Briefing No. 16 - Christmas Edition
WHAT WE'RE READING
Greenwood Place’s Christmas Bookshelf
As a team of curious generalists, we loved Range by David Epstein. Epstein argues for developing broad interests and skills, thinking broadly and embracing diverse perspectives. He suggests it's the way to thrive in most fields - especially those that are complex and unpredictable. People who think broadly and embrace diverse experience and perspectives will increasingly thrive.
EDUCATION AND GRADES
"The most damaging thing you learned in school wasn't something you learned in a specific class. It was learning to get good grades". Paul Graham reflects on whether hacking bad tests is becoming less important in grown-up life. And whether this might ultimately have a beneficial effect on education as well.
THE MADNESS OF INDUSTRIAL FOOD PRODUCTION
We're transfixed and horrified by The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan's terrifying romp through the US food production industry.
HOW WE CAN TURN THE TIDE ON CLIMATE
"If we are to address the climate crisis, it's going to take all of us. But we need to break out of our silos, and work with each other in unique ways," said Chris Anderson of TED, at the launch of Countdown, an initiative that will spread and activate ideas to combat climate change.
WHEN INVESTMENT FAILS THE PEOPLE WHO NEED IT MOST
Laura Hattendorf of Mulago Foundation - a friend and colleague of Greenwood Place through the Big Bang Philanthropy network of collaborative, impact driven donors - questions whether enough impact investors are truly making decisions with an impact mindset. Many investors say poverty or climate change are the kinds of problems they want to help solve, but too few investments are getting made. Maybe the deal is too small, too early, too late, too risky. There are always a million reasons not to do the deal...
HARMONY
After spending a couple of days last week with Patrick Holden (Founder of the Sustainable Food Trust) talking about how our tendency to ignore the way that nature works is affecting our health and our environment, Rebecca dusted off her copy of HRH The Prince of Wales and Tony Juniper's "Harmony" to re-read over the holidays.
Harmony is a brilliant and broad-ranging book, which considers how we might approach the way we do things by looking at how Nature herself operates, not least when it comes to food and farming, and what happens when we separate what we ARE from what we do.
MUSIC IN EXILE
Filmed partly in refugee camp and on the war-ravaged streets of Timbuktu and Gao, Johanna Schwartz's miraculously hopeful documentary delivers a vibrant testimony of resilience under oppression - and some cracking tunes.
THE ART OF PAYING ATTENTION
Before he was known as a poet and philosopher, David Whyte lived another life as a marine zoologist and spent almost two years living in the Galapagos Islands observing animals, birds and landscapes.
"I began to realise that my identity ... depended on how much attention I was paying to things that were other than myself." Our experience is that this paying attention is sometimes the beginning of connecting with others, or with what's around us, and that ability to listen which sits at the hear of impactful philanthropy - something that Whyte calls "the conversational nature of reality."
AND FINALLY... DA VINCI'S BRIDGE
Leonardo designed a revolutionary new bridge 500 years ago that never saw the light of day. It incorporates techniques that were re-imagined and actually used by architects 300 years later. Researchers at MIT just built the model, see here.
OUR CHRISTMAS GIFT TO THE GREENWOOD PLACE COMMUNITY
In time-honoured tradition, as 2019 draws to a close, Greenwood Place is planting trees as our thank you to our clients, grantee partners and the entire community. We wish you all a very Happy Christmas, and look forward to even greater, collective, impact across our community in 2020.