Here we are. Edition 200. A milestone like this tends to make you look in two directions: reflecting on where you’ve come from and thinking about where you’re heading next. Like checking the rear-view mirror and Google Maps at the same time (and hopefully avoiding a crash).
In case you’ve joined us recently: the first edition of this newsletter went out in May 2015, to 150 email addresses scraped together from friends, family and a few work contacts. The early editions were embarrassingly peppy and the design was a crime-scene, but we stuck to it and through a process of trial and error, got better over time.
We launched the paid version in edition 101 in August 2020, deep in the first wave of lockdowns, and now here we are at number 200 and still going strong. Over the past 100 editions not only have we uncovered some extraordinary stories of progress, we’ve met incredible individuals like Shabana Basij-Rasikh, who founded Afghanistan’s only school for girls, Alex Lucitante and Alexandra Narvaez, who used drone technology to win a historic legal battle for their tribe in Ecuador, and James Harrison, the Australian railway administrator whose donations of blood over six decades saved the lives of 2.4 million babies.
Most importantly, thanks to you, we’ve helped 41 charities from every corner of the planet, making an average donation of US$5,000. As a reader, you are not only consuming good news but actively participating in making it happen. That circular, energetic flow lies at the heart of this newsletter and informs everything we do.
As a member of this community, our hope is that the information you consume here changes the way step through the world, that you perhaps embody it enough to become a vector of hope yourself. We want these stories to be shared, so the message spreads beyond the confines of your inbox. If there’s one that grabs your attention, please bring it up the next time someone at the dinner table says, “we’re all doomed.”
This is an invitation, not a request. This is your newsletter and you can use it any way you want! However you choose to engage, and in whatever way you read this, we hope it's useful. Thank you for sticking with us, for keeping this project alive and for being part of the journey. We’re looking forward to the next hundred editions.
Much love,
Amy, Gus & Tane
