Briefing No. 31
Greenwood Place Annual Report 2021/22
Each year we ask our clients and our grantee partners how we’re doing. These survey results, together with case studies of our partners' work, form the heart of our Annual Report. This year’s report is a particularly special one because it marks our fifth anniversary as a business. We could not be more proud of what our community has achieved over these five years, or more grateful to walk alongside each of them in their work.
What we’re reading
On the Greenwood Place bedside table
Abdulrazak Gurnah is the author of By the Sea, Paradise and Afterlives. Gurnah was born in Zanzibar but has lived in the UK for the last five decades, having fled the turmoil that followed the 1964 revolution as a teenager. He won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. Lucy and Rebecca took some of his books on a recent journey to visit grantee partners in Tanzania and loved them. We recommend By the Sea and Paradise.
13 Minutes to the Moon
We’re listening to Dr Kevin Fong’s enthralling and award-winning podcast series 13 Minutes to the Moon on the BBC World Service. A decade-long mission culminated in the final nerve wracking 13 minutes it took the Moon lander to arrive safely on the surface. It’s a positive and timely reminder of humanity's great track record in achieving seemingly impossible engineering breakthroughs.
Africa’s Great Carbon Valley - And How to End Energy Poverty
James Irungu Mwangi is the executive director of the Dalberg Group, the founder of the Climate Action Platform for Africa, and a member of Greenwood Place’s advisory board. James’s recent TED Talk explores how Africa’s wealth of land and resources as well as its young and growing workforce make it the ideal home for scaling the latest and most ambitious climate technologies.
The Most Critical Ingredient in Leadership
What, above all else, drives leaders to direct or redirect their lives, to tackle seemingly intractable problems, and to stay true to their values in the face of enormous challenges? Jacqueline Novogratz and Anne Welsh McNulty explore the most critical ingredient in leadership in this article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
I earn £10.71 an hour. Here’s what the cost of living crisis has been like
In every conversation we have with our grantee partners across the world, we’ve been asking about the cost of living and whether and how price increases are affecting their work. The author of this article provides a clear and sharp perspective on what is happening in the UK.
Mapping the Coral Reefs of the Soil
A network of mycelium runs through all the world’s dirt, helping plants grow and sequestering carbon. A massive citizen science project is underway to map, visualise and eventually help preserve the fungal networks that underpin life on Earth.
A New Strategy for Women’s Health
The UK’s National Health Service has vowed to tackle decades of systemic and entrenched gender health inequality, opening its newly released report with the words “historically, the health and care system has been designed by men, for men.” The report sets out a comprehensive strategy to improve health and wellbeing for women.
How to End Coal
Ending the world’s reliance on coal is not a “one size fits all”. Global strategies need to be adapted to national and regional realities.
UPCOMING EVENTS
We will be visiting Colombia for our next Greenwood Place client learning journey. Invitations are coming out shortly - do block your diaries end of January 2023.
And let us know if you would like to join us on September 7th for our next community roundtable conversation with Paul Roughan of the Islands Knowledge Institute and Peter Seligmann and Daniela Lerda of Nia Tero as we discuss how we can secure Indigenous guardianship of vital ecosystems.
AND FINALLY… BUILDING FENCES
Greenwood Place’s annual donation this year is being used to build fences. We’re supporting MWEDO, the Maasai Women Development Organisation, to create a nursery and market garden that will feed a community and produce a surplus for sale. Our donation is being used to enclose five acres of drip-irrigated land and purchase a second water tank to store rainwater. Thank you to all of our clients for making it possible for us to make this gift.
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.