NEWS
The Greenwood Place Annual Report 2021-2022
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. 30
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
Citizens - Something is happening. A different story is rising and ripening. It is a story of widely distributed power. A story of who we are as humans, what we are capable of, and how we might together reimagine and rebuild our world. Jon Alexander’s Citizens is about rethinking the stories that we listen to and that we live, and about identifying the domains where we have some influence, and working to make things better.
DEMOCRACY INDEX 2021
Democratisation suffered more reversals in 2021, with the percentage of people living in a democracy falling to well below 50% and authoritarian regimes gaining ground. This year’s Democracy Index report, published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, finds that democracy experienced its biggest annual decline since 2010, when the global financial crash led to major setbacks. The index score fell for all but one region, with pandemic-related restrictions continuing to constrain individual freedoms.
EDUCATION AFTER DISASTER
Interrupting schooling has deep and long-lasting effects on children suggests a study from Oxford, which is based on research into the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. The findings have significant relevance for other disasters, including recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you to Laura Savage of the International Education Funders Group for sharing this with us.
LEAVING CARE WELL
A landmark review of the UK’s care system was published last week. We are still digesting the 250 page report here in the office but we thought we’d share with you this two minute animation produced by young care leavers who form part of the ground-breaking National House Project, a member of the Greenwood Place community.
WHAT THE GREEN GROUPS SAID
Lynn has just returned from the Environmental Funders Network retreat with a wealth of information and ideas to share with the rest of the Greenwood Place team. She is currently reading through EFN’s recent report summarising what is happening across the environmental sector, how its leaders believe they can become more effective and what funders can do to facilitate that success.
THE MIDNIGHT SUN
The days are getting longer and lighter by the day here in the UK. As we look forward to Summer, we enjoyed this 360deg time lapse video which follows the never-setting sun in a 24 hour trip around the sky above the Arctic Circle.
UPCOMING EVENTS
We’re beginning to work on the next Greenwood Place learning journey. Block your diaries - end of January 2023.
And do join us for our next roundtable conversation, with Paul Roughan, of the Islands Knowledge Institute and Peter Seligmann of Nia Tero to discuss how we can secure Indigenous guardianship of vital ecosystems.
If you would like to talk to us about ways to provide practical help to families and individuals in Ukraine or those who have recently found themselves becoming refugees , please call us. The situation is complex and still evolving but there are ways to help.
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.
Back Issue Book Recommendations
We put together a list of all the books we’ve recommended in the Greenwood Place briefing over the years. Our back issue recommendations make an increasingly tall pile and all are worth revisiting. You can easily go back and browse those you missed over the years.
Briefing No. 29
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
The Quiet Before - In these strange and difficult times, we are finding Gal Beckerman’s new book helpful. He looks at how ideas are debated, transmitted and become defining, how every idea and discovery that changes the world is marked by long periods of abject failure and how what really creates transformative change - for good and for bad - is often not obvious at the time.
MAPPED: 200 YEARS OF POLITICAL REGIMES BY COUNTRY
HISTORIC STEP TOWARDS ENDING PLASTIC POLLUTION
Meeting in Nairobi at the UN Environment Assembly this month, 175 nations have agreed a historic resolution to end plastic pollution.
INVISIBLE CHILD
We're reading Invisible Child by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Andrea Elliott. It’s a forensic look at poverty in the US. Based on nearly a decade of reporting, Invisible Child follows eight years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child born into poverty in Brooklyn, New York. Highly recommended.
DIGNITY
Properly incorporating ideas of dignity and respect, as Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee have written, sets off “a profound rethinking of economic priorities”. What might a dignity framework for respectful development look like?
CAN DEMOCRACY RISE TO THE OCCASION
The conventional wisdom these days is that autocracy is ascendent, democracy on the decline. Ken Roth argues that the alleged, widespread rise of the autocrats is more qualified than often assumed.
SOMETHING JOYFUL
Forty animators from around the world collaborated on this lovely two-minute video called Pass the Ball. Each person had three seconds to animate a ball and “pass” it to the next person.
CHANGING THE GREENWOOD PLACE BANK ACCOUNT
Greenwood Place has moved its banking relationship to Triodos Bank. Triodos publish details of every organisation they lend to and we’re delighted that the cash in our business's current account will soon be used to finance other inspiring businesses and charities. If you’re one of our clients, please look out for a change of details on your next invoice from Greenwood Place.
UKRAINE - WAYS TO HELP
If you would like to talk to us about ways to provide practical help to families and individuals in Ukraine or who have found themselves becoming refugees in the past few days, please call us. The situation is complex and still evolving but the
UPCOMING EVENTS
We’re looking forward to our next roundtable later this month on ending homelessness, with Meghan Roach, Daniel Brewer and Rick Henderson. Please do let us know if you’d like to join.
And... registration is now open for the virtual Skoll Forum. Please do log in here and register.
AND FINALLY…
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. 28 - Christmas Edition
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
Only 6-8% of the world’s fungi have so far even been identified. Mycorrhizal relationships matter because 90% of plants, the basis of everything that sustains us, depend on them. If you teased apart the mycelium found in a gram of soil and laid it end to end, it could stretch anywhere from 100 metres to 10 kilometres. Merlin Sheldrake’s “Entangled Life” is a mind-blowing read for the holidays and a timely reminder that the world is richer, stranger and more wonderful than we know.
GRATITUDE
We cannot be grateful for everything. However, says David Steindl-Rast, although it is clearly not possible to be grateful for everything, we can be grateful in every moment. Steindl-Rast calls joy “the happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.” His idea of gratitude is one we plan to reflect on as 2021 draws to a close. It is not an easy one. It is a choice to stop, look at the present moment and - for a split second - understand the opportunity of this moment.
SEEING CLEARLY
“I was ready for the world but I don’t think the world was ready for me.”
Sixto “Sugar Man” Rodriguez.
Mysterious “street poet” of Detroit recorded two albums in 1970 and 1971, and then disappeared. His music remained relatively unheard and unknown, except in South Africa where Rodriguez became a legend. This Academy Award-winning documentary is an uplifting holiday watch, it takes viewers on a surprising journey and reminds us all that, sometimes, the greatest heroes are the people living right next door.
THE PUBLIC PHILOSOPHER
Justice, the course Michael Sandel devised at Harvard, is one of the most popular in the university’s history – thousands of students apply to attend in person and tens of millions watch his classes online. Thank you to our community member Stephanie Brobbey for pointing us towards the soundtrack to Sandel’s life.
CARBON EMISSIONS PER CAPITA BY COUNTRY
Measuring total carbon emissions doesn't always paint the most accurate picture of a country's contribution, if their populations isn't considered.
THE EARTHSHOT PRIZE
The Earthshot Prize is the most ambitious and prestigious of its kind – designed to incentivise change and help to repair our planet over the next ten years. We were thrilled when Greenwood Place community members Coral Vita were announced as amongst the first five global winners.
TALKING WITH WHALES
An interdisciplinary group of scientists are hoping to use artificial intelligence to decode whale conversation.
MY BRILLIANT IMAGE
I wish I could show you
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!
Lines from a poem by 14th century Persian Sufi writer, Hafiz of Shiraz
Upcoming Events
Thank you to everyone who joined our recent, fascinating conversation with Christy Turlington Burns, Courtenay Cabot Venton and Ndinini Kimesera Sikar about women’s self-help groups and their astonishing efficacy in enabling members to fight poverty and protect health.
In the New Year we are looking forward to a community teach-in on impact investing with community members Impact Bridge Asset Management and a conversation about homelessness in the UK. We’re also beginning to plan a trip to the Skoll World Forum. Please let us know if you’d like to join any us for any of these.
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. 27 - UK Special
“Thank you for a GREAT Learning Journey. I have learned so much that I know will inform my giving going forward.”
A few weeks ago, a group of Greenwood Place community members came together to travel and meet with some of our UK-based partner organisations and social innovators.
Over a period of 3 days, we spent time with leaders from across the UK, and took time to consider together how we could approach this 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.
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
‘The Art of Gathering’ by Priya Parker was a constant source of referral in the run up to the Learning Journey. We recommend it to absolutely anyone looking to create gatherings with intention. The Greenwood Place team have sticky notes and underlinings all over their copy.
FAMILY
John (name changed) is a 19-year-old apprentice at Jamie’s Farm, an organisation that provides a mixture of intense therapy and hard work outdoors on a farm to young people on the verge of dropping out. He’d grown up in the care system - regularly moving from place to place throughout his childhood. The family atmosphere at Jamie’s Farm had, he told us, “softened his pain and helped him to heal.”
People talked to us often about how care, kindness, mentorship and security had allowed them to learn resilience and respect and to thrive independently - and how swiftly things go wrong when family life is detrimental to growth and wellbeing.
SEEING CLEARLY
“These young people are AMAZING - if you think what they achieve every single day - finding free wifi, a shelter for the night, somewhere to wash themselves and their clothes, often holding down college or a job… if we could solve those problems and channel that energy just think what they could achieve....”
Our hosts at New Horizon Youth Centre, a day centre providing practical help to homeless young people, reminded us of the critical importance of seeing people clearly as individuals - understanding their strengths rather than viewing them as part of a complex problem that needs to be solved.
THE TENSION BETWEEN DEPTH AND SCALE
A host at St Giles Trust told us a story of how she was trying to help a troubled young person get in to work. He said to her…“The jump you are asking me to make is like me convincing you to become a drug dealer.”
Numbers, metrics, data - these really matter. But it’s all too easy to prize scale over depth and we heard several times about the hard choices that “going deep” means in terms of resourcing for change.
LISTENING
Ulla, a Link Worker at West London Zone, spends her time working to ensure that vulnerable children and families in her neighbourhood have the support that they need to thrive. She told us that she learns through her work every day that “Listening Is Doing.”
The "success" of any intervention, programme or project should be defined by metrics informed directly by listening to the individual’s needs and agreeing goals that work for them, not for us. Too often we bring our own preconceived ideas about what matters and what will work to our relationships with those we seek to help. The Learning Journey had listening at its heart.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
Emma at Body & Soul said to us: “It’s how you build your team that enables the work.”
We saw the critical importance of organisational culture time and time again throughout the week. High-performing organisations dealing with extremely tough issues welcomed us with warmth and laughter.
Sabir (not his real name), a young man from Afghanistan who had experienced extreme trauma on his journey to the UK as a teenager, said that what helped him to begin to heal, when he got to know the team at The Baobab Centre, was the simple fact of “having someone on my side”.
PROXIMITY
We need to make space at the table for those closest to the problem, for the voices of lived experience, and to recognise that healing is not instant.
Naaz (again, not her real name), told us how she was imprisoned for 14 years at the age of 17. She was employed by St Giles Trust while she was still in prison and works to keep other young people from getting involved in gangs. She visits schools, telling her story and acting as a friend and ally for young people at risk. She said to us: “I call the young people I work with every week. I call them so they always know that they have someone to rely on.”
Lastly… a deep thank you from all @ Greenwood Place to our hosts St Giles Trust, Acumen Academy UK, the Acumen UK Fellows, Somerset House Trust, New Horizon Youth Centre, Body & Soul, The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile, Street Talk, West London Zone, Agricology and Jamie’s Farm for their time, their openness and their partnership. And to Simon Hampel, master facilitator, who travelled with us and helped us to make sense of what we learned.
One of our Community Members summed it up perfectly in an email : "This was an amazing and extraordinary experience. Just brilliant. I feel energised and inspired."
UPCOMING EVENTS
On 3rd November, we’ll be joined by Chris Underhill MBE and Andrew Bastawrous for a conversation about Why Caring for Yourself is Part of Caring for Others - And How To Do It Better.
On 1st December, Christy Turlington Burns, Ndinini Kimesera Sikar and Courtenay Cabot Venton will be joining us to discuss the Power of Collective Action - and why putting power squarely in the hands of local women makes such a difference.
And - please do join the Greenwood Place team and people from all over the world on 30th October to watch the Countdown Global Livestream at 12pm ET ahead of COP26. Find details here.
If you would like to talk to us about leaning in to support those impacted by current crisis, how to deal with the longer term social and economic fall-out of global pandemic, or the opportunities it presents to protect and restore our shared environment, please call 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.
Briefing No. 26
THE GREENWOOD PLACE ANNUAL REPORT 2020-2021
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.
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer is an extraordinary book, bringing together the objectivity and rigour of science and the ancient wisdom of indigenous people. Her love for the complexity and interconnections of the natural world shines through on every page - as Wall Kimmerer says, “Alone is a word without meaning in the forest.”
PROXIMITY
After 15 months of isolation, we have been thinking a great deal about the central importance of relationship to good philanthropy. We were drawn back to Bryan Stevenson’s 2020 interview on the On Being podcast.
Stevenson believes that. ‘We cannot make progress in creating a more just society, healthier communities, if we allow ourselves to be disconnected from the people who are most vulnerable: from the poor, the neglected, the incarcerated, the condemned. If you’re trying to make policies in the criminal justice space but have never met someone who’s in a jail or prison, you haven’t been to a jail or prison, you’re going to fail.”
CLIMATE: A CLEAR-SIGHTED VIEW
Earth has warmed 1.09℃ since pre-industrial times and many changes such as sea-level rise and glacier melt are now virtually irreversible, according to the most sobering report yet by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Global surface temperature has warmed faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2,000 years.
And CO2 levels are rising faster than ever. About 85 percent of CO2 emissions are from burning fossil fuels. The remaining 15 percent are generated from land-use change, such as deforestation and degradation.
WE TRIED TO BE JOYFUL ENOUGH
As a child, Zarlasht Halaimzai, founder of the Refugee Trauma Initiative, fled Afghanistan with her family. When the family arrived in Britain, they thought they could begin a new life in safety, But the reality was very different.
LITTLE AMAL: A STORY OF A GIRL ON THE MOVE
Throughout history the movement of people has fuelled human progress, enriched culture and accelerated the acquisition of knowledge. The Walk is a celebration of migration and cultural diversity that tells the story of the contributions made by refugees and immigrants. It represents the refugee story as one of potential, success, respect, hospitality and kindness. Little Amal is a 3.5m tall puppet, making her way across Europe from Syria to Manchester right now. Join her this month at public events in Greece and Italy.
Upcoming Events
The Greenwood Place Community Learning Journey is in just a couple of weeks. We are excited to be spending time with many of our UK based community members - clients and grantees. If you’re joining us, thank you!
If you would like to talk to us about leaning in to support those impacted by current crisis, how to deal with the longer term social and economic fall-out of global pandemic, or the opportunities it presents to protect and restore our shared environment, please call 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 2020-2021
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. 25
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
'The Ministry of the Future’, Kim Stanley Robinson's plausible, chaotic, and hopeful novel about how the climate crisis could play out, is probably the most powerful and original book on climate change we’ve read. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us – and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face. Thank you to the EarthPercent team for recommending it.
Boy on Fire
“Find your authentic voice and push violently and defiantly against your limitations - and you never know, great things may happen. I hope they do.” Nick Cave on creativity, and the bloody-minded pursuit of vision.
Designing for Scale: Greenwood Place on Youtube
Sonal and Rebecca were delighted to join with three members of the Greenwood Place’s community - Andrew Bastawrous, Pankaj Sharma and Sasha Fisher - for what turned out to be an inspirational discussion of the journey to outsize social impact. If you’re interested in Greenwood Place’s philosophy, our processes, or the partnerships we’ve built, this is a great introduction.
New Constellations
For millennia, across cultures and continents, we have looked to the stars to navigate when we are lost. Celestial bodies have exerted a magnetic pull over our lives and imaginations. In this era of transformation, the New Constellations team argue, we are locked onto old stars that are pulling us in a perilous direction. We need to discover new stars, new possibilities, and reset our course.
Their podcasts are beautifully edited dialogues with thinkers, artists and social change-makers. They’re unlike anything we’ve heard before. We love them.
Closing the Distance
In April, many of the Greenwood Place community dialled into the Skoll Foundation’s second virtual Skoll World Forum, with the theme “Closing the Distance.”
All the sessions can now be found online - but let us know if you’d like us to share our curated list of highlights. It’s also worth checking out the Skoll Foundation’s evolved strategy - the new route they are taking to transformational social change in this time of heightened urgency.
Carbon Sequestration, Biodiversity, Flood Management: The many Benefits of Trees on Farms
A near future of climatic changes is one reason Henry Andrews has added 5,000 trees to his 120-acre beef cattle farm. Improving the health of his animals is another motivation. “We’ve forgotten what our forebears used to do,” he says. “Silvopasture was a huge part of farming. We relied on hedgerows to provide shelter. They got ripped out for larger fields to try to be progressive but in hindsight it was regressive.”
The World is a Mountain
'The world is a mountain. Whatever you say, it will echo it back to you. Don't say, "I sang nicely and the mountain echoed an ugly voice!" That is not possible.’ - Rumi
Upcoming Events
Our next Greenwood Place Roundtable is tomorrow, 18th May. Clean energy visionaries Amar Inamdar and Bill Nussey will join us to discuss what they are doing as leaders and investors, to bring about a green transition. Let us know if you’d like to join.
Greta Cowan is joining us for a very special storytelling workshop on 8th June.
And…We are planning the next Greenwood Place Community Trip, IRL, in the UK this September. We will be in touch with all our clients about this over the next few days - or do call us for details.
AND FINALLY…
If you would like to talk to us about how to help those working on the front-line of Covid in India right now, or how to deal with the longer term social and economic fall-out of this global pandemic, or the opportunities it presents to protect and restore our shared environment, please call us.
Briefing No. 24
What we are reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
We’re reading Tomorrow’s Economy, in which Per Espen Stoknes reframes the hot-button issue of economic growth. Going beyond the zero sum pro-growth versus anti-growth debate, Stoknes calls for smart and inclusive value creation that benefits buyers, sellers and society.
And we just finished George Soros’s In Defence of Open Society, an impassioned defence of inclusive society, academic and media freedom, and human rights. Soros talks about the influences on his early life that informed his “political philanthropy” and his battle against authoritarianism, racism and intolerance.
Faces Places
Photographer and muralist JR (age 33) and legendary filmmaker Agnès Varda (age 88) team up to make ordinary people extraordinary. They travel together around rural France listening to people’s stories, and creating extraordinary photographic mementos of those encounters. This beautiful film is a poignant reminder of the community that we need to rebuild when we finally emerge from this period of isolation.
The Geopolitical Fight To Come
The world is cornered in a Janus-faced energy crisis: One generated by the speed with which it is necessary to replace fossil fuel energy to stop global temperatures rising, and one around oil, on which in three decades’ time, even if carbon neutrality is achieved, the world economy and everyday life will still depend. Moving away from fossil fuels is a Herculean task.
Sylvia Earle
“The ocean is truly what keeps us alive. And we have to return the favour”. Dive deep into the fascinating, horrifying, hopeful story of the ocean in conversation with world-renowned marine biologist Sylvia Earle.
And more Oceans…
Our seas have suffered from decades of decline - collapsing fish stocks are hitting coastal communities and undermining the fight against climate change. Two recent documentaries - Seaspiracy and The Limit - raise fascinating questions about what is really happening to our seas. Spoiler alert: plastics may not be our biggest problem in the ocean...
Top Five Drivers of ESG Investment
A Blessing
A benediction from the late John O'Donohue, for the consoling embrace of steadiness and clarity in our most difficult moments.
We Won!
Greenwood Place was recognised with a global award from Catalyst 2030 as Philanthropic Intermediary. Launched at the World Economic Forum in January 2020, Catalyst 2030 comprises more than 500 proven social entrepreneurs who are active in over 180 countries and who directly reach an estimated two billion people.
And as part of the (virtual) ceremony, we were thrilled to receive special blessings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Truly a Thursday afternoon to treasure.
Upcoming Events
We are looking forward to diving into the Skoll World Forum online on 13-15th April this year. Do join us with us to watch, to learn and to discuss as part of our community.
Our next Greenwood Place roundtable is on 18th May. Clean energy visionaries Amar Inamdar and Bill Nussey will join us to discuss what they are doing as leaders and investors, to bring about a green transition. Let us know if you’d like to join.
Briefing No. 23
WHAT WE'RE READING
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
Professor David Deutsch’s “Beginning of Infinity” is an energising and surprising book. Extraordinarily wide-ranging, it is the mental equivalent of the mind-opening travel and conversation that is so challenging right now.
Most scientists would tell you that human beings are pretty insignificant - a speck of dust on a small planet. David Deutsch says that is wrong. He says that people matter because they incubate knowledge - a force of almost unlimited power in the universe.
THE TRUST BAROMETER
The Edelman Trust Barometer is an online survey carried out annually across 28 markets and with 34,000 respondents in total. The results of Edelman’s 2021 survey reveal an epidemic of misinformation and widespread mistrust of societal institutions and leaders around the world.
BIODIVERSITY AND ECONOMICS
Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, of the University of Cambridge, says prosperity has come at a "devastating" cost to the natural world. Today, human beings, together with the livestock we rear for food, constitute 96% of the mass of all mammals on the planet. The remaining 4% is everything else – from elephants to badgers, from moose to monkeys.
Dasgupta’s landmark review calls for transformational change in our economic approach to nature. He constructs a grammar for understanding our engagements with Nature – what we take from it, how we transform what we take from it and return to it – and what we can do to change direction.
THE WATER PLANET
“Every living thing, eagles, roses, whales, butterflies, trees, fishes, corn, turtles, amoebas and even man himself, all are organised water. And there is only one source of life sustaining water, the sea.” Jacques Cousteau
HOW TO BE ALONE
A lyric poem that seems designed for these disquieting times - when the human question is not what you do, nor even who you are, but simply how you go about being.
PODCAST FOR A LONG WALK
We just discovered the TED Interviews - a short series of hour-long conversations with extraordinary thinkers. We love Chris Anderson’s conversations with Islamic scholar Dalia Mogahed, and Daniel Kahneman, widely regarded as the world’s most influential living psychologist.
REFLECTIONS ON LEADERSHIP
We are impressed daily by the tenacity and commitment of leaders across our community of grantee partners. Despite a constantly shifting environment, our partners have continued to serve and in many cases have had more impact than ever before. For wisdom and practical ideas we have been digging into “15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership” - recommended by community member Eva Yazhari.
AND FINALLY…
We’re eagerly awaiting our pre-ordered copies of Bill Gates’s “How to avoid a climate disaster” and Mark Carney’s “Values”.
While we wait for them to arrive, we’ve put together a list of all the books we’ve recommended in the 23 issues of the Greenwood Place Briefing.
Our back issue recommendations make an increasingly tall pile and all are worth revisiting. You can easily browse those you missed over the years here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thank you to all those who joined us over the past few weeks for conversations with Sir Ronald Cohen and with Emily Bolton.
At our next community roundtable conversation we will discuss Igniting the Power of Collective Action with Kennedy Odede of SHOFCO and development economist Courtenay Cabot Venton. Do let us know if you’d like to join us.
The Skoll World Forum is on April 13-15, 2021. Join for virtual plenaries, sessions, activities, and more. The Virtual Forum is free and open to all. Registration begins in February here.
Briefing No. 22 - Christmas Edition
WHAT WE'RE READING
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
IMPACT: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change
In IMPACT, Sir Ronald Cohen, philanthropist, venture capitalist, private equity investor and social innovator, argues that impact needs to become a commonplace attribute of a company’s performance. Overthrowing the tyranny of profit and placing impact by its side, to keep it in check, says Cohen, is both possible and critical to our ability to improve lives and protect the planet at scale and at speed.
FROM MORAL TO MARKET SENTIMENTS
Why is it that the things we value the most – from frontline nurses to the natural environment to keeping children well fed and educated – seem of little importance to economic markets?
In the 2020 Reith Lectures, Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England, examines how economic value and social values have become blurred, how we went from living in a market economy to a market society, and how we can rethink and rebuild.
PLANTING TREES IN FREETOWN
Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, is on a mission to plant 1 million trees over the next two years, increasing vegetation in her city by fifty percent while shoring up eroding riverbanks and increasing biodiversity.
"This isn't just about planting trees; it's about growing trees, and it's about ensuring that each one of us is part of the process."
THE WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL VALUES
What do we care about? Some values appear to be consistently important everywhere on earth, whilst the importance of others varies.
COMMANDING HOPE
In Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril, Author Thomas Homer-Dixon calls on his extraordinary knowledge of how complex societies work and adapt to show how we can mobilise human spirit and imagination to shift civilization onto a new path. He argues that our greatest current danger as a species is that we lose faith in our ability to build a positive future. Hope is our most important asset. Thank you to David Bonbright for the recommendation.
GIRL POWER - KAZAKH STYLE
Nomadic life on the plains of western Mongolia is difficult. The men of the Kazakh population who call this harsh but beautiful environment home, have been hunting with eagles to put food on the table in the frigid winter months for 6,000 years.
Beautifully shot, the Eagle Huntress tells the story of Aisholpan, thirteen years old and confident in her own ability, who convinces her father to teach her the ways of eagle hunting. A long lineage of men precedes her. We will be watching Aisholpan’s journey with our families this Christmas.
CIRCULAR CITIES
We recommended Kate Raworth’s book, Doughnut Economics, way back in Briefing No. 4. And we have been following how her thinking has been adopted by farsighted leaders globally. In this year’s Royal Society of Arts lecture, Raworth discusses how pioneering city leaders are combining local aspirations with global responsibility and sets out a roadmap for shaping cities that thrive in balance with humanity and with the planet.
FROM THE GREENWOOD PLACE COMMUNITY
Congratulations to the A.C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation, winners of the 2020 Lloyd's List Greek Shipping Sustainability Award for the Typhoon Project.
Last Mile Health's stunning 2020 Impact Report sums up some of the highs and lows faced by community health workers this year. Do read it.
AND FINALLY...
The Greenwood Place team is looking forward to a different kind of party this year. We booked an online cooking class with Migrateful. They run cookery classes led by migrant chefs struggling to integrate and access employment due to legal and linguistic barriers. Find out more about Migrateful here.
Clients and Grantees Survey Results
Greenwood Place conducted a survey of our clients and grantees in June 2020. The results are linked here.
Briefing No. 21
WHAT WE'RE READING
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
Caste: The Lies That Divide Us
In Caste, Pulitzer-Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson sets out to understand American hierarchy, which she compares with two of the best known caste systems in the world: that of India, and of Nazi Germany. Wilkerson uses a powerful mingling of story, research, and insight to shine a light on America's artificial racial divisions. “The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power - which groups have it and which do not”.
A LIFE ON OUR PLANET
One man has seen more of the natural world than any other. This unique feature documentary is his witness statement. In his 93 years, David Attenborough has visited every continent on the globe, exploring the wild places of our planet. He reflects upon both the defining moments of his lifetime as a naturalist and the devastating changes he has seen. This is a powerful first-hand account of humanity's impact on nature and a message of hope for future generations.
EARTHRISE
Amanda Gorman's stunning performance of her poem “Earthrise” was, for us, a highlight of the global launch of TED Countdown a few weeks ago. The entire Countdown launch event is now online and you can dig into ideas and potential solutions to climate change at your leisure.
THE RIGHTEOUS MIND
This month we revisited Jonthan Haidt's tour de force examination of human polarisation, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion. It has helped us understand why intellectual honesty is so elusive and why our divisions run so deep. It outlines steps we can take to overcome the antipathy that characterises so much of modern politics, increase our wisdom and show a bit more compassion to those we disagree with.
ENDING HUNGER
Science must stop neglecting smallholder farmers.
CANADIAN RESEARCHERS GAVE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO HOMELESS PEOPLE
The results defied stereotypes.
EVENTS
Our next community roundtable is an important and timely one. We are delighted to host Jacqueline Novogratz and Jawad Aslam later this month for a conversation about building communities in a time of division.
AND FINALLY...
Huge congratulations to Greenwood Place community member Laura Winningham of City Harvest, awarded an OBE for services to the community in London during the
Covid-19 response for helping to feed the most vulnerable.
Briefing No. 20 - Summer Edition
WHAT WE'RE READING
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
The Good Ancestor
The need to draw on our capacity to think long-term, writes Roman Krznaric, has never been more urgent, whether in areas such as public health care (planning for the next pandemic on the horizon), to deal with technological risks (AI-controlled lethal autonomous weapons), or to confront the threats of an ecological crisis whether nations sit around international conference tables, bickering about their near-term interests, while the planet burns and species disappear.
At the same time, businesses can barely see past the next quarterly report. What can we do to overcome the tyranny of the now?
A HEALTHIER RELATIONSHIP WITH HISTORY
"For me it begins with truth-telling. If you don't know your history, you can't really begin to understand what your obligations are, what your responsibilities are, what you should fear, what you should celebrate, what's honourable and what's not honourable."
We included a link to Bryan Stevenson's recent New Yorker article in Briefing 19. However, we wanted to return to Bryan's thinking again, and found this conversation about truth and reconciliation in the US particularly rich.
ART & FREEDOM
"Freedom is a pretty strange thing. Once you've experienced it, it remains in your heart and no-one can take it away." Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei is China's most famous international artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. Against a backdrop of strict censorship and an unresponsive legal system, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry tells the story of a dissident who inspires global audiences and blurs the boundaries of art and politics.
HOW TO INNOVATE
"Innovation is not an individual phenomenon, but a collective, incremental and messy network phenomenon."
The latest book by Matt Ridley (author of the Rational Optimist) is a collection of stories about innovation - how inventions turn into things of practical and affordable use to people.
Innovation, Ridley argues, is always a collective, collaborative phenomenon, involving trial and error, not a matter of lonely genius. The collaborative, iterative development of social good is fundamental to Greenwood Place's work, and to the work we seek to encourage across our community.
ROCK DUST AS A CLIMATE SOLUTION
Spreading rock dust on farmland - a practice that is compatible with existing farming techniques - could suck billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air every year, according to the first detailed global analysis of the technique.
THE TECH NONPROFIT PLAYBOOK
Our friends at Mulago shared this guide - created by tech for good investor, Fast Forward - to creating and scaling organisations that apply tech to social problems. It's full of great nuggets.
EVENTS
Our next roundtable will be a cross-continent conversation on wellbeing and COVID recovery. Dena Batrice, Chris Underhill MBE, and Mark Williamson will help us to explore how we can protect and promote mental health at this pivotal time for communities. Give us a call if you would like an invitation.
AND FINALLY...
We're delighted to announce that Greenwood Place has become a certified B Corp. B Corps are companies that use the power of business to solve social and environmental challenges. We are proud to be part of the growing community of B Corps aiming to redefine success in business.
Find our more about the B Corp movement here.
Briefing No. 19
WHAT WE'RE READING
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
We have drawn so much wisdom from Jacqueline Novogratz’s new book: Manifesto for a Moral Revolution - a huge amount that is relevant for these times.
We hope that you will find time to read it, but in the mean time, here’s a taste:
“Whatever you aim to do, whatever problem you hope to address, remember to accompany those who are struggling, those who are left out, who lack the capabilities needed to solve their own problems. We are each other’s destiny. Beneath the hard skills and firm strategic priorities needed to resolve our greatest challenges lies the soft, fertile ground of our shared humanity. In that place of hard and soft is sustenance enough to nourish the entire human family.”
WARRIORS OR GUARDIANS?
Bryan Stevenson talks in the New Yorker about what it takes to build healthy relationships between the police and the community they serve. About the training that’s needed to de-escalate conflict, to deal with individuals suffering from mental illness, to work in situations of anger and frustration. Of the US police force he says, “We have created a culture where police officers think of themselves as warriors, not guardians.”
We also spoke to our partners at St Giles Trust's SOS Project - a Greenwood Place community member which provides intensive support for young people at risk of involvement in gangs, youth violence & the criminal justice system. They recommend watching Baratunde Thurston’s profound, and often hilarious, 2019 TED talk, which explores the phenomenon of white Americans calling the police on black Americans who have committed the crimes of... eating, walking or generally "living while black."
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN IT ALL STOPPED
As millions around the world shelter at home, the smog melts away, the birds sing, and the waters run clear. What if we used this moment in our lives and in history as an opportunity to jumpstart the rebirth of our planet? Dr Jane Goodall narrates a beautifully animated poem written by Tom Rivett-Carnac.
HUMANKIND - A HOPEFUL HISTORY
Rutger Bregman’s “Humankind“ makes a new argument - that it is realistic as well as revolutionary to assume that all people are good. Bregman argues that 'the instinct to trust rather than distrust, cooperate rather than compete, has an evolutionary basis that goes back to the beginning of our species'.
LISTENING AS A DUE DILIGENCE TOOL
Our community members Evenlode Investment Management have been working with The Forest People’s Programme to put together a report that highlights the importance of listening as a core part of due diligence and risk assessment processes - and how investors can better protect communities and habitats affected by global supply chains.
BUILDING BACK BETTER
For those who didn’t join us for our community screening a couple of weeks ago, its definitely worth watching Damon Gameau’s documentary, 2040, which lays out a compelling and inspiring vision of what could be - exploring solutions to planetary issues that already exist.
A STEP TOWARDS THE END OF PLASTIC?
Globally around 300 million tonnes of plastic is made from fossil fuels every year. Plans are afoot in the Netherlands to make plastic, sturdy enough for bottles, that will decompose in just a year, and that will be be made from plant sugars rather than fossil fuels.
AND FINALLY...
“I’m not a shame person, but I want future generations to look back on us and say, ‘Look how hard they tried,’ not ‘Look at how blind they were.’”
Jacqueline Novogratz, interviewed on the On Being Podcast.
If you would like to talk to us about how to help those working to deal with the social and economic fall-out of this global pandemic, or the opportunities it presents to protect and restore our shared environment, please call us.
Briefing No. 18
We wanted to bring you a special edition of the Greenwood Place Briefing.
At a time of alarm, this edition focuses on compassion and hope.
At Greenwood Place we've been surrounded by small kindnesses and human connections this week - a WhatsApp group in Rebecca's village sourced walnut oil for a disabled child's life-saving diet, a friend in London offered a home to a family separated for two weeks by quarantine rules.
HOW WE'RE LISTENING
We're listening to a number of charities and networks as they face into the crisis and are considering ways that philanthropy might usefully respond - both in the long and short term.
If you would like to talk to us about how to help those working to deal with the social and economic fall-out of this global pandemic, whether locally or globally, please call us.
WHAT WE'RE READING
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
As Greenwood Place adjusts to remote working and long distance conversations with our community, we’ve also been returning to books that sustain.
The late Viktor Frankl is best-known for his indispensable 1946 memoir Man’s Search for Meaning - a meditation on what the horrific experience of Auschwitz taught him about the primary purpose of life: the quest for meaning, which sustained those who survived. For Frankl, meaning came from the realisation that whatever they took they could not in the end remove his choice of how he responded. “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”.
The Book of Joy (see also Briefing No. 5) is a beautiful book that documents a week of conversations between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2015 at the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala. The two men look back across their lives and reflect together about finding calm and joy in a world filled with suffering.
A PARADISE BUILT IN HELL
Rebecca Solnit, interviewed by Krista Tippett on the On Being podcast, discusses why disasters are opportunities as well as oppressions, how neighbours and friends rediscover the powerful engagement and joy of genuine altruism, grassroots community (even digitally), and meaningful work. It is a fresh, deep optimistic look at human nature. As Solnit says: “There is so much work for love to do in the world right now.”
GRATITUDE
Every evening at 8pm, people across Paris clap for the healthcare workers. It's a trend: the UK will clap for carers at 8pm on Thursday this week. Let’s hope it spreads.
PRESENT CONCERNS: CS LEWIS
C.S. Lewis, writing in the early 1940s, feels relevant now: “How are we to live in an atomic age?”… do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, Dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented… the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together.
If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends…. — not like frightened sheep thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
BUILDING COMMUNITY AT A TIME OF ISOLATION
Acumen Fellows are working now in 7 countries - building community, crossing barriers and creating change. In the UK , applications for the Acumen Fellowship are open until April 5th. Do you have what it takes? Apply here, or pass the link along to someone you know.
AND FINALLY...
In parting, we wanted to share something that one of our partners, Dr Raj Panjabi, CEO of Last Mile Health said to us last week.
“If we learned one thing from the Ebola crisis in Liberia, it's that humans are not defined by the conditions they face but how they handle them.”
The context was a discussion of Last Mile Health’s plans to provide community health support to all those who need it - including those requiring maternal healthcare, malaria medication and vaccinations - during the coming spread of COVID19 in Liberia, Ethiopia and Malawi.
Briefing No. 17 - India Special
"Travelling to India as part of the Greenwood Place community has led me to think about my philanthropy in a new, and more holistic, way. Thank you."
Greenwood Place Community Member
This month, a group of 16 Greenwood Place community members came together in India to explore this question: what does it take to make lasting, positive change.
Over 5 days we visited local leaders from all walks of life with our partners at Leaders’ Quest. We spent time in smart restaurants, in one-room homes, in slums, villages and forests. We met activists, teachers, entrepreneurs and elders.
We put together this special edition briefing to share a little of what we learned.
CHOICES AND CHANCES
Priyanka (name changed) is 18 and a whip smart, state-level athlete from the beautiful, rural state of Haryana.
Priyanka's parents promised that she would be allowed to continue her studies if she got married, but her new family beat her and kept her home. When she ran out of every option she could think of, Priyanka caught the train to Mumbai.
Deepali Vandana and the Urja team picked Priyanka up at the main train station. They are providing her with temporary housing, counselling and support back into education.
A TrustLaw poll ranked India as the fourth most dangerous country in the world for women and UNICEF estimates that almost 20% of Indian women aged 20–24 are married by age 15 - but Urja’s work and their outspoken advocacy on behalf of women and girls have changed both police attitudes and individual family decisions - and their work deeply affects the lives of individual girls.
CLEAN WATER & CARBON CREDITS
Spring Health is a social business that cleans and provides water to the very poor, The CEO, Kishan Nanavati is thoughtful and determined. He serves 28,000 households with clean water - selling carbon credits as well as water to create a financially sustainable model than keeps prices as low as possible.
Spring Health's network of local entrepreneurs increase their income by over 50%, and water-related sickness reduces amongst its customers by an estimated 29%.
We loved Spring Health’s marketing method - performing e-coli tests on drinking water door to door and showing families the bacteria in the water that their children are drinking…
TRANSFORMING EDUCATION OUTCOMES
“We play all our cards to get our programme started with teachers. And then the teachers see the change in their students and that does the rest.”
Pankaj Sharma from Transform Schools is committed to turning around India's secondary education system, at speed and at scale.
India is projected to have the largest workforce in the world by 2027 - a huge demographic opportunity. Great strides have been made over the past decade to get millions of children into primary school. However, just 7 out of 10 students in grade 8 are able to read at a grade 2 level.
Transform’s combination of intense remedial education, plus deep school and community engagement is changing this for 2.4 million students already - with 70% of costs covered by government. Their remedial programme sees students advancing 1.7 - 2.5 academic years. We were blown away.
RETHINKING HEALTHCARE
“What really struck us … was the disengagement of family members even though they cared most about the patients. We saw that you could turn areas of pain, anxiety and suffering into areas of learning. You could bring the family into the centre of care. …It was an absolute ‘no-brainer’”
Syed Alam, Co-Founder, Noora Health
India has about 4 million skilled healthcare professionals to serve a population of 1.36 billion – that’s about 29 per 10,000 people. Patients and their families often wait for hours, if not days, in public hospitals which are overcrowded and understaffed.
Noora Health trains family members as caregivers who can provide effective health care support to the people they care for. This simple innovation has seen a 71% decrease in 30 day post surgical complications, a 23% decrease in hospital preventable re-admissions and a 42% decrease in newborn readmissions.
CONSERVATION & DIGNITY
“When you talk about commons, you have to talk about equality. This is about ordinary people doing extraordinary things… villagers who are by their very nature systems thinkers and long term planners. We see village people becoming heroes every day" Jagdeesh Rao, CEO and Founder of FES
FES enables the rural poor to secure legal rights to access, improve and manage their common lands, combining resource management and conservation with improving livelihoods. They are working with more than 20,000 villages, protecting 6.24 million acres of ‘commons’ and benefiting 10.7 million rural people.
The extraordinary numbers however, don’t give you a sense of the dignity that FES’s radical partnership approach provides to the individual villagers who they work with and the strength of their work to protect and restore land. Our day in the forest with FES will stay with all of us for a very long time.
We saw the power of strong communities throughout our week together.
And we learned over and over again that there is nothing inevitable about injustice and inequality.
EVENTS AT GREENWOOD PLACE
Greenwood Place will be at the Skoll World Forum from 31 March - 2 April. We’ll be talking international philanthropy and cultural complexity over breakfast with Jagdeesh Rao, Safeena Husain and Deval Sanghavi. And our partner Transform Schools will also be launching results of their RCT with J-Pal. You can book tickets for the J-Pal/Transform event here. We hope to see you there!
We’re building our programme for teach-ins and roundtable discussions in 2020. Let us know what you’d like to learn about. And, in the mean time, please put 3rd June in your diary for breakfast with James Thornton, Founder of Client Earth.
Briefing No. 16 - Christmas Edition
We wish you all Happy Holidays, and look forward to even greater, collective, impact across our community in 2020.
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.
Briefing No. 15
Gender bias, problematic alternatives to plastic, and the power of listening.
WHAT WE’RE READING
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
Invisible Women
Caroline Criado Perez's extraordinary expose of gender bias highlights - over and over - the ways that women are "forgotten" on a daily basis. Cars are designed around the body of "Reference Man", so although men are more likely to crash, women involved in collisions are nearly 50% more likely to be seriously hurt. Women in Britain are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a hear attack: heart failure trials generally use male participants. Read it.
PLASTIC: IT'S COMPLICATED
Our community member Evi, whose philanthropy focuses on marine pollution, sent us this article. Plastic has a huge carbon footprint, but alternatives are also problematic. It's not a simple fix.
LISTENING TO, AND TELLING, STORIES
Psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz thinks that novelist Karen Blixen had a point when she wrote: "All sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story about them." Over the course of his 25-year career he encouraged his patients to do just that. Read more here.
Melinda Gates’s recently released book, “The Moment of Lift” is a paean to the power of listening to stories. Something powerful happens, she says, when you ask a woman to tell her story. And sometimes, the most powerful statement of support we can offer is the one we make by listening.
Much of our work at Greenwood Place is about listening, trying to uncover the stories that show us what can work. These two books remind us how very difficult it is for us to understand our own stories let alone those of others.
BUSINESS GETTING BETTER
180 of the US’s biggest corporations have recently pledged to focus on increasing ‘stakeholder’ value, including employees, communities and the public good. And thousands of companies are already signed up to this agenda through the B Corporation movement. They include Patagonia, Danone and Lombard Odier.
NORWAY IS PAYING GABON TO PROTECT ITS FORESTS
As part of the Central African Forest Initiative, a 10-year deal announced in September, Norway will pay $150 million to Gabon to battle deforestation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
KNIFE SKILLS
We loved Knife Skills, which documents the journey to build a world class French restaurant in the US staffed almost entirely by men and women just out of prison. It reminded us of the success of the UK’s Clink restaurants - a charity running restaurants staffed by inmates that operate in four UK prisons. Clink graduates have a reoffending rate of 11% (37% of adults released from custody have reoffended within a year).
ROTTERDAM'S ZERO WASTE PLANNING
Rotterdam has mapped out a bold vision to become a fully circular economy by 2050, a move that could create 7,000 jobs within a decade. The city wants to become a ‘living laboratory’ in which to test new ideas for a waste-free future.
GOOD THINGS HAPPENING FOR OUR PARTNERS
Stephen Hale, of Refugee Action, was awarded UK Charity CEO of the Year; Safeena Husain of Educate Girls’ TED Talk went live (watch it here) and CAMFED’s alumnae programme, CAMA won a UN Global Climate Action award.
AND FINALLY... THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY
More on the story theme. Our lives, our cultures are composed of overlapping stories. Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country we risk a critical misunderstanding. Watch her TED Talk here.
EVENTS AT GREENWOOD PLACE
Professor Muhammad Yunus is coming to Greenwood Place to discuss what it takes to achieve real change; Jacqueline Novogratz will be joining us in a few weeks time to talk through her vision for a new generation of global leadership; and our January Community Trip to India is getting closer.