I’m not sure how far back it goes. Certainly the Vatican was one of the early players in exerting control over rulers of nations. And then came the financiers like the Medici family. And then the whole Jekyll Island situation. Once small groups or individuals gain control of the money, they have powerful leverage over how rulers rule. And when someone has that much power, rulers aren’t really ruling anything anymore. They’re simply carrying out marching orders.

Economists tend to fall into two camps, and if you listen to them long enough it begins sounding like a long-running family argument at Thanksgiving.

Notes on working in the messy middle. Imagine that the philanthropic sector is a body of water. What qualities, sensations or images come to mind as you imagine this? Some would say it is a mucky pond carrying the excess of wealth amassed through deeply extractive and exploitative systems. Some might argue it is a gurgling stream that can irrigate the potentials of alternative, emergent futures- a stream that should ultimately help us flow into new oceans of possibility. Some might say it is a slow moving glacier- frozen into endowments that perpetuate wealth-accumulation and preserve the status quo, with only about 5% trickling as grants into real places and communities. How would you imagine or visualise it?

As we head into the autumnal months of the year it’s a time of turning leaves and brisker air. A time of harvesting, and sharing the fruits of our labour. In that spirit, Sophia Parker has spent some time pausing and reflecting on where we are here at JRF in our Emerging Futures work.

Thirty Percy is an independent foundation. We're here to contribute to the future security and wellbeing of our world.

The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism to the lived possibilities for other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This “ontological shift”, as they call it, is at the heart of the text - creating new/ancient/emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or “fight power”, but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos.

Impact investing is commonly defined as the deployment of capital with the intention to generate positive social or environmental outcomes alongside financial returns.

Skills, resource flows and the nonsense of philanthropy. My starting point: under capitalism, organisations are not sites of liberation. I do not believe starting a company is the pathway to liberation. But I do believe that organisations are means of organising resources at the scales necessary to achieve structural shifts. That being said, I can’t help but note the widening gap between the intention to build alternative futures and the skills needed to make them real. At this conjuncture we find ourselves at, across social movements, community organisations and cultural initiatives, there is no shortage of imagination — but there seems to be a restriction around operational capacity.

There is no free lunch. Seven documents, one prototype, three visuals, and a product philosophy. All from a single conversation that started with a neuroscience paper. By midnight I had more material than I’d produced in some entire months last year. I need to start knitting. I mean that almost literally. Something with friction. Something slow and physical that doesn’t multiply every time you touch it. Because whatever this is - this capacity to go from spark to fully-formed thing in hours - it’s extraordinary, and it’s doing something to me I can’t quite name yet.

In the face of tyranny, conflict, and disaster. I’m living in the US right now. It feels like a slow motion nightmare where you’re watching clowns with thick makeup chase you, but your limbs are heavy and you can’t lock the door to your house in time, and you open your mouth to scream but nothing comes out.

A Faustian bargain is a trade where the short-term gain is so seductive that we ignore, or underestimate, the long-term cost. And the modern world has made such a bargain - to its great detriment. We’ve made a kind of co...

Part 11 - The Spiritual Psychology of Everyday Life. Many people search for meaning as if it is something to find or achieve. But meaning is not a destination. It is an orientation. This final essay explores what it means to live in relationship with meaning rather than chasing it, and how a regulated nervous system allows meaning to become embodied in everyday life.

What does a human economy look like when it's built on belonging, place, and relationship?