Wonderful social justice stars, ✨
What a delight to send out a 5 Bullet Friday on my birthday! I’ve included one rather indulgent bullet this week: a new song release put together with my good friend Taha. Otherwise, the rest is your usual fortnightly dose of social impact tools and treats I’ve come across or re-discovered. Please enjoy September’s first edition!
1. What I’m releasing: Hopeless, a new song by Taha & Jacob – I am delighted to be releasing this jaunty little track, written, recorded and filmed back in July. You can find it on Spotify and all major streaming platforms. Do also check out our YouTube Music Video and leave us a comment! This was a wonderful creative project for the summer and reminded me that the joy that comes from collaborative creative endeavours with friends is simply unbeatable.
2. What’s made me smile: The Action for Happiness Calendar – I have to thank my sister, Hannah, for sharing this one with me. What a brilliant mission and, with its monthly calendar, what a brilliant tool for promoting wellbeing, one day at a time. Download, sync or print their monthly calendars that give you a challenge-a-day on a different theme each month. You can get started with ‘Self-Care September’.
3. What I couldn’t stop watching: McLibel (YouTube) – The past weeks have taken me down a rabbit hole researching the extraordinary power of brands and multinationals. This documentary by Franny Armstrong and Ken Loach is a must-watch, as it follows the libel court case levelled against two activists in the 90s for speaking out about McDonalds. Spot a younger and quite dashing Keir Starmer too, who was central to defending the activists’ freedom of speech.
4. Quote I’m pondering: On Funder Reporting – “The pressure to produce shiny, smooth, positive evaluations for funders or bosses undermines our ability to truly learn from the past. I often say that in Oxfam we have two kinds of ‘time past’ narrative. A dumbed down ‘thank you Oxfam for my goat, now my children are in school’ fund raiser and the 200 page largely unintelligible evaluation. What we miss is the middle ground – ‘stories for grown ups’ that welcome messiness, doubts over attribution etc, and capture the enthralling complexity of change.” – Duncan Green in Why Scenario Planning is a Waste of Time (article here).
5. What I’m not (quite) regretting: the slow coach to Barcelona – I’ve prepared much of this week’s Bullet during a 27-hour coach from London to Barcelona. On the way, I returned to this helpful graphic from the BBC that makes me feel a little better, though my knees certainly feel a little worse:
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📣 Callouts from me and my network
❤️ Support my friend Ayla – and refugees! – donate to Ayla’s Tough Mudder fundraiser today
💰 Impact grant for grassroots artists – deadline 18th September for €50,000, share and apply
📵 Pledge to join Phone Free February – a digital detox challenge I’m co-organising for 2024
👨💻 Need an awesome website? – check out GSF Creations, my new sustainable web design agency
🎓 Join the Aspen Rising Leaders Fellowship – aged 21-35 in the UK? I can nominate you!
🧡 Fundraising Trustee at Refugee Biriyani & Bananas (where I’m also a Trustee)
📱 Honest Mobile – use referral code jacobwarn1994 to join the UK’s most sustainable network
As ever, please let me know your thoughts and feedback – and send anything you’d like me to include in upcoming editions this way.
