Hello planet-pleasers! 🌎
Here you go! Your weekly dose of birds nests, rabbit holes and bee hives that I’ve discovered or re-visited over the last week. Enjoy this mix of treats, tools and thoughts – all for a better world.
1. What I’m re-reading: David Graeber’s ‘On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant’ – This is a short 7-minute read that I return to every year. It’s a healthy annual reminder to think long and hard on the kind of work I do. This year, I’m considering how this phenomenon relates to the social impact and humanitarian sectors. What percentage of our work falls into the ‘bullshit’ category? And, in a sector that always seems to lead to burnout, how can we use technological advancements to reduce our work load and, in doing so, protect our general health and wellbeing?
2. What I’m using: The FSI‘s brilliant list of resources for small charities – Very sadly, The FSI closed earlier this year after years of work supporting small charities with expert guidance. Nevertheless, this legacy page contains a killer list of outbound links to the best fundraising directories, Facebook communities, pro bono support and much more. A one-stop-shop for charity development. Bookmark it! Save it! Share it!
3. What I’m eating: fermented vegan cheeses by [in]PERFECTO and Väcka – Think you love cheese too much to be vegan? Think again! These semi-cured cheeses made from cashews and other nuts, fermented and full of nourishing probiotics are simply next level. Whilst these are two of my Spain-centred favourites, there are great UK options too. Check out this list of the UK’s top artisan vegan cheese-makers for alternatives.
4. What I’m wondering: What are grant-writers doing now that ChatGPT does it all for us? – Those who are or have been grant writers will know all too well the pain and frustration that comes from writing gazillions of marginally different answers to funder’s application questions. But now, since most organisations have reams of previous grant applications that can be copied and pasted into AI software to train it in your style and field, grant applications should now take us 5% of the time they previously took. What does this mean? Are we all just sending off more grant applications? Or are we all simply more relaxed?
5. Quote I’m pondering: Lord Blunket this week on the realities of ‘safe passage’ routes – “But we do have favoured individuals and unfavored individuals. The Ukrainians are obviously, for all the reasons we know, favoured. Although the Afghan settlement route was limited, they were favoured. The Hong Kong route is very favoured. We’ve taken 150,000 last year from Hong Kong. Hardly anybody knows about this, and if they did they’d probably be up in arms about it, but they’re seen as entrepreneurial, innovative… So we pick and choose, don’t we? Who we like, what we want them to do, and why we want them here.” This was a fascinating discussion hosted by the Aspen Institute UK on the topic of ‘How do you achieve safe passage?’. Find out more here. Aspen UK have also recently set up a Rising Leaders Fellowship (which I was lucky enough to join last year). The Fellowship is for those based in the UK aged between 21 and 35. Let me know if you want a nomination to join!
That’s it for this week. Please let me know your thoughts and feedback – and send anything you think should be included in upcoming weeks my way.
