Hi everyone,
Hope you’re finding space for care and joy in another tough week for the world.
This week we’re looking forward to our next Curated Session, which has been put together by Elemental to explore the narratives that govern philanthropy. Chiara Cattaneo and her brilliant guests will explore what changing these narratives means for us practically as practitioners and funders alike.
We’ve reduced our shares down to six this week, instead of nine, following wise suggestions from our recent survey. Let us know if you disagree!
Shared in solidarity
Curated Session
The Myths Of Philanthropy
Louisa Mann, Tesmerelna Atsbeha, Chiara K. Cattaneo
Jun 25th, 13:00-14:30 | Online
What if philanthropy’s greatest resource isn’t financial but relational capital? What if what we inherited doesn’t have to be the legacy we leave? Join a conversation with Elemental that will explore our relationship with money, power, and each other – featuring contributors to its The Myths of Philanthropy series which is being published by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Association of Charitable Foundations, and VITA.
Whether you’re working in philanthropy, or seeking its support as a practitioner or fundraiser, join us to hear some helpful guidance and ask questions of leaders in the field.
Louisa Mann is the chair of Thirty Percy Foundation, an independent foundation that believes philanthropy has the potential to be radically rewired to work more meaningfully for both changemakers and wealth holders. She is also a director and family member of a privately managed and financed single-family office.
Tesmerelna Atsbeha has worked in private philanthropy for nine years and is the senior program officer for a private foundation. Prior to that she spent 15 years as a program implementer for international global health project.
Chiara K. Cattaneo has worked with grassroots organisations, INGOs and philanthropy for over 20 years, at the intersection of strategic cooperation, advocacy, storytelling, and narrative work and research. She is co-lead of Elemental, a community of practice for funders that cultivates the conditions to resource narrative power.
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Shares
Key: 📝 Article | ⚙️ Tool | 📋 Report | 🎙️ Podcast
Also see our full searchable archive of every share from these newsletters
Links
📝 Narratives Need Enacting Otherwise They’re Just Words – Absurd Intelligence
⚙️ Defeating Narratives of Division – Ella Baker School Of Organising
📋 Getting to Know ‘Reform curious Labour Voters’ – Persuasion UK
📝 A People-powered Insurgency – The Good Apocalypse Guide
📝 Forget the "Joe Rogan of the Left," Where's the Rupert Murdoch? – Drilled
🎙️ Is the End Nigh? – Planet: Critical
Summaries
Narratives Need Enacting Otherwise They’re Just Words
Alex Lockwood; Absurd Intelligence
Reflecting on Marshall Ganz’s recent work, Lockwood identifies two key insights: 1) “We learn best by doing (like riding a bike); get on, fall off, learn, keep going” and 2) “Narrative is a crucial part of organising to make change; but narrative is not going to work on its own – you have to get others riding the bike too.” He notices that “sometimes the narrative world wangs on about theory” forgetting the need for ”practical enactment” and that although narrative proponents “know how to analyse the separation at the heart of social challenges and polarisation”, they can often be, at the same time, “very consciously separated from embodied action.” With this “cognitive distance” considered, Lockwood proposes a practical model for “narrative enactment”, encouraging us to be “practicing narrative not as theory but in service to organising.”
#narrativestrategy #tactics
Defeating Narratives of Division
Ella Baker School of Organising
A manifesto and open-source set of training materials to support “a long-term strategic approach at a community level, that talks about building power in disempowered communities,” recognising that “the far-right are on the march, but there are more people of goodwill than there are of them.” This power “can only be built by working across artificial divides, and by finding solutions – rather than scapegoats – to the problems our communities face,” and “if we get ourselves organised, drawing inspiration from our history,” we can build that power in our communities “in a process that not only isolates the narratives of division, but also begins to address the feelings of fear, resentment and despair that they are parasitic upon.“ The School offers a wide range of other training resources, linked below.
#narrativestrategy #tactics
⚙️ See here; additional resources
Getting to Know ‘Reform curious Labour Voters’
Persuasion UK
How much of a risk does Reform present to Labour? Key findings: “A pool of potential switchers to Reform does exist inside the Labour vote. However, they are only one small part of what is an increasingly complex electoral coalition for the government… Asylum and the small boats crisis appears a big push factor to Reform, as well as a general nihilism and pessimism with the two party systems. However, Reform curious Labour voters differ in important ways to the Reform vote. For instance, they are less drawn to Reform's anti-Net Zero positioning. Anxieties over Reform's proximity to Trump, Putin and extreme figures generally give these voters pause for thought. Labour can unite its coalition with a relatively moderate stance on cultural issues while leaning into progressive positions on economics. Reform can win more of these voters by combining robust, but not overly extreme, anti-immigration and asylum positions with running to the left of Labour on economics.”
#insight #tactics
A People-powered Insurgency
Alex Evans; The Good Apocalypse Guide
Following his previous post, Evans sketches “what it might look like for us to rise to this moment”, offering multiple “inspiring real-world” examples to support his suggestion that “we need to focus on bridging our divides, in a way that not only prevents Reform from weaponising our disagreements to its advantage, but also — more positively — searches for ways forward on issues that really matter.” Crucial to this approach is the recognition that “community organising is what makes real change happen” but is currently “painfully underfunded, receiving just 0.2% of grants” in the UK. Evans wonders how organising might be better resourced “not just with money, but also with training and tech”, and how focusing on a welcoming, “big picture agenda that transcends single issues” backed by a “positive, hopeful, and urgent story”, rooted in love, could help us “rebuild agency, and faith in the future.”
#tactics
Forget the "Joe Rogan of the Left," Where's the Rupert Murdoch?
Amy Westervelt; Drilled
“Folks, the problem is not that there are no popular commentators on the left, nor is it that leftist commentators lack the ‘skill' to weave propaganda into a three-hour stoned bro fest. Neither is it a framing and accessibility issue, as it's often portrayed in the many ‘if only we could make [pick your issue and favorite set of corresponding facts] more funny, accessible, relatable’ conversations. All of these responses take a glaring systemic issue and pretend it is an individual one.” Westervelt asks us to look at the whole information system – not just symptoms of it like Rogan – which is built by and for ‘technofascists’: “digital media platforms are profit-making tools, not democracy-spreading tools – they were created by private corporations to…harness the attention garnered by digital content and monetise it.” Wondering why “the left requires endless sacrifice while the right endlessly rewards any win“ Westervelt calls for “longer-term committed resourcing” and warns of a future without a free press.
#insight #tactics
Is the End Nigh?
Emilé Torres, Rachel Donald; Planet: Critical
Torres, ‘Philosopher of extinction’ and former-advocate-turned-critic of ‘Longtermism’, explores the history of ‘extinction anxiety’ and how it preoccupies the silicon valley/billionaire-class today. “It makes sense when you reflect on it, why people who are at the top of the hierarchies of power and wealth in our society are so concerned about human extinction – any catastrophe that's sub-extinction, they have the best chance of surviving, right? So it's only extinction that would directly affect them and their wellbeing.” This leads to deluded broligarchs like Sam Altman and Elon Musk believing they have the duty, and ability, to safeguard the future of humanity – an humanity they imagine being so numerous (and white) that any harm caused to current humans is irrelevant. When these dudes say ‘existential risks’, they mean risks to their dreams for a pristine techno-utopian future – not risks to current humans. Risks like regulation to limit wealth accumulation or energy use. Meaning that for them, climate change is not an ‘existential risk’…climate action is.
#deepnarrative #insight #tactics
🎙️ Listen here
Events & Jobs
Key: 🗓️ Event | 💼 Job
Solutions Summit 2025
Reframing Race
Register by Jun 12 | Jun 18, 14:00-19:00 | London
“An afternoon devoted to building pictures of anti-racist futures. What does a world beyond racism look and feel like? What work happening today is paving the way to anti-racism tomorrow? How do we change the public conversation and build demand for life-affirming futures? This unique in-person event will spotlight transformative work that is already building the foundations for radical, life-affirming futures. Inspiring contributors will share transformative examples of anti-racist practice and visions. Come and join the conversation on building a future in which we can all flourish.”
Digital Justice Fund Lead
Weaving Liberation
Deadline: Jun 15th | 12 month contract | Remote
“Weaving Liberation is an ecosystem-building and regranting initiative focussed on supporting and resourcing digital justice organising. We coordinate the implementation of “A vision for digital justice organising in Europe”, a programme of activities that will help create the conditions for racial, social, economic, environmental, transfeminist, disability, migrant justice groups to work towards liberatory digital futures… This year, we are excited to be designing and launching the Digital Justice Fund - Europe’s first participatory regranting fund to resource racial, social, economic, environmental, transfeminist, disability, migrant justice groups working at the intersection of technology and justice. We are looking for a Fund Lead to join our team and bring the Digital Justice Fund to life.”
Head of Media
NEON
Deadline: Jun 26th | Full-time | Hybrid
“The Head of Media is responsible for the Spokesperson Network and helping people in NEON’s networks make the most of media opportunities. They lead on strategy, developing high-level media contacts and managing staff associated with the programme. You will be someone who knows how to land stories and spokespeople in the media, capitalising on media and movement moments to push the conversation in a progressive direction. You’ll have a track record of jumping on opportunities, training spokespeople to deal with hostile interviews and staying calm under pressure. You will be a reflective manager, able to establish a strategically aligned, motivated and committed team. You will have a strong understanding of the media landscape - including how it interacts with social media. On a day to day basis you will manage a team which books spokespeople into broadcast media every day of the week. You’ll pitch and draft comment pieces, build new contacts across progressive spaces and have high level meetings with producers and journalists.”
Think Beyond Virtual Gathering
Dougald Hine
Jul 17, 14:00 | Online
“We open the Think Beyond journey with an intimate virtual gathering- a pause for reflection, imagination, and orientation in an era marked by upheaval and transition. This is not a typical webinar. It is a wayfinding conversation, the first step in a longer process of reimagining what it means to lead, nurture, and build for the future of children, families, and communities amid geopolitical upheaval, ecological tipping points, and deep social reckoning. We’ll be joined by social thinker, writer and speaker Dougald Hine whose work has helped many make meaning in times of transition and unraveling. He is author of At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Climate Crises and Other Emergencies and co-founder of organisations including the Dark Mountain Project and a school called HOME.”
Quotes
(This selection of quotes is intended as a resource, in the hope that they may be useful for your own communications. See a full list of all the previous quotes.)
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – George Orwell
"The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It’s people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages." – Banksy
“Fascism is what white people call capitalism when it starts to colonise them too.” – Unknown
“If You find Your imagination cannot stop itself from churning out the scripts of the Death Machines, pull its plug. Dismantle it. Reprogram it. Dream Daylight. Manufacture Daylight. We are the Magicians. Make Magic.” – Krista Franklin
“You got to make your own worlds; you got to write yourself in.” — Octavia Butler
Thanks for joining us, see you here again in three weeks.
A reminder that if you have something that you’d love to see in these newsletters, or work you’d like to share in the community sessions, or if you have any feedback, please reach out at inter-narratives@greenfunders.org
Very best,
Paddy & Ella