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A Letter To Foundations: Time To Start Again With Investments

Posted by Rodry

The vast majority of the wealth in the foundation world is invested in a financial system that is systematically destroying natural life and increasing inequality across our planet. It's desire for growth at all costs at once creates working poverty, great wealth, mass extinction and global warming. 

Fossil fuels represent a major part of most foundations investments.

Getty

Our model is broken. It is time for foundations to sell our investments and start again. To take take every penny out of every investment and only reinvest it where we are clear that those companies we invest in are fundamentally regenerative for the planet and fundamentally equalising for society. If we cannot do this with absolute clarity, then we should not continue investing our capital and we should just focus on spending it.

Until we make this fundamental change those young people heading to the streets in climate strikes - emblematic of everything we should be supporting as a sector - are doing so to protest against us. We are profiteering from a system that we should be fighting not underwriting. It's time for a new approach.

It's not our fault: we didn't know, we didn't ask it to be this way, we didn't design these systems. Nor did any given banker or billionaire, regulator or Prime Minister. We do not need to feel guilty for the structures (and money) that we have inherited, but we will only find our moral anchor when we fundamentally reject those structures rather than hiding behind purposefully amateur mis-interpretations of charity law suggesting that we have no choice. We have a choice.

The system of investment management we ourselves are invested in, fundamentally ignores both human suffering and ecological limits. So long as this is true, the idea of screening investments, engagement and ESG filters can and will only ever be tinkering at the edges while we drive for growth. The foundation sector has been willingly conned by investment managers into believing that we are operating with morality when we are not.

Unless I have missed something, it seems relatively clear that the economic system that society and nature are serving, is not serving us back. It has created the social suffering, the inequality and the ecological collapse we try to fight against every day in our work. We simply do not have the moral right to profit from the worst of this system in order to maintain our position supporting the environment and the communities that it brutalises.   

 The narrative of 'growth at all costs' is killing our planet. Economies do not have a divine right to grow, indeed in the UK ours does not need to grow at all. There is enough money today to look after us all. There are enough calories to feed us all. There is enough space to house us all and preserve the vast majority of our countryside from chemicals and monoculture. There is enough for all of that. There is not, however, enough to feed the excess, the inequality and the endless growth we are currently trying to sustain.

A typical Foundation living on its investments will hold huge holdings in oil and gas companies, mining companies, chemical companies, businesses involved in intense deforestation, as well as the most extractive financial services companies. Meanwhile, there are many charities who stand by values that say that they would never take a penny from an oil and gas company, a company involved in deforestation, or a company financing that deforestation. And yet they are taking that money via us. With our lack of transparency, we are forcing charities into breaches of their own policies and staff into jobs that undermine their beliefs without them evening knowing it.

We have to start again without presuming a divine right to make money, simply by virtue of having it in the first place. This goes for those giving it away as much as those keeping it for private gain as it comes from the same system of inequity.

What the world needs desperately is the space to think about and create a model of being that serves humanity and nature in all of our interconnectedness. There is no one better placed to begin building that than our community of foundations who have longevity and independence, power and freedom and some of the most deeply thoughtful people you can hope to meet. They also have huge amounts of money if they choose to use them. The world needs us, our planet needs us and our communities need us.

It's time to cash out, step up and start again. We need to make sure that when the question comes in twenty years "what were you doing when the climate was breaking down and the science telling you so was on the front page of every newspaper?" that our answer is a good one.

Letter to the Editor: Start ringing the doorbell when dropping off a package

Posted by Rodry

Here lately you cannot turn the TV on without hearing a story about porch pirates â€" those people who steal packages from your porch.

It’s all over the news, yet UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service will consistently drop off packages at the doorstep and porch.

But, the carriers never ring the doorbell or knock to alert the person inside that they have a delivery on the porch. Some do, but many don’t.

I can’t tell how many mornings I have walked outside to find a package left on my porch all night long. And, I was home when it was delivered.

It should be standard policy to ring the bell or knock when a package has been dropped off.

How to Start an Email Sales Letter

Posted by Rodry

Businesses correspond using letters, email, reports and website pages.

Businesses correspond using letters, email, reports and website pages.

Creatas/Creatas/Getty Images

Email makes it easy to get in touch with potential clients, no matter if you're selling a service or product. But just because you dash off an email sales letter in minutes to thousands of potential clients doesn't mean that any of these potential sales will materialize. The key to writing an effective email sales letter is to quickly let potential customers know the benefits they'll receive by investing in your product or service. And if you don't get to this point quickly, you'll almost certainly lose your clients. You'd be surprised at how many email sales letters that clients delete before even finishing their first sentences.

1.

Include your potential client's name -- spelled correctly -- and title at the top of your email sales letters. People receive a lot of commercial pitches through email today. They'll immediately delete any that resemble spam or junk mail. And sales letters that begin with variations of "To whom it may concern," "Dear sir or madam" or "Hi, friend" will almost certainly trigger the "delete" key.

2.

Tell potential clients exactly what benefit they'll receive from your product or service in the first sentence of your email message. If you run a lawn service, tell potential clients that you can give their businesses instant curb appeal, without them or their busy employees having to ever pull a weed or fire up a lawnmower. If you sell high-tech burglar alarms, immediately tell potential customers that you can eliminate their chances of suffering a break-in. No matter what service or product you offer, give your potential clients a quick "what's in it for me" moment.

3.

Describe your service or product succinctly, in two sentences or less. Business owners and managers are busy people. They don't want to spend a significant amount of time poring over email messages. If you provide a discount window-cleaning service, tell potential clients exactly how often you'll clean their windows and for what price points. Don't make clients guess.

4.

Provide contact information within the first five to six sentences of your sales letter. If your pitch interests clients, you don't want them to have to look for your phone number or email address. If they don't find it quickly, they might forget about your pitch in the sea of phone messages and emails with which they are undoubtedly dealing.

]]> About the Author

Don Rafner has been writing professionally since 1992, with work published in "The Washington Post," "Chicago Tribune," "Phoenix Magazine" and several trade magazines. He is also the managing editor of "Midwest Real Estate News." He specializes in writing about mortgage lending, personal finance, business and real-estate topics. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from the University of Illinois.

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    Gavin Williamson sacked: Why you don't want to get a letter from Theresa May starting with 'thank you'

    Posted by Rodry

    Gavin Williamson letter: Theresa May sacks defence secretary | indy100

    Britain's defence secretary Gavin Williamson has been sacked by Theresa May over a top-level national security leak. Here's how she did it...

    So he responded with...

    Williamson's insistence of his innocence regarding the Huawei leak was not enough to convince the Prime Minister, who "lost confidence in his ability to serve", according to Downing Street. 

    Despite "no other, credible version of events to explain the leak", Ms May's letter informing Williamson of his sacking has been described as "brutal" on Twitter. 

    Williamson has since been replaced by international development secretary Penny Mordaunt, the first woman to hold the position of defence secretary. 

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    LETTER TO THE EDITOR: NFL should start a farm league

    Posted by Rodry

    I agree with Shane Dunaway that the NFL should start a farm league, like baseball does. It’s the only way “minor league” pro-football will survive.

    First of all, they have the money to back it and weather the bad times.

    Secondly, there are athletes who go to college just to get a chance to be an NFL star and make money while playing the sport they love. They should have this option to bypass college to achieve that goal. How many college athletes have to be tutored all the way through college taking courses they are not interested in or really are not academically college material?

    An NFL farm league would solve this problem for both the athlete and colleges. It makes no sense that the NFL has not already done this.

    Billy E. Price

    Ashville

    Letter to the Editor: Start ringing the doorbell when dropping off a package

    Posted by Rodry

    Here lately you cannot turn the TV on without hearing a story about porch pirates â€" those people who steal packages from your porch.

    It’s all over the news, yet UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service will consistently drop off packages at the doorstep and porch.

    But, the carriers never ring the doorbell or knock to alert the person inside that they have a delivery on the porch. Some do, but many don’t.

    I can’t tell how many mornings I have walked outside to find a package left on my porch all night long. And, I was home when it was delivered.

    It should be standard policy to ring the bell or knock when a package has been dropped off.

    Letter: Sierra Club needs to start living in the real world of threats to our environment

    Posted by Rodry

    Sierra Club needs to start living in the real world of threats to our environment

    Re: "Newsom must call for a California Summit on Wildfires" (Editorial, Nov. 13):

    A California summit on wildfires should be priority one for our new governor.

    What better way to use some of our budget surplus than to implement a better forest management plan. All federal and state forests in California are at high risk of catastrophic fire. The powerful Sierra Club needs to start living in the real world of threats to our environment. Fire is not good, is not cleansing and does not lead to a new natural cycle when the forests are in this catastrophic condition. It fought a good battle to stop clear-cutting of old-growth redwoods and should be commended but, as in many of its causes, it's gone too far.

    It needs to take its head out of the ashes and smell the smoke and realize better forest management is the only way to get in front of this and stop this total destruction of our national treasures.

    Jeff MillerDanville

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