Building trust with unlikely allies, peacebuilding, and how to have sex
A monthly digest of inspiring projects, useful resources and opportunities to create systemic change.
Hello and welcome to over 100 new subscribers since my last edition!
Discover all the brilliant people here and introduce yourself on this thread so we can all get to know each other 🙏
The Monthly Digest is a standalone feature for all the interesting projects, resources and opportunities I find each month.
We’re talking culture-shifting campaigns, rallying calls to action, breakthrough technologies, impactful learning experiences, powerful collaborations, exciting jobs... These curated lists will provide you with a monthly dose of inspiration and support for all the brilliant work you do. They’ll also encourage you to look after yourself and everything you need to thrive. I hope you find something here each month to fuel your growth and feed your soul!
One more thing before we dive in: next week I’m hosting the first Substack Writer Meetup in Lisbon! If you’re a Substack writer based here please join us.
Systems Change Lab aims to spur action at the pace and scale needed to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges; limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C; halting loss of biodiversity; and building a just and equitable economy. Their initiative tracks global progress for more than 70 transformational shifts across nearly every system, enabling users to compare current action against targets we need to reach by the end of this critical decade and by 2050 to protect people and the planet. Read their new report, ‘State of Climate Action 2023’.
Tijn Tojoelker is a LinkedIn Top Green Voice. He has a background in earth science, systems thinking and sustainability leadership, and works in regeneration, nature-based solutions and systemic innovation. He writes a Substack called
to map, connect and amplify the regenerative network. He’s creating a systems-thinking starter kit and this LinkedIn post shares some of his favourite resources and tools.
Larger Us is a community of change-makers who share the aim of bridging divides rather than deepening them, who want to transform relationships rather than defeat enemies, and who recognise that achieving these things is about psychology as much as politics. Read their recent piece ‘How to build trust with unlikely allies’ on how anti-fossil fuel campaigners managed to build an unlikely alliance with off-shore oil workers to push for a fair transition to renewable energy.
Substack introduces me to the best people! I recently connected with Ayo Oti who writes
, a Substack bridging audio and action. Ayo used to be Social Impact Editor at Spotify working on brilliant pods like The Sum of Us from Higher Ground Productions, Heavyweight (one of my favourites) and How to Save a Planet. Each edition of Sounds Like Impact includes a curated podcast playlist based on a theme (sometimes guest-curated), calls to action related to the playlist theme, and creator spotlights. One of this month’s themes was Peacebuilding & Democracy. Read and subscribe via the link below.
The Earthshot Prize was launched by Prince William in 2020 to search for and scale the most innovative solutions to the world’s greatest environmental challenges. Their challenge to the world is based on five Earthshots, goals for 2030 developed in collaboration with leading environmental experts. They are; Protect and Restore Nature; Clean our Air; Revive our Oceans; Build a Waste-Free World; and Fix our Climate. Every year over the course of this critical decade five winners with the best chance of helping to achieve the Earthshots will be awarded £1 million each to scale their solutions. This year’s Earthshot Week was held in Singapore earlier this month. Watch the awards and learn about the finalists and winners here. Note: I was cautious about including this because I don’t think monarchies should exist, but I do want to celebrate this initiative. I shared this conundrum with my friend Stella and she put it so beautifully, “given the urgency we’re faced with, we have to work with current systems to make shifts, whilst wanting and supporting the growth of new systems.”
Plain English is a podcast from longtime Atlantic tech, culture and political writer Derek Thompson aiming to cut through all the noise surrounding the big questions and headlines that matter to us. In the last few weeks, the podcast’s coverage of the Israel Palestine conflict has explored the problem from many different angles. This interview, on the fragile hope for peace, is with Sally Abed, a Palestinian-Israeli, who is an activist with the group Standing Together. They talk about the "psychosis" and "impossibility" of being Palestinian in Israel, what happens after a ceasefire, and how to build a coalition for peace.
Emma Gannon is a Sunday Times bestselling author, broadcaster, speaker, novelist and was host of a hugely popular podcast called ‘Ctrl Alt Delete’ (2016-2023). She’s been a columnist for The Times, Telegraph and Courier magazine. She’s published five bestselling books, including ‘The Multi-Hyphen Method’; ‘Sabotage’ and ‘Disconnected’. I really love her Substack
where she writes about creativity, books, wellbeing, ambition and rest, Internet culture and the future of work. Her recent piece on setting boundaries is excellent and includes a helpful visualisation to use when setting a boundary with someone.Awe Exchange is a nonprofit developing awe-based strategies for making change. Read their Substack for their learnings, questions, explorations, trials and errors in exploring awe in this context. I loved their first podcast episode with Agustín Fuentes, an accomplished anthropology professor at Princeton University and author of the acclaimed book ‘Why We Believe’, which explores how evolution shaped human beliefs and behaviour.
Written and directed by Molly Manning Walker, How to Have Sex is a critically-acclaimed rites-of-passage drama that follows the tale of three 16-year-old girls on a post-GCSE (school exams for teens in the UK) holiday in the party resort of Malia, on the Greek island of Crete. The Guardian called it “an education in consent” and Vogue “charged, ecstatic and star-making.” The British director’s acclaimed debut, a story based on her own experiences, won a top prize at Cannes this year. I can’t wait to see it.
The Farmlink project connects farms in the U.S. with surplus to food banks to feed people in need, reduce carbon emissions and empower the next generation of changemakers. The Farmlink Project was born in response to the COVID-19 pandemic when college campuses closed in 2020 and a group of determined students found themselves back at home with the urge to help those struggling. They’re now a team of more than 100 students from colleges and universities across the country with plans to become a long-term and sustainable organisation in the fight against food insecurity and food waste. They’ve just released ‘Abundance’, a really inspiring 20 minute film on their story.
My client Ada Ventures, the inclusive venture fund based in the UK, has just released ‘Women in UK Venture Capital’, a first-of-a-kind report examining where £6.6bn of Limited Partner Capital has been invested in the UK over the last six years, between 2017-2023. Their aim was to produce data on gender diversity of the leadership teams in UK VC firms. It highlights some stark realities, showing that even with all the progress in the last six years on diversity, equity and inclusion, the industry still has a very long way to go. The most shocking discovery for me: all-woman owned funds are raising just 1 fund in the time it takes for all-male owned funds to raise 8.
Panthea Lee is a writer, activist, transdisciplinary strategist / designer / facilitator in service of life and liberation. She’s a pioneer in designing and guiding multi-stakeholder processes to address complex social challenges, with experience doing so in 30+ countries, with partners including UN Women, World Bank, Open Society Foundation, and governments at the national, state, and local levels. Her practice blends her backgrounds as an ethnographer, organiser, designer, and facilitator. I found her recent piece on the current conflict in Palestine and Israel ‘Holding Brave, Tender Space in Times of War’ on her new Substack
incredibly moving and thought-provoking. I wish her framing and questions were more prevalent in mainstream media. Subscribe for her reflections on repair, how to come together in a world that tries to tear us apart, and crafting pathways toward collective healing and structural justice.Aly Halpert is a young adult queer Jewish musician, educator, and activist. A singer, pianist, drummer, and guitar player, Aly writes songs for building community, working for collective liberation, and visioning different worlds. Her first full-band album Loosen was released in April 2022 with Rising Song Records. Aly believes deeply in the power of music to awaken us to the loss and hope we carry, expand our sense of possibility, and connect us to each other and our collective strength. A friend shared her song ‘Loosen’ recently and I’ve been humming the melody ever since.
Thanks for reading! Please introduce yourself, what you’re working on, and how this resource can be helpful to you on our introductions thread. With subscribers leading systemic change in human rights, venture capital, climate and sustainability, education, psychotherapy, healthcare, media, politics, art, farming, finance, housing and philanthropy and more, System Changers is a diverse community packed full of opportunities to connect and collaborate with others. Let’s get to know each other 🧡
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