Too many people doing really important work that needs to run it’s course or progress are struggling with their basic living costs in this time, it’s not to make that more important than deep poverty or anything like that, but if they all have to stop just to survive we are really screwed in terms of alternative ways forward, give individual grants to people for a couple of years, it’s all too hard, and it’s very hard just trying to make it all work by just mutual aiding each other, because everyone’s basic costs have easily doubled since 2020.

Just be like here’s an extra £1 or £2k / month for like 5 years, stay on your feet, keep your family and children / elders whoever your caring for safe whilst you pour into this work and just stay afloat, whilst we figure out what ambitions we have for this all. Or just like one off them £50k or something and so they just carry on building and working without free fall of multiple panics everyday, in personal life and then dealing with that an org level too. It’ll really change people’s health, mental health and ability to just get on with the work. I know people you all love and rate so much, and whose work you co-opt as institutions whilst your on maybe double treble what they earn, literally in their overdraft permanently, with a pound or two left in the last week of the month, months behind on mortgages, credit cards, and so much else. Like honestly, it’s really bad but it’s too humiliating to say, for many reasons, but mainly because your meant to hold the hope and be the leader. Honestly, like if one funder just does loads and loads of this it’ll make sure work is still standing in these times.

It’s time for my monthly and annual thread that nobody will read or action, lots of people will say, but I’m going to do it anyway because who knows right. So, a lot of us agree at varying degrees of what’s next that the goals of the current economy, and how we attribute value, or what we value is not fit for purpose. Right, so we know we need to move beyond financial return as the main metric, we know we need to go beyond GDP, we know we want to return and retain as much wealth of all capitals at the scale of the community, street, neighbourhood. We have all the right language of knowing something very different is very urgently needed next. Now, the what and the how, well there is lots of what’s, and what comes next won’t look precisely like any of them, but a bit like a lot of them, and you won’t really be able to attribute it to one thinker or model.

So even ‘the what’ has a fair deal of framing, models, detail now. There is A LOT more of ‘the how’ that needs to be discovered, right and that’s what the long, large, regenerative money needs to go into, lots and lots of the discovery of the how, in lots and lots of experimental, deep and rooted ways. Plenty and plenty of people who are primed for that, who are scrabbling around in a 20th century model of giving, not discovery of the next systems we will need to craft, shift, disrupt, build out of utter crisis. Land is a huge part of what so many of those people need, but many other types of assets too, to build out demonstrations, to discover the how of the next economy, next systems, what comes next basically — whatever you feel best calling it.

Now, the really ridiculous thing is everyone doing that is being pushed back into the same business models, the same need to create business plans, and the same ideas that got us into this mess for any investment at all. Which is counter to how we discover those next pieces, but people are obsessed that this how they understand investment, risk, how to move money. This means that those trying to do any of that future work, are having to stop anything interesting to satisfy 20th century models, create business plans they know will not work in the cascading crises the next two decades will bring, to persuade people who will see it all as risky.

So, it can’t be emphasised more, that those doing this work need to be deeply trusted, and expanded rapidly and encouraged to move out of the safe zone that investors and funders force them into, because they only working within the existing frame of risk, and what is possible. So, if you are worried about what’s happening, what’s coming and don’t want to wait until utter crisis, and you don’t want to make progressive work, stop, create old dependable plans, that are basically not fit for purpose for the future — and waste more time and energy, of people trying to force through and break out of the shackles of now. You know you need to invest differently, we don’t need 100 more reports, round tables, programmes, blogs. Here is a reminder of a number of high impact easy to do things in 2024, I know at this stage you’re all sick of me saying the same stuff but here we go:

1. 10 year funding, double average revenue of last three years, so they can build, discover, and have a bit of a buffer.

2. Discovery capital investment, so next models can be demonstrated, give at least 10 year payment break so that there is time and space to implement and build the models proposed out, that you often don’t believe are possible.

3. Buy up the land and assets, and get them out of the extractive development market, without endless business plans that follow old models and patterns, force people don’t pointless journeys, and in the mean time they lose the assets, to that market, and waste all their time and energy, fighting a fight they can’t win, telling a business plan story, that is nonsense for what is coming.

These are very simple things. Do it in 20-30 places with people working on transition .. .. rather than waiting for some magic moment, help to accelerate and nudge the edge work into the mainstream, we are already seeing that happening with tiny resource. Don’t wait until we are building out of absolute crisis and disaster management.

Now, I know everyone’s panicked, where will this money come from, how do we know this is going to be the right people. Plenty of brilliant people are working on perpetual models, that don’t centre the same centralised top down power that you are worried we will replicate and have learned from philanthropy. Listen to them. Then you don’t have to put all your money into the transition work, you have hundreds and hundreds of millions that grew even more inequitably that how you first gathered that resource, it would be £100s of millions between you that could move in 2024, whilst also maintaining your existing this system resourcing, and your money will still be growing.

We as a deeply extractive, overly responsible country, living still on the wealth we stole, lives we destroyed, lives we are destroying, and damage we are still doing and have done, have a high net worth and philanthropic sector that could and should do something profound, and need to stop looking for a magic answer to arrive, or to keep divide and ruling all of us who are trying to be in community and ecosystem together, and work to resource, discovery, unlock us all more collectively. 2024 has got to be a year of the how at pace in our communities — we know the different layers, we aren’t scared of each others work, or working together, we aren’t saying one type of thinking, design, or work is more important than another, you need to trust. It’s the least we can all do, with the heaps of privilege and damage we are responsible for.

What I’ve seen with so many peers, and experienced myself is there is very very little incentive to try set this up, and especially to go past 3-6 team members, into anything else, and that’s fine right, this doesn’t have to be something we have to do, or suggest anyone to do that, or take those responsibilities or to try, but if your pals are in the knots of responsibilities, risks, vision of trying to, amongst all sorts of health, resource, people, wider societal and economic content entanglements, give them the radical support, because it’s absolutely fine if more and more people stop in this violence now. But, if they do it does mean we are left with mega corps, polluters and companies visioning the future, people will continue to sell us stuff we don’t need, or even just create lovely but mindless entertainment to distract us through this, or just do patching up or continue to entrench the worst of the routes available to us. Even if you really dislike me for saying this stuff all the time, if anyone around you is trying, try to get into the knots and entanglements of the impossible contradictions and decisions they are holding everyday and love them through it, support them to step into the ambition resourced and supported, or support them to keep holding on as its critical they do, or support them to let go and stop, and not have their head constantly above the parapet, only judged on what everyone can see at the surface, not all that’s really in the knots of responsibilities. Because of some of the stories I know, and the brutality of them, and what’s happening and how much pressure and impossible contradictions people are in, I’m always going to be grateful to anyone who tried, even if 20th century capitalism and what it does to all of us, even those on the same side of the story on the whole, has really deeply destroyed our capacities to be collectively building.

Sorry, we don’t have time you need to make this succinct into a 5 minute pitch or a 2 pager, ok cool.

Sorry, you need to give us a full modelled business plan for what your going to do, over the next 10 years.

Yes, but to explain to you why that’s a fallacy, you .. .. need to be able digest more than a 2 pager, or a 5 minute pitch. Will the IPPC’s or CCC summary do — no sorry it’s not specific enough.

Ok, we’ll shall we do the work to show you that, yes but get it down to an easy one pager, as the trustees are busy.

Ok, but it’s not ..

🚨 FUNDERS AND HIGH NET WORTH INDIVIDUALS LISTEN 🚨

https://twitter.com/immykaur/status/1663221128825896961

DO NOT KEEP ASKING FOR BUSINESS PLANS FOR FUTURES THAT DO NOT EXIST. ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS AND LET PEOPLE GET TO WORK, QUICKLY FFS.

I genuinely can’t describe how much we’ve been begging philanthropy to allow resource to flow at scale, so we on the ground can demonstrate what this adaptation looks like in practice, as well as shift paradigms for mitigation as well. But nothing, business plans for termination.

https://twitter.com/justcollapse/status/1662252570960592902

Like the pandemic, philanthropy will hedge and get richer through catastrophe, and then distribute through emergency, until a point comes where that is no longer even possible. Then, be like oh what could we have done differently. Honestly I have a 2 hour thoroughly researched ..

Don’t need lots of replies or judgement to this, because I’m not going to disclose the why. But, there’s all sorts of reasons smear tests can be terrifying, + I’m telling you please go, DM if your putting it off. Recently, I had a nurse who was so excellent, I made her .. … aware, of what was going on physically and psychologically, she was SO helpful, there’s all sorts of adjustments, tips, ways they can make it easier, tell your surgery in advance could you have someone experienced where there is complications. PLEASE GET YOUR SMEAR TEST.

I’m not here to glorify the industrialists but looking at all the covenants on the estates across Birmingham, the focus on green space, + at that time the quite revolutionary focus on clean air, quality housing, green space, education for people (albeit to support their bottom … .. line) was quite something it was a decent use of their excessive wealth (I know this was extracted in heinous ways), but we have those comparisons now, and nothing revolutionary or bold is happening, when you got to parts of the estate they are protected from developers ..

In a few years time, a story is going to come out about this time, and how ridiculous it was that some fairly brilliant peoples were super sick, but had to secure, safeguard the work, its ambition + resourcing in an austere and risk averse, landscape, instead of their own health. Maybe, maybe, maybe, you’ll do some never again campaigning at that time, and make sure work is ambitiously resourced, understood, and y’all all fight together, if those peeps don’t make it to see the later parts of their lives, don’t forget or erase the stories.

I know most people won’t appreciate me saying this, but someone has to say it, I’ve spent the last decade hearing most funders in UK talk about system change, + say we don’t understand @indy_johar’s or @DarkMatter_Labs work in practice, those who invest, gave them the …

https://twitter.com/annettedhami/status/1638900624166387714

… space to show you, what you should have been doing the last decade, show you in practice, with a minuscule of the resource that’s required, you won’t always understand the future in practice now, you have to invest in it being built, manifested, you have to better, smarter ..

The IPCC synthesis report should be on the desk of every trustee meeting for philanthropy in the UK, and every decision checked against it, + half the meeting dedicated to understanding + enacting + resourcing the recommendations. Instead of 1000s of questions coming in one direction, we should be allowed to ask as many back.

Big morning for @AnaadhSingh, got out in the miserable weather and got a new @juniorparkrunUK PB + some hill training in. It’s such a joy, 6 years on from a little blob skipping around to watching him so disciplined + excited by running these days, thanks @CannonHilljnrpr crew ✨ twitter.com/i/web/status/1… New PB day for this one, with his first top 5 finish @CannonHilljnrpr ✨

So, a very strange phenomena I have seen these last two years, is highly paid leaders mainly in philanthropy racialised as white, telling other BIPOC leaders their work isn’t decolonial, radical enough, + so that’s why the rethinking their funding. I find this particularly .. … bizarre, when it’s been decades and generations, who bought all of this convo into being and into the mainstream, who are now, looking at the context and actually trying to do something with that all, but because you’ve just discovered it, you want to hold everyone back ..

Ok, so here’s another one of those streams of thought that will make lots of people cross with me. Because, this country has such a deeply corrupt, nepotistic + extractive history, it can’t understand that those who are in solidarity, kinship, collective movements might have .. … genuine, care, love, friendship, support for one another in ways that is like family, most of them literally on pretty low salaries, distributing more resource than they hoarding, in fact no hoarding, but by projecting imperial status quo norms onto it, you silence them ..

2012-2019 -> £0 - £16,000
2020- 2022 -> £26,500 - £33,500

Salary Ratio 1:1 - 1:1.25, always to try + keep fairness, parity, make sure we never fell into the cycle we had seen, even harder as many other offers come through, but one thing I’ve really understood recently … … you have to only do things, for your own integrity, or for your the wider bigger picture, not because it’s understood, but I would recommend anyone joining this kind of work, understand what it takes to build, so you don’t come and bring ideas from the corporate or big ..

Over the last 12 years, we’ve been almost obsessed with moving through cycles of learning, and pivoting every 2-3 years, being able to look back it is critical to be able to make, barn raise, manifest any work that is only yet imagined, + doesn’t have a blueprint yet.

https://twitter.com/CIVIC_SQUARE/status/1634332937930919943

In 2019, we did quite a lot of work to frame, plan, create a plan for what felt like from all we knew, had seen, worked on with incredible people + partners, that the decade of 2020-2030 would be critical, + we would here in the UK start to deeply see + feel the impact of crisis twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

I started the year really working hard on wellbeing after such a broken 2022, walking, running, stopping work around 6. Then I had to get back to trying to resource ourselves and realised no funder has moved to bold long term funding yet, and so spending day and night .. .. at the computer, not moved in days, feeling awful, anxious, sad that we all still here as a field. Writing out strategy and aims out for the 40th time in a different way, and I just want to cry if I’m honest because we can’t go on like this, this isn’t how bold work can move

Not interested in a capital project for the shiny ness, instead to look at 1.5 - 3 degree infrastructure to put tools, resources, spaces into hands of neighbourhoods to navigate their transitions, turning 20th century industrial ruins into 21st century regenerative lighthouses. When we talk about viability, what’s viable in a broken economic model, where all our traditional spaces + those being ripped away will have to be repurposed in crisis + catastrophe.

If you do a national spend down, half all your endowments building a shit tonnes of bold demonstrators + local resilience + your current planned delivery, whilst the government takes us backwards. What’s the worst that will happen, we will have some great stuff, we are more .. … resilient, the next government have ideas to pick up and go forward with quickly to god speed the societal climate transitions, you will have got hoarded wealth out. If everything is not as bad as we think, you can spend the recovery building up your endowment again.

When I’m working with @byngtown on something I send about 500-600 messages a day back and forth, collaborating, sense checking, or hours deliberating to get through translating, making sense, legible, coherent from different skill sets. It’s why I don’t think ‘meetings’ .. .. can achieve this sort of stuff, can’t understand or connect with people who were like this wasn’t a meeting I needed, or struggle where there isn’t the energy, space, or set up to figure out stuff practically, across the micro details when producing work together.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what is the work that I really love doing, crafting, being part of, bringing together, as I’ve ended up having to be far away from it this year, + that’s fine because had responsibilities to try + nurture the wider platform which has had all .. .. sorts of learnings, + then @charliedmonds sent this picture + I realised more clearly it’s all I want to do, gently later together work, leadership, visionaries, resource, of others + what we’ve learnt over a long period together to new combinations, carefully slowly, +