to share the film on your digital platforms at this time. But please do watch it.
Putting Relationships First
Did you ever have the experience of reading something that put into words something that you knew to be true but hadn’t quite articulated? This happened to Rebecca when she read the Relationship Project’s Case Maker.
One Day
Directed and produced by Graeme and Jennie Montgomery, One Day is a multi-award-winning short film about LandWorks’ pioneering approach to prisoner resettlement. If you click just one link from this edition of the Briefing, make it this one. And watch the full 7 minutes. It’s worth it.
Bill Gates spends $9 Billion a year
Chris Anderson, Head of TED, has become obsessed with the idea of what he calls “infectious generosity”. In this interview with Bill Gates - perhaps the Typhoid Mary of infectious generosity - Chris explores Gates’s motivations for getting started in philanthropy, what he’s learned along the way and what he’s excited about.
Blessings
It was a privilege and a blessing to listen live to David Whyte reading his poetry on stage at the Skoll World Forum last week. This short film gives a taster of his work.
And Finally… Penguins
National Geographic filmed a group of young penguins learning to swim - and jumping off the edge of a 50-foot ice cliff.
COMMUNITY UPDATES
About 90 percent of children in Africa don't get enough to eat – and children suffering from malnutrition are far less likely to keep going to school. We were thrilled when our Kenya based community members at Food for Education won the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship last week. If you’d like to learn more about their work, the Skoll Foundation has made a beautiful short film of their work.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Coming up soon in the Pathways to Change programme: we’re talking health with Professor Dixon Chibanda of Friendship Bench and Professor Andrew Bastawrous of Peek Vision on 24th April. We're also hosting an in-depth and interactive grant-making workshop on 25th April jointly with colleagues from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Lydia Wilbard, CAMFED’s Executive Director of Learning and Engagement and Nasikiwa Duke, National Director of CAMFED Tanzania will be our speakers for our virtual roundtable on education on the 15th May.
If you’re interested in learning more or joining any of these events, please just let us know.
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 39
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place Bedside Table
"Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop?" by Chris van Tulleken is an engrossing, fast-paced, and alarming, tour of the science of processing and the reality of foods that are no longer even faint echoes of the real food they mimic. Van Tulleken outlines what the evidence shows about the biology and psychology of eating in today’s world.
Not The End of The World
Dr Hannah Ritchie is an environmental data scientist and researcher at Our World in Data as well as the author of “Not the End of the World”. Ritchie’s TED Talk is a great primer for her book - sharing the data that illuminates a path towards a future that is good for both planet and people.
My Last 5p
In this beautiful radio programme, Matthew Syed explores how the effects of one seemingly small act of generosity can ripple outwards, creating a larger tapestry of consequences.
Gene Therapy for Deafness
Yiyi, profoundly deaf from birth, can hear her mother and dance to music due to a new type of gene therapy.
State of the Sector
New Philanthropy Capital's State of the Sector report is just out - exploring the views of charity leaders, charity users, and the public on where UK charities are. Key findings include:
- Charities prop up state services by £2.4bn a year
- Only 15% of the public think that charities are too political
- 59% of the public are not confident that charities are working where they’re most needed.
Sora
OpenAi's extraordinary text-to-video model Sora, can generate videos up to a minute long while maintaining visual quality and adherence to the user’s prompt. Be amazed.
And Finally… Blackstar
Eight years since David Bowie’s death, we revisited the blend of jazz, codes, brutality and drama that made up his final, brilliant album.
COMMUNITY UPDATES
Making The Invisible, Visible - Greenwood Place community member Andrew Bastawrous delivered his inaugural lecture following his appointment as a Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine this month - discussing his life and career from a young boy with vision impairment to becoming an eye surgeon and the founder and CEO of Peek Vision. Watch the recording here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The Pathways to Change programme is well underway. Sessions upcoming include an immersive masterclass in storytelling and a roundtable discussion on what it takes to end hunger. Do let us know if you’d like to learn more about the programme.
And…if you are going to the Skoll World Forum in April - we’d love to see you there! Greenwood Place will be there in force - convening events and curating the programme for our community.
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 38
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place Bedside Table
Thirty years ago, the main population question was “How can we stop the world reaching 24 billion?” Now, falling child bearing and falling death rates in almost all countries raise different questions. Dr Sarah Harper’s book 'How Population Change Will Transform Our World' provides a coherent, intelligent and crystal-clear analysis of global shifts and the opportunities of demographic change.
Freedom From Want
The 2022 BBC Reith Lectures were inspired by President Franklin D Roosevelt's four freedoms speech of 1941. Author, musician and social commentator Darren (“Loki”) McGarvey gave the third of four lectures addressing 'Freedom from Want’. We listened to it again this week.
Kindness
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
A World of Good Relationships
Relationships, David Robinson argues, are the foundation on which all else is built - including effective education, just policing, stable childhoods, thriving communities, flourishing businesses - even longer lives… Robinson's recent lecture at the London School of Economics gives a taster of his work with The Relationships Project.
Mapping: Food Unaffordability Across the World
The World Health Organization found that the COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine pushed 122 million more people into food insecurity between 2019 and 2022. Higher food prices, combined with increasing poverty, have resulted in rising food unaffordability, especially in certain regions of the world.
The Culture Map
Erin Meyer’s book has been the talk of the Greenwood Place office over the past week. Communicating across cultures is central to our work as donors, and we love the way that Meyer draws out the misunderstandings that can arise from clashing cultural assumptions. It’s a fun read.
Delivering Hope
Imagine a world where innovations could save the lives of 2 million more mothers and babies. When a mother dies during childbirth, the future dies with her.
The Gates Foundation's 2023 Goalkeepers Report explores how many additional lives might be saved if available innovations were to be used widely in low and middle income countries.
Early Relational Health
Positive early relationships are the keys to lifelong health and well-being and essential to protecting children and families from adversity. Our friends at the Burke Foundation commissioned this report from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education outlining the critical importance of family-friendly policies and practices in building thriving families and, ultimately, thriving communities.
Old World Young Africa
This New York Times interactive article gives an upbeat and visual run through some of the points made in Susan Harper’s book.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Pathways to Change is underway! With thanks to our partners at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation we were delighted to bring together programme participants and social entrepreneurs for an introductory drinks session in London. The main educational programme kicks off in January so there is still time for philanthropists interested to deepen their understanding and effectiveness to join. Let us know if you’d like to find out more.
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 37
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place Bedside Table
There is no such thing as ‘away’. We have long been blithely throwing out our waste – tossing it over our shoulders and moving on to the next shiny new thing, with little thought to what happens to the discarded item. It might be burned, buried, reconstituted or sent on an expedition to new lands. One person’s ‘away’ is another’s ‘here’. Oliver Franklin-Wallis's Wasteland is a fascinating and enraging read.
Sal Khan & Bill Gates in Conversation
Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, recently sat down with Bill Gates to discuss how AI will transform education and what Khan Academy is doing right now to harness its power.
Acceptance
“Sometimes you need a little help to ... see the light or even be reminded of what kind of life you could have, you know, reminded of what kind of person you could be ...” Joshua, LandWorks.
Acceptance, a new book from Greenwood Place partner charity LandWorks, throws a much-needed light on the complex lives of offenders, the challenges of rehabilitation, and potential for change.
Poverty and Policy
During the 20 years following Deng Xiaoping's introduction of agricultural reform in 1978, China’s GDP more than quadrupled and, according to official statistics, the number of people in poverty was reduced by over 200 million. Podcast "The Rest is History", reflects on Deng Xiaoping’s leadership.
Beauty
In our work at Greenwood Place, we are frequently reminded that beauty appeals to the senses and nourishes the soul - reducing anxiety and inflammation, increasing a sense of hope. The Google Ngram Viewer displays user-selected words or phrases in a graph that shows how those phrases have occurred in books over time. We were fascinated to see that "beauty" has been trending upwards since 1980.
Working to Restore
Rooted in optimism, journalist Esha Chhabra’s book examines businesses in agriculture, waste, supply chains, travel, health, energy, and finance and tells stories of the entrepreneurs who are trying to restore civility, integrity and transparency to business - moving beyond “sustainability” into an era of regeneration and restoration.
Conservation & Local-Global Partnerships
“The local organization is pivotal. It is there forever. It is not like the international organisation that has a limited period of time.” Dominic Ngwesse, Nature Cameroon.
Maliasili exists to help talented African conservation organisations overcome challenges and constraints so that they can become more effective agents of change. Rooting for Change is their new report.
Upcoming Events
Philanthropy Insight’s London Philanthropy Summit is on 14th-15th November 2023. We’re very happy to be partnering with the Pi team - Sonal and Louisa will both be leading sessions. Speakers include Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics as well as Greenwood Place community members Jacqueline Novogratz and Per Heggenes. Find out more about the programme and register for tickets via this link.
CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 36
What we’re reading
Our Holiday Reading List
Every Summer, Greenwood Place closes its doors for two weeks of dedicated reading and strategic thinking. We dive deep into the issues that we are working on with our clients as well as those facing society more broadly. If you’d like to see our collective reading list to get inspiration for your own holiday reading.
Greenwood Place’s Annual Review
Each year, we carry out a survey of our clients and our grantee partners and we publish the results. These results, together with stories from a few of our grantee partners, form the heart of our annual review. We hope you enjoy it.
An Economy of Abundance
Dana Bezerra from Greater Share recommended this article to us. What would it take for us to move to a model of abundance and reciprocity?
The World’s Indigenous Peoples: Map
Indigenous Peoples make up one third of the world’s poor, their territories overlap with all the significant biodiverse regions of the world and they have long been at the front line of resistance against deforestation. They operate at the front line of climate protection and biodiversity preservation.
The Rungs
Youth, risk, and vulnerability are often balled up together in a way that sees young people as the problem (or the solution) - rather than as participants in a society with many problems. Young people are vulnerable not just because they are young. Perhaps more fundamentally, they are vulnerable because they are people who live in an unequal world where the social values and institutions that permit opportunities and possibilities of all kinds are not available to everyone.
Benjamin Gucciardi’s poem brought these issues - which we often work on at Greenwood Place - alive for us.
Funding Small Organisations
“If funders want ‘less talk and more walk’ in the field of systems change, it’s time they started funding small, locally led organisations.” We enjoyed Lior Ipp’s recent article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
How To Explore A European Paradise
Here's a glimpse of the incredible, diverse nature that still exists in pockets of Europe, and the work that needs to be done to protect it. A team of 70 scientists from 17 countries, accompanied by journalists, photographers, activists, and artists, came together to explore, document and contribute to the conservation of the Neretva River system.
Things You Need To Know
James May uses bizarre analogies and whimsical imagery to explore everyday questions in these little animated films. Do you know how many fully-laden double-decker buses it takes to outweigh a single commercial aeroplane? Or why ice cream makes your head hurt?
Upcoming Events
The next Greenwood Place roundtable is on 20th September. We’ll be joined by Nicole Rycroft, Bren Smith and Silvia Gomez Echeverri to talk innovative approaches to conservation. Do let us know if you’d like to join us.
CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
The Greenwood Place Annual Report 2022-2023
Each year, we carry out a survey of our clients and our grantee partners and we publish the results.
These survey results, together with case studies of our partners’ work, form the heart of our Annual Report.
Briefing No. 35
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
When northern Kenyans find elephant bones, they lay down blossoms and branches as a mark of respect. In our changing world, these values are vitally important. For decades, northern Kenya was one step away from war. Wildlife was decimated. Yet, facing the most extreme challenges, people united. The Greenwood Place community visited the Northern Rangeland Trust in 2018 and saw proof that human dedication to the cause of conservation, and to one another, can make a difference. Sonal took Peter Martell’s book Flowers for Elephants with her to visit family this month in Kenya.
The Good Life
"The Good Life" is making its way around the Greenwood Place team. Based on findings from the 80-year-long Harvard Study of Adult Development, this landmark book draws out the longest and richest study of human lives anywhere to ask what makes for a fulfilling and meaningful life? A good life? .
Canopy
Our partner Canopy received a $60 million investment over six years through The Audacious Project this month to transform the world's paper, packaging and viscose supply chains. We lose over five billion trees a year to paper, packaging and viscose textiles. Canopy is poised to catalyse a dramatic scale-up of Next Gen pulp production capacity and purchasing, preventing the logging of Ancient and Endangered forests. By turning food waste, agricultural residues, and textile waste into Next Gen fibres that can be used for packaging and clothing, Canopy’s work will protect the planet's most critical forest ecosystems.
Five Seasons
“For me, garden design isn’t just about plants, it is about emotion, atmosphere, a sense of contemplation. You try to move people with what you do. You look at this, and it goes deeper than what you see. It reminds you of something in the genes - nature, or the longing for nature.” Piet Oudolf, landscape designer. Nick Bent, CEO of Upreach, recommended this documentary to us. He told us that it was absolutely entrancing. We agree.
To Be A Healer
For years, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has been naming and investigating loneliness as a public health issue. When people struggle with loneliness, not only is it bad for their mental health, increasing their risk of depression and anxiety, but it also increases their risk for heart disease and premature death. Murthy discusses here how we can reclaim lives that are full of joy and connection to one another and why it is so urgent that we do.
Matar
Directed by Bafta-winner Hassan Akkad and starring Ahmed Malek (The Swimmers), Matar is a powerful exposé of the UK's asylum system and the hardships and discrimination faced by those trying to rebuild their lives in England, told through the story of one man and his experiences working as a delivery driver in London.
Drawdown Lift
Work to address climate change often overlooks the well-being of people experiencing extreme poverty - those who are often most vulnerable to a changing climate. This new report lists out readily available and financially viable climate solutions that increase income and improve food security for the most vulnerable
A Space Elevator
Take a trip to space and explore the atmosphere in the world's only space elevator.
And Finally…
Spring has finally, truly arrived. Few have matched Chaucer’s lyrical praise for the finest month in Troilus and Criseyde:
In May, that moder is of monthes glade,
That fresshe floures, blewe, and whyte, and rede,
Ben quike agayn, that winter dede made,
And ful of bawme is fleting every mede.
CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 34 - Colombia Special
Greenwood Place in Colombia
A few weeks ago, a group of twenty Greenwood Place community members came together to travel and meet with social innovators and change-makers from across Colombia.
Over a period of five days, we took time to consider together how we could approach a time which feels uncertain and unsettling in so many ways and to dig into the issues we are facing with optimism and energy.
We put together this special edition briefing to share a little of what we learned.
“I learned so much - from the visits of course, but also the group itself and not just the questions but the interactions, connections and general energetic field. Lots of thinking, lots of new sparks and ideas still coming, and adjustments to make.”
“I know I will be feeling the ripples of this trip for many weeks and months to come.”
Participant, Greenwood Place Learning Journey 2023
Our Plane Reading
The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker has been a constant source of referral for the Greenwood Place team over the past few years, and never more than in the run up to the Learning Journey. We’ve recommended it before but it bears repeating - it is a true boon for anyone looking to create gatherings with intention. We have sticky notes and underlinings all over the Greenwood Place office copy.
Most of us were also carrying copies of Wade Davis’s Magdalena: River of Dreams - a geography book about Colombia’s great arterial river that unpacks both the political history and the ecology of Colombia, and celebrates the beauty and complexity of the country.
Turning the Problem into the Solution
The backdrop to Bogotá is the Cerros Orientales, the Colombian Andes. We climbed up there early one morning with social enterprise LiveHappy. The mountain landscape - the Páramo - is both beautiful and dangerous. Most Bogotáns fear the people who live in the remote hillside communities and do not venture there.
LiveHappy was built by trail runners who began hiring and training young people from remote mountain communities to provide security for walkers and to care for the trails - working with the communities to plough their profit into the things that young people and their families say they need most. Co-Founder Rafael Torres told us, “We figured, why not turn the problem into the solution.” There have been zero robberies in the area since LiveHappy started work.
Building Peace
Coschool was founded on the belief that peace-building needs to start in the classroom. Fifty years of civil war have left a lasting negative effect on families and children across the country.
Coschool responds to societal fractures by bringing socio-emotional learning into schools - working to build trust, improve relationships, increase confidence and enhance problem-solving techniques. Dilan, Coschool graduate and trainee teacher, left us with the thought that “Education is, after all, an act of love.”
Building Community
Patricia (name changed) used to be a journalist. She trained as a child-minder with early years education specialists AeioTu not long after she arrived in Bogotá as a refugee from Venezuela. She lives in a small apartment in Soacha - an area of the city that, she told us, has the same problems as the rest of the city but 10x fewer resources - and has filled it with engaging toys and learning aids for the pre-schoolers she cares for. She’s determined to be part of creating a stable and peaceful future. She told us that the work she does now is a direct contribution to building a better future.
Relationship
Gaia Amazonas is committed to the protection of biological and cultural diversity, and the future of the Amazon rainforest. Since 1990, they have worked hand in hand with Indigenous communities of the Northwest Amazon for the recognition of their rights, territories, and local governance systems, as the most viable and dignified strategy for forest conservation.
Gaia Amazonas’ work - which leads to a 3-5x reduction in annual deforestation rates - recognises and relies on a deep interdependence of people and nature. Founder Martin von Hildebrand told us: “What is important is not the part but the relationship between the parts. If we focus on the individual we become chaos. Everything is about the community.”
Respect at the Bases of Partnership
We travelled with Carlos Ignacio Velasco of Cacao Hunters to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the far north of Colombia to meet Carlos’s partners from the Indigenous Arhuaco community. Together Cacao Hunters and the Arhuacos have built a business that creates some of the best chocolate in the world.
We wanted to understand the deep, mutually respectful, partnership that they have built in an isolated region of Colombia that suffered deeply during fifty years of civil war. Community Leader Hernan told us that the basis of the partnership was respect: “Cacao Hunters were the first to come, and they listened. They respect nature. We share many things.”
Pause
El Colegio del Cuerpo – the School of the Body – is a community built in, and directly in response to, challenging times. Born in 1997 as an artistic, social and educational response to bodily mistreatments in Colombia – violence, kidnappings, displacement, torture and murder – El Colegio merges dance and social justice. A contemporary dance school at its core, it provides a safe and engaging environment for its students, the majority of whom come from extremely challenging social backgrounds, to pause, to heal and to learn both self-respect and respect for others.
Founder Alvaro Restrepo spoke to us of the importance of “the pause… the silence between the notes”. As a dancer, he explained, you prepare, then pause, and then move. Viktor Frankl phrased it: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Celebrate
We ended our week at Hay Festival Cartagena with our community members Andrew Bastawrous of Peek Vision, Louisa Mitchell of West London Zone and Maria Adelaida Lopez of AeioTU sharing their stories on stage. The standing ovation that ended that session was a moment of celebration for all of us.
AND…
A deep thank you from all @ Greenwood Place to all of our hosts and friends in Colombia - to Antonuela Ariza and Eduardo Martinez of Mini Mal - and everyone who joined us at their restaurant for supper, to Juan Diego Céspedes Henao and all the team at Fundación Santo Domingo, to the amazing team at Gema Tours, to Patricia and Carlos Julio Ardila for welcoming us to their home and to Cristina Fuentes La Roche whose inspiration lies behind the entire journey.
And a very particular thank you to Virgilio Barco, friend and guide - without whom the week would not have been possible.
“Profound, deep, nourishing and a joy. To be part of such an incredible community and to visit a beautiful country and witness incredible people was such a gift. Thank you Greenwood Place.”
Participant, Greenwood Place Learning Journey 2023
HIRING
Greenwood Place is hiring. Take a look at the job application pack and do share it with anyone you think might be curious about joining our small, happy and highly effective team.
CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 33 - The Christmas Edition
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
"Despite how debased or corrupt we are told humanity is, and how degraded the world has become" says Nick Cave "it just keeps on being beautiful. It can't help it."
Faith, Hope and Carnage draws together several long conversations between Nick Cave and Sean O'Hagan. As a regular reader of Cave's Red Hand Files, Rebecca had been looking forward to this new book and it has not disappointed.
OpenAI
We've been playing (slightly obsessively) in the OpenAI Playground this month. Founded philanthropically, OpenAI's mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Imagine if the best AI models were open and free. What would you do with them?
The Earthshot Prize
The Earthshot Prize was designed to find and grow solutions that will repair and regenerate our planet in this decade. We are thrilled to announce that for the second year running, a Greenwood Place partner has won! Huge congratulations to Kheyti, creators of affordable, modular greenhouse kits that help smallholder farmers increase yield and predictability of produce.
Standing At The Edge
Joan Halifax draws on a lifetime of experience in Standing At The Edge. In her wise and generous writing, Halifax explores the gift and the peril of empathy - how to encounter suffering with compassion while staying clear about the distinction between the self and other.
Eight Medical Breakthroughs
The Royal Society of Medicine's animation chronicles some of the remarkable innovations and breakthroughs in medicine that happened during the reign of HM Queen Elizabeth II.
The Dignity Report
The enterprise of development, and work on social problems more generally, has too often failed to fully appreciate, and fully uphold, the dignity of each and every person. We found ourselves nodding a great deal as we read through the Dignity Report's findings and recommendations.
The Little Prince
"What makes the desert beautiful,' said the little prince, 'is that somewhere it hides a well..." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince. We're planning to settle down for some wonder and joy this month with the animated film version of Saint-Exupéry's classic story.
AND FINALLY…
We enjoyed the Five Minute Guide to Typography shared with us by our friends at Mighty Ally.
CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 32
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
We loved The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Mueller. Mueller discusses the limits of metrics and the potentially distorting effects of the pressure for measurable results.
Ways of Being
We are very excited about the next book in our stack, Ways of Being by James Bridle. What does it mean to be intelligent? Bridle asks whether plants, animals and machines are intelligent and, if so, how do we recognise this intelligence and what does it mean for us. A taste of the argument in this podcast discussion between Bridle and Brian Eno (and thank you to our lovely Somerset House neighbours, literary agents Greene & Heaton, for the recommendation).
How Enlightenment Happens
This fascinating conversation between Chris Anderson and Steven Johnson covers where ideas come from, how optimism benefits creative ideation, the complex and even controversial process of discovery, and the beauty of the “adjacent possible.”
The Ark of Taste
Our diets are more homogenous than at any other point in human history. The Ark of Taste, managed by Italy’s Slow Food Movement, documents foods that we might lose, so that we notice and preserve them while we still can.
Is AI the Biggest Event in Human History
Professor Stuart Russell reflects on AI’s history, its impact on our lives and how - if at all - we can retain power over machines more powerful than ourselves.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Our next community roundtable is IRL at Somerset House on 22nd November. We will be discussing the widening attainment gap in UK education with Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, Becky Francis, CEO of the Education Endowment Foundation and Nick Bent, Co-Founder of Tutor Trust. We are now at full capacity.
AND FINALLY…
The Fayre of St James’s - a star-studded evening of carols, live performances, festive readings and Christmas cheer in central London - is supporting the Firefly Project, which finds and funds impactful, innovative grassroots charities in London that help children and young people realise their potential. More information and tickets here.
CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.
Briefing No. 31
Greenwood Place Annual Report 2021/22
Each year we ask our clients and our grantee partners how we’re doing. These survey results, together with case studies of our partners' work, form the heart of our Annual Report. This year’s report is a particularly special one because it marks our fifth anniversary as a business. We could not be more proud of what our community has achieved over these five years, or more grateful to walk alongside each of them in their work.
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
Abdulrazak Gurnah is the author of By the Sea, Paradise and Afterlives. Gurnah was born in Zanzibar but has lived in the UK for the last five decades, having fled the turmoil that followed the 1964 revolution as a teenager. He won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. Lucy and Rebecca took some of his books on a recent journey to visit grantee partners in Tanzania and loved them. We recommend By the Sea and Paradise.
13 Minutes to the Moon
We’re listening to Dr Kevin Fong’s enthralling and award-winning podcast series 13 Minutes to the Moon on the BBC World Service. A decade-long mission culminated in the final nerve wracking 13 minutes it took the Moon lander to arrive safely on the surface. It’s a positive and timely reminder of humanity's great track record in achieving seemingly impossible engineering breakthroughs.
Africa’s Great Carbon Valley - And How to End Energy Poverty
James Irungu Mwangi is the executive director of the Dalberg Group, the founder of the Climate Action Platform for Africa, and a member of Greenwood Place’s advisory board. James’s recent TED Talk explores how Africa’s wealth of land and resources as well as its young and growing workforce make it the ideal home for scaling the latest and most ambitious climate technologies.
The Most Critical Ingredient in Leadership
What, above all else, drives leaders to direct or redirect their lives, to tackle seemingly intractable problems, and to stay true to their values in the face of enormous challenges? Jacqueline Novogratz and Anne Welsh McNulty explore the most critical ingredient in leadership in this article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
I earn £10.71 an hour. Here’s what the cost of living crisis has been like
In every conversation we have with our grantee partners across the world, we’ve been asking about the cost of living and whether and how price increases are affecting their work. The author of this article provides a clear and sharp perspective on what is happening in the UK.
Mapping the Coral Reefs of the Soil
A network of mycelium runs through all the world’s dirt, helping plants grow and sequestering carbon. A massive citizen science project is underway to map, visualise and eventually help preserve the fungal networks that underpin life on Earth.
A New Strategy for Women’s Health
The UK’s National Health Service has vowed to tackle decades of systemic and entrenched gender health inequality, opening its newly released report with the words “historically, the health and care system has been designed by men, for men.” The report sets out a comprehensive strategy to improve health and wellbeing for women.
How to End Coal
Ending the world’s reliance on coal is not a “one size fits all”. Global strategies need to be adapted to national and regional realities.
UPCOMING EVENTS
We will be visiting Colombia for our next Greenwood Place client learning journey. Invitations are coming out shortly - do block your diaries end of January 2023.
And let us know if you would like to join us on September 7th for our next community roundtable conversation with Paul Roughan of the Islands Knowledge Institute and Peter Seligmann and Daniela Lerda of Nia Tero as we discuss how we can secure Indigenous guardianship of vital ecosystems.
AND FINALLY… BUILDING FENCES
Greenwood Place’s annual donation this year is being used to build fences. We’re supporting MWEDO, the Maasai Women Development Organisation, to create a nursery and market garden that will feed a community and produce a surplus for sale. Our donation is being used to enclose five acres of drip-irrigated land and purchase a second water tank to store rainwater. Thank you to all of our clients for making it possible for us to make this gift.
CAN WE HELP YOU?
Greenwood Place provides philanthropy support, advice and execution for a small group of strategic philanthropists. We take an entrepreneurial approach to tackling tough social and environmental problems. We work closely with our clients to find the places where they can make most difference, we support their learning and we partner with them to achieve real, lasting change.
The Greenwood is the place in Shakespeare's plays where characters go to grow, change and learn.