#can you imagine how much of a menace solar would be if he could see ghosts

[snowe-zolynn-rogers]

Solar: Hey! Eclipse!

Eclipse: What!?

Solar: Look to your left for me?

Eclipse: O-Okay, why? *looks to his left*

Solar: Say hello to your ghost for me.

Eclipse: H-Hi?

Solar: He says ‘fuck you, poser, stop pretending to be me’.

[thedaythealienscame]

i've been writing a lot more recently in short bursts, going between projects. this is something that i finished last night, kind of diving into my character and their one-sided relationship with their "boss." it's kind of all over the place tbh but. who cares.

if it had a title, it'd be "there was something almost soothing in the hard-to-define note of terror in your eye" <- which is pretty long! it's from "i've got the sex" by tmg for character dynamic reasons

only warnings i can think of are like. insecurity, jealousy, vague mentions of alien sex? and the last part is imagining an intimate moment that could be ruined by an easy murder (which could be construed as suicidality?)

--

O-Ren's mat lies on the floor of the generator room, surrounded by a few bits and bobs. Personal belongings that don't actually feel all that personal anymore. (For instance; a literal piece of one of the people who built them, an amulet from home, a book that they're hesitant to touch.) But more important than that, O-Ren is kneeling at the end of the mat on their knees, palms flat on the floor, and praying.

Well, loosely.

They're running over possible scenarios in their head and trying to work their way out of each one. Sometimes with some act of divine interference on IVAN’s part, sometimes not. Sometimes there isn't an out and everything is shit. It depends on how hopeless they’re feeling that hour.

Accompanied by this is a choking, muttering sound. The kind of thing that makes you wonder whether or not someone is chewing gravel next to your ear. A reinforcement of sorts.

It doesn't change anything, though.

Now they have a new burden to take on at the hands of their own poor decision-making. A choice that they shouldn’t have made as lightly as they did, and now it was a piece of them. The Menace had even accompanied them on the ship (even though Hugo had not for a good hour or two), and while they weren’t stressing in the doorway anymore, nothing really changed. And they had messed up with Juno, and now they had to take far more on than they were accustomed to.

It’s just that they don’t like him. The Menace.

His whole demeanour puts them on edge, as much as they would rather it did not (or however intentional it may be). Reminds them of their guardian’s description of a dolphin’s laugh. A privilege, it had been, to be able to even hear that story. And what a regret it is now. It haunts them more than anything they’d ever thought about before.

“A bright, high-pitched sort of thing, yes? Like two sheets of thin iron rubbing against each other so quickly you can hardly see the switch. They talk to each other like that. All bubbly.”

As taboo as it was to leave, they were grateful for everything that their guardian had given them. For everything… but that.

To be honest, they had no idea what would have happened if their head hadn’t been filled with so many different ideas of that sort. Of earth, of mars, of other planets in their own solar system all made up of gas.

And they kind of don’t understand what Hugo has in mind when he sees Kelsi, though she is pretty, something about her grates on the plates around their stomach. Emotion all heavy in its sincerity as it flows through them at a remarkable speed. Some combination of envy and appreciation all at once.

Of course, of course it makes them feel gross. He’s allowed to do whatever he wants.

And he has, in turn, allowed them to do whatever they want. Anytime, they’re allowed to just pack up and leave as if nothing ever happened there. O-Ren could jump ship if they wanted to, or just get lost on purpose and never return. Do something that they would have never dared to do in a thousand lifetimes. Drink and smoke their life away. Let someone take their core like it meant nothing to them. Would it matter? Would he care?

O-Ren, despite their best efforts, really wants Hugo to care.

What would they even be if he didn’t care?

Hours later, they walk out of that little room, regretting a little bit that they don’t house themself with the others. But it just doesn’t seem right. And they don’t want to intrude now, especially now that they’ve come to think of that place as a private little home.

And… during a routine check-in with everyone, it’s all okay.

Nothing is going wrong, people are getting along, everything is okay without the constant rounds of the ship. Whether or not this should be a reason to stop doing so is filed away into the back of O-Ren’s mind for later. It makes them feel a little safer.

(Then grosser, when they exchange pleasantries with Hugo and can barely tear their eyes away from the octopus-like sucker marks that litter his skin. Not that he’d notice. It’s so obviously unintentional as well, like he just… forgot about the marks now that he’s not in the direct presence of the Menace. Wrapping fully around his wrists and forearms and the back of his neck, so perfect in proportion that O-Ren is both upset and insecure all at once for no justifiable reason.)

Even if O-Ren was never given a specific job to work with ever again, they would never be done working in every meaning of the word. There is no “stop” from the specific moment of creation to the end of the universe unless they die somehow. And that’s just something they have to accept.

Not that they know what their job is now that they aren’t hauling bricks.

But a part of it seems to be pacing around the ship until they pass out from exhaustion and a lack of oxygen. And worrying about their crewmates.

(Jealousy is not in the description, it shouldn’t feel as good or righteous as it does.)

IVAN pushes for them to sit down for a little, apparently unphased by the journey that they have ahead of them. And they don’t mind, really. If he’s treating them normally, they must be acting somewhat normally.

(O-Ren, as stupid as the thought is, wants nothing more than to take off their outside face and reveal a hidden little piece of them. One that couldn’t have been seen by anyone since they left their home planet and blasted off into eternal nothingness with only other work to replace it. More fulfilling work, but work nonetheless.)

It's not that they don't like the chatter, but they're not really focused on it. Or much at all, really. They find themself warming Hugo's drink back up without a second thought while nodding along to another beach ramble/argument.

(The idea is dangerous. And if anyone had done the most surface-level research on their people, they would know just how humiliating that can and should be. Best not to lose any more credibility while they're still with Deep Blue.)

It's become such a boring argument over the past couple days, and they can't even bring themself to care about it anymore. If they're going to the beach, who cares?

(Just flash your bosses, O-Ren. Smart.)

Calmly and as quietly as possible, they slip out of the room without so much as a glance going their way. People too wrapped up in each other to care about the outside world in exactly the way that they shouldn't want to be.

Fighting is disruptive and inefficient, to be avoided at all costs. If one has authority over another, the subordinate should allow things to go as the other sees fit. That’s how it’s supposed to be anyway.

O-Ren knows firsthand that nothing is that smooth.

Of course the moment that O-Ren sneaks away, back to their little room they call home, disruptive little thoughts make their presence known in the most distracting way possible. The pieces that make up their outer-face have become oppressive in nature in the short amount of time it took to get from the control room to the engine.

Thick fingers shift the biggest piece up and to the right. It falls on their mat with a gentle thud.

Maybe he’d like it.

More sheets of hard, heavy rock start coming off bit by bit. Slowly revealing an underlayer that would sparkle if it weren’t so dull and entice people if it weren’t so full of holes. Holes that keep them alive and breathing, but holes nonetheless. Ones that would be worth a pretty penny (an even better reason to keep themself under wraps).

Maybe, if he was lonely enough. Or experienced some sort of change of heart. But they’d take it.

They’d cherish any sort of attention on that scale.

It’s such wishful thinking, but they can’t really help it anymore.

O-Ren has, at least, a few hours left to breathe without anyone going looking for them. Which means a few hours before they have to put half their body back on again, but it’ll be so worth it to not feel stifled, at least for the moment.

They take some extra care with the left plates of their outer chest, minding the hole that they have yet to find an opportunity to fill.

Maybe he’d like that too.

The idea could be thrilling, that they’d willingly show off a piece of their most fragile layer. There’s a pretty solid chance that he’d get curious and ask to look (or maybe even reach) inside to see their core. The worst part is that he could probably handle the heat if he did decide to reach inside.

Lay them down on their mat right here, the door locked, far enough away from the main activity that goes on in the ship that no one would know or hear.

Support their head with his hand, maybe…

Or they’d just rest in his lap like it was a pillow, cheek pressed against his stomach (for all that that would be worth). It’d even be easier for Hugo to reach inside and touch the one thing that keeps them alive. Boiling hot and soft in the middle, a core resting right where their diaphragm would be.

All their plates off, resting on the thing that makes up their bed, and O-Ren kneels beside all their pieces that they need to take the time to fix, no matter how intriguing the idea of Hugo noticing and realizing what the meaning behind that is. 

Not that they’ve ever expected much.

What’s even more embarrassing is that they’d love it. They’d love everything and anything that Hugo did as long as it was him. No matter how clinical he was.

If he touched them like he meant it, like they mattered to him, or if it was purely scientific. If he spent most of his time distantly twisting and bending the quartz that made them keep shape inside. Applying pressure to their core to see what they do, to see if they’d ever pull away.

(And the answer would be no, not in a million years. Any survival instincts that may have been drilled into them since creation have gone out the window for a man who doesn’t care all that much as to whether or not they live or die. O-Ren can’t actually tell if that’s a downside or not. It should be, but it kind of isn’t.)

Maybe even if it would kill them. Or if he could try to move it around and see what that would do. 

(But he’d try to be nice enough to them every step of the way, which kind of makes it hurt. He likes them enough to use them as a living shield from his ex, that has to be worth something. This all has to be worth something.)

Hugo’d be nice if O-Ren clung to him, and he’d be nice if they spent the whole session with their hands by their sides, and he’d be nice even if they asked to cover up those sucker-marks by wrapping their fingers around his throat.

Not that he’d agree, ever, but he’d be nice when letting them down.

Only because they made it this far, but it’s a good thought. A thought that sends O-Ren into a slightly safer state of mind.

A sharp rap against the engine room door has O-Ren reeling, trying to decide between staying quiet or rushing to cover themself back up and answer whoever was making their presence known.

Not that they stay, effectively making that decision for them.

If they had a heart, it would be beating out of their chest. Not that it really mattered. Getting caught now would be akin to being caught in underclothes, not that anyone would be thrilled about it, or incredibly happy about it… but a sight better than having something to be caught for.

[isuspectyouhavefantheories]

Search for the Sun 🌞

So this is Part 2 of “the Sun” series.

Part 1 found : https://isuspectyouhavefantheories.tumblr.com/post/640838971892662272/the-crossroads-to-the-sun here!

Ok so, NSFW, I can’t figure out how to make this appear shorter or have it appear under the cut cus mobile Tumblr sucks eggs. You heard me.

Takemura/Female V fic

Rated MA, for mature, sexual themes, read at own risk.

—————————————-

Somewhere in the Mojave....

“We need a new carburettor for this thing V and someone’s gonna have to re-solder this whole board before we can even do that! We aren’t going to be getting our cargo vans very far like.” Saul sighed, closing the hood of the large van with a heavy thud as he wiped the grease and dust from his hands. His expression was his usual deeply worried frown and she noticed how even as he wiped his hands clean they remained oil stained and grubby. He’d been toiling over engines all day, putting one fire out after another.

“I’ll see what Mitch and I can do but it’s gonna take a little while. We’re already trying to get a handle on repairs to the solar panels and honestly that’s the thing I want to make sure we have fixed before night fall. We can stop for the night, recuperate.” She gave him a pointed look that he only waived off. “I’ll fix up the vans in the morning and we can get going after. We have some time before the next storm, quit your worrying.” V offered, punching his arm lightly, Saul only smiled in return.

“How’d you end up being my second in command? I thought that was supposed to be Panam?” He chuckled.

“She’s got her hands full at the moment.”

“With?”

“Dick.”

Saul balked at her and V only waggled her eyebrows, nodding her head in the direction of a lightly rocking AV on the outskirts of camp.

“Incidentally, his name is also Dick.” She chuckled.

“God damnit, PANAM!” She watched in mild amusement as Saul stormed away toward the aforementioned vehicle to reprimand his second for her blatant public fornication. So she heaved herself forward, ignoring the mild ache in her body and forcing her legs and arms to continue obeying her. V decided that she would save herself the mental anguish of tangling with the solar grid and get out of camp for an hour at the least. Evidently fighting burning migraines and muscle spasms was trying at the best of times, especially when attempting to keep up with her duties to the clan.

She didn’t want to sit around and be a burden on them, regardless of Saul and Panam’s insistence on her getting more rest. In truth, she loathed inactivity, too much time to start thinking, or worse, listening to Johnny, who was still holding out the hope she was going to turn the clan around and storm Mikoshi instead of this slow shicide she had carved out for herself instead. The twilight hours were the worst, because there was nothing she could do, hours she had spent staring at her tent roof, only to give up and lay under the stars, at least then she had something to occupy her. It had been especially hard the last few nights and she had more than once woken to Saul staring down at her with a worried look she would wave off and tell him that really, she was fine, dusting the sand from her and continuing on with her day at camp.

She admired the location for what it was, they had chosen a decent spot for the camp and they had some useful vantage points. Any Raffen trying to get the jump on them would be in for a surprise, they’d see their asses a mile wide.

She pulled Evelyn’s cigarette case from her utility belt pocket, igniting it with a match she then shook out to extinguish as she breathed a long drag.

“Fuuuck.” Johnny groaned appreciatively.

“You’re welcome.” She laughed as she gazed at the expanse of the desert. It’s wild beauty marred by burnt out car wrecks and pile upon pile of garbage. Her eyes landed on yet another old ruined petrol station. She couldn’t help but let her mind wander back to the week previous. Her night with Takemura had been everything to her. Laying there in his arms, basking in the beautiful aftermath listening to him breath as he slept, watching the steady rise and fall of his partially plated chest. She had wanted nothing more in the world than to just stay there in that abandoned truck stop, for the rest of their lives they could be there and she’d have been the happiest woman alive. But as she stared down at his sleeping face she knew she was living a pipe dream.

He was loyal to the bone to Arasaka. She would never be enough, she could never pry those chains from him. Even knowing what she had told him, about Hanako and Saburo, she imagined he had dusted himself off the next morning and returned to his master tail between his legs like the well trained guard dog they made him into. Why wait until morning to watch him fumble and ruin a perfectly good fuck, one for the history books, by seeing him slink back to the clutches of the Emperor’s family? Just to feel the raw sting of his departure, the rejection in his blind obedience to the people that saw him only as a pawn to be played. No. She decided to rip the proverbial band aid off. She was a quiet and stealthy thief, expertly manoeuvring around him in silence and then pushing her thorton far enough out of ear shot from him then just... driving away. She had to admit, it was shitty. To just leave him there without so much as a goodbye. But she knew if she had waited it would have been another day of trying to convince him to let her go.

Or he might have even managed to convince you to go back to Arasaka.

Johnny’s interjection to her train of thought startled her and she watched him materialise, cigarette in hand, perching with his legs dangling from a delapidated hoodoo rock a few yards in front of her.

“I wouldn’t have gone with him Johnny. I wasn’t going to just let them shred you into bits, fuck man, gotta give me more credit than that.” She was annoyed he could even insinuate such a thing, especially given where they now stood.

“You didn’t take your blockers during your little roll around with Mr Miyagi.” He groaned and her cheeks immediately flushed a deep crimson. “I know you were thinking it for a moment there in the... aftermath.” He sighed, looking down at her from his perch.

He took off his aviators and pursed his lips as if he was about to say something pivotal to the narrative but more than likely just as irritating as his previous comment so he decidedly closed his mouth, thinking better of it and returning his gaze to the endless desert plains. The fact that she could read him so well now was not lost on her.

“I wasn’t going to let them hurt you. Believe it or not you’re my friend, Johnny.” He glanced down at her again and a smile attempted to tug at the corner of his lips but he put his shades back on and coughed into his closed fist to cover it up.

“Well thanks. I guess. Doesn’t matter now anyway. We’re done for as is I suppose.” He breathed out a plume of holographic smoke that seemed to float off into the desert. “But you’re still thinking about him.” He deadpanned, making her sigh in irritation.

“Look.. it just kills me because... Goro was my friend too. And now he’s...” she smoothed her hair back from her face, letting her hand slide to the nape of her neck and head drooping down to look at her weathered and scuffed steel toe boots, her tool belt slung across her hips, held together by the tied sleeves of her blue net running jumpsuit she had to wear half down due to being in the beating sun while working all day. She could see her skin was already blistered with another light sunburn but also some sun freckles newly blooming. Her hands, more calloused and rough now than in her entire career as an amateur merc. She frowned. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I’m here now Johnny. I know that I shouldn’t keep living in the past but... let me at least mourn. Please?”

“Alright, alright. I get it. Here, just take some advice from a guy who’s had to... leave behind a few broken hearts in his day. Get drunk. Get fucked. Get angry. Get over it. Always worked for me anyhow.” She rolled her eyes at the rocker boy, letting her hand fall to her side, taking the last drag of her cigarette wasn’t even appealing to her so she quickly flicked it away.

“Aw.” Johnny grumbled. “The cherry is the best bit!” He whined but she ignored him. V made to turn back to the camp but some faint movement along the horizon caught her eye. She pulled out her binoculars and got as close as she could to the slightly glimmering and fast approaching object. Upon closer inspection she realised it was a car. And not just any car.

His car.

She froze, glued to the vehicle rapidly approaching the camp.

What the fuck does he think he’s doing?

-———

He admitted to a small amount of apprehension about this move to approach head on as he pulled up alongside the Basilisk, giving it a long stare and praying silently to whatever gods were out there watching over him that he had found the right Nomad camp this time. He had already had to blast his way out of two raffen pits as of yesterday and wasn’t thrilled about the possibility of having to do so again.

A tap on his car window brought him from his thoughts and he rolled it down.

“What brings you here, friend?” Mitch asked, Saul and Panam on the sidelines, iron at the ready.

“I apologise for the intrusion. I mean you no harm, I am simply attempting to locate someone. A friend.” He explained.

“Who’s your friend?” Saul called after him.

“Her name is V.” The Nomads grew quiet, looking between each other. “Perhaps she has passed by here? Stopped for supplies?”

“Excuse me?” Panam sputtered.

“V doesn’t have ties to Arasaka anymore. Suggest you move on.” Saul moved closer to the car window, pushing past Mitch.

He leaned his arm against the top of the car door frame, letting his revolver rest against it in a menacing if threatening show of dominance. This here was the Aldecaldos stomping ground. And he’d be dead in the ground before he let some corpo asshole get their hands on V. Takemura’s eyes hardened a moment on the large nomad, his hands righting on the wheel now as he internally scanned the area with what limited tech he still had to work with. She searched for her signature but either his implants were all now truly offline or she wasn’t here.

“I am not with Arasaka.” Takemura thought he would feel pain at uttering those words, but if anything, each word made him feel lighter.

“Yeah sure. Just covered in Arasaka cyberware, driving around on Arasaka wheels, wearing a full on uniform for their security detail. Totally.” Panam quipped.

Takemura sighed.

“Anymore.” He amended, but the trio still eyed him sceptically, he felt it best he stayed in the car for now.

“Is she here?” He questioned, quickly surveying the camp to try and find her himself, a small kernel of hope planting in his chest as he looked through the small crowd that had gathered by them, hopeful to catch a glimpse of her but Saul’s hand reached out for him roughly, pulling him up to the open window by the front of his shirt with a resounding clunk.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at here but if you think for a second I’m just gonna let you-.”

“Saul. Stop. It’s cool.” Takemura’s head whipped over Saul’s shoulder to the source of the voice. His heart clenched painfully upon seeing V finally.

She was a vision. Almost like a beautiful mirage that had been conjured up by the desert heat and his possible dehydration but upon closer inspection he knew it had to be her. Her every freckle and scar burned into his memory, he would know here anywhere, even caked in soot and sand.

“V, come on, we don’t even know if he’s got people tailing him. We’ve already got our hands full with Militech for Christ’s sake, let’s not go adding to that pile.” Saul glared down, unconvinced by Takemura’s own words.

“I wouldn’t be saying this if I thought he was a danger. He’s not. Please just let me talk to him.” Saul groaned but he made the mistake of meeting her gaze and knew there was no telling her no so he released Goro and opened the door to the car.

“Out. Follow her.” Saul grumbled, hand still leaning against the top of the door, but before Takemura could step out funny a strong hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Try and pull any funny shit though and I’ll drop your ass myself. No hesitation.” Takemura hadn’t realised just how big Saul was before but did not let that deter him.

“I will be sure to keep it in mind.” Goro responded in an uninterested tone, not really registering him, only focusing on V, before quickly making his way to her side. He reached out for her but she had already turned away and was walking up to a trailer, ascending a small flight of stairs before reaching the screen door. She threw him a look over her shoulder and motioned with her head for him to follow.

—————-

Once inside the privacy of the trailer V rounded on him, her eyes filled with confusion and anger.

“What the fuck, Goro?” She hissed. “Why are you here?”

He swallowed thickly, never realising that even through all his fighting to get back to her side, he had never even put his reasoning into words. And he had always had a defined reason for everything he did, it was something he was fucking known for. But now, standing here he couldn’t even begin to rationalise any of his actions, only that being here now already felt more right than anything in his life ever had. He opened and closed his mouth like a gaping fish. She noticed his silence but was quickly distracted by his haggard appearance. Her eyes widened however at the lack of the dim lights on his cybernetics.

She reached for him cautiously, her fingertips brushing against the red outer wiring of his throat that no longer glowed with the hum of electronics and now simply shined in the dim light, essentially now just useless plastic.

“Your implants...” she whispered, tracing her finger down the line of the metal overlay of his neck and to the edge of his jaw, Goro watching her every motion with laser focus. “Why are they..?”

“They were deactivated when I failed to return a few days ago.” he wanted to reach for her, to touch her, that’s all he’s thought about day and night since she left him. “I was starting to think I was going to die out there before I found you.” He chuckled softly yet he inwardly savoured how close she was, her scent, near unchanged since their night together. The scent was now infused with a small background of motor oil now that clingged to her hands but it was strangely fitting for her.

“Why?” She whispered angrily at him, her eyes burning with unshed tears.

He raised his own hand now to weave with hers, holding it to his heart as he stared down at her with so much sureness, so much care and devotion that she felt unworthy.

“I defected, V.” Her eyes widened at him but still she said nothing. “I am... I can’t go back. If you only have a short time left, then... there isn’t anywhere else I want to be. I want to be here with you, I don’t want to miss a second of you ever again. I-.” He closed his eyes, terrified to see her reaction but was nearly sent spinning as she thrust herself without warning at him, her arms suddenly wrapping around his shoulders. His own arms instinctively wrapped around her, returning the embrace yet part of him still feared the worst.

Did she pity him? Is that why she said nothing? Was this her letting him down gently? She was always too kind for her own good.

“Goro... oh my god.” She breathed against him and he tightened his grip around her burying his face in her neck, breathing her in deeply. Feelings of peace, serenity, a meaning in his life he had been searching for ever since he escaped the slaughter house of Chiba-11. He thought that meaning was to serve those who had uplifted him from that barbaric place. But they didn’t save him. They used him.

It was this tiny trembling powerhouse of a woman that barrel assed her way into his life and irrevocably entangled herself with him, she had been the one who reignited his purpose. Opened his eyes and never lied to him. She had never left him behind. Only when she thought he was truly beyond her reach did she finally resign herself to letting him go.

But now, in the security of her arms, he knew he was never going to let that happen again.

“I can’t believe I finally found you...” he breathed, letting the feeling of her arms around him be engraved deeply in his heart, the lines on his face began slowly relaxing as he stroked the dip of her back gently.

V finally looked up at him and he swiped away some stray tears from her slightly flushed cheeks with a curled finger before caressing them in his hand fully. He stared down at her with an adoration she had never imagined him capable of, it felt to her as though she had never been truly seen before now and could only grasp his outstretched arm and reach for the back of his head pulling his face closer to hers when he finally moved forward, reuniting her lips with his in a passionate kiss. Her fingertips grazed over his jaw lightly, drawing a sigh from him and letting it meld into the kiss as he tried desperately to hold her closer.

She pulled back from him but his lips trailed after hers again, loathed to be parted from her just yet, but she placed two fingers on his lips to halt his pursuit and worry shot through him again.

“I think we should explain to the clan before Saul comes in here and decks you.” She chuckled, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek sweetly and he leaned into her touch, the sudden panic receeding, before smiling back at her and nodding. She made to move to the door, hand already pulling the handle open when his own grasped her free one and interlaced their fingers, grinning like a cat down at her.

“So they don’t shoot me on sight.” He joked, V could only huff lightly but her own smirk betrayed her feigned annoyance.

“Hush. Be nice.” She snipped.

They stepped out of the trailer and at the bottom of the stairs to the trailer was the holy Aldecaldos trinity themselves. Panam looked between the two and their interlock hands with mild confusion first before realisation dawned on her and she mouthed ‘that’s him?’ rather more obviously than she thought she had but never the less winked at friend.

Goro looked down at her curiously but V just shook her head.

“She’ll tell you herself at some point.” V whispered, leaving him far more confounded than before.

“So? What’s this about?” Saul stood in front of them now arms crossed but glaring heatedly at Takemura.

“Drop the tough guy act Saul come on.” She shoved him playfully but Saul only scowled deeper. “He defected.” Saul’s eyebrows rose in surprise for a moment but suspicion reaffirmed itself at the forefront of his mind once more.

“Bullshit.” Saul spat.

“I left Arasaka because I no longer believe in them.” He looked down at V’s hand in his and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I believe in V. And she has put her trust in you and your clan. I wish to stay with her. You know that... she does not have long.” She squeezed him

back at this, hearing the slight waiver in his voice at that but he continued. “I will work, I will do whatever is needed of me in order to stay by her side.” He bowed his head politely and Saul was at a loss for words, casting his gaze back to Panam and Mitch but only receiving a tired sigh and a shrug from Mitch and a rather heated scowl from Panam that said ‘if you don’t let the ninja stay I’m going go get an emp and blast an AV out of the sky again’, and Saul could only sigh tiredly. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his palm in a gesture of defeat but his eyes spoke an understanding and no inherent objection to the arrangement.

“Alright. You work, like the rest of us. We all pull our own weight here and there’s plenty to do.” Panam fist pumped in the air and squealed with glee, making V laugh at her antics but Saul gave her an exhausted look before grinning devilishly. “ Since there’s another mouth to feed and person to arm, we’re gonna need to do a recount on inventory. Thanks for offering to do it Panam.” Saul rounded on his heel, making for his own tent as the orange pink swash of dusk settled over the desert. Mitch followed after while Panam gave her a quick pat on the shoulder before departing to her new hell, inventory.

“Look at you guys, just the picturesque happy couple living on the edge of the law, running with nomads, being all in love and shit. Warms my cold dead pixilated heart.” Johnny drawled as he leaned up against the trailer.

V chose to ignore him but grinned Takemura wrapped his free arm around her and rested his head atop hers as he rubbed loving circles into the small of her back, she sighed into his chest and grinned like a fool. Nothing was going to bring her mood down. Not raffen, not Johnny, not the broken to shit solar panels.

She groaned suddenly at the memory of her ever growing list of chores left.

“V?” He questioned, straining his neck down to see her.

“Fucking solar grid.” She hissed ruefully into his shoulder before pulling away.

“I’ve got some solar panels to fix and a carburettor to solder before the day is over.” She groaned, but Takemura squeezed her reassuringly.

“Lead the way.” He chuckled.

“You want to help?” She asked incredulously.

He brushed his hand through her soft chocolate brown coloured locks, twirling the tail ends around her shoulders between his thumb and index. He had a feeling his new unconscious obsession was going to be her hair.

“I’m going to have to learn aren’t I?” He chuckled. “And I have a feeling I’m going to like being your student. Lead on, sensei.”

She giggled before pulling away from him, hands still interlaced as she tugged him towards the solar panels on the far side of camp.

—————

“Welcome to solar grid maintenance 101, class is in session.” She announced.

Goro sat on a rock beside the van, next to the start of the solar grid that went from the back of the van to the further reaches of the edge of their camp, with a small group of four guarding the grid perimeter at all times. He noticed a few of them giving him wary or curious looks but did his best to ignore them. He was sure in time he would seem less threatening but he knew he would only achieve this through time, example and not relying only on shows of good faith. He leaned forward, arms resting against his knees, watching as she peeled back a flexible plastic covering over the front of the panel, uncovering a plated and wired grid he assumed is what absorbed power from the Sun.

“Ok, so. You need a fully wired and calibrated solar panel, batteries, a charge controller and an inverter.” She gestured to each item in front of her. “Once you have these it’s just a matter of following instructions. Then you gotta figure out what your output is gonna be, simply calculate watt hours by using each of the electric tools and machinery’s power ratings, multiplied by the time in hours it will be running...” He continued to listen to her intently, taking mental notes as she went on and was pleasantly surprised by how much she knew. The woman was practically a walking, talking encyclopaedia for off grid living.

He imagined she had learned this with her original nomad clan.

“And... vóila!” The grid hummed to life, the electrical tickering and slight glow from the panels confirmed this. “And tomorrow you’re gonna help me dismantle, clean and stow them.” She slowly rose from her kneeling position but wobbled a bit, Takemura’s lightning fast reflexes kicked into action and he reached out to stabilise her. She gave him a sheepish yet thankful smile.

“Are you-?”

“Just light headed, I stood up to fast.” His levelled gaze cut through her, narrowed eyes studying her intently. “And we’ve been sitting in the sun for an hour. I’d say I could go for something to eat though. Haven’t had anything since last night come to think of it.” She pulled away, attempting to move away from the subject of her health as quickly as she could, but her hand stayed resting open palmed against his chest as she stared almost through him. She still couldn’t believe he was here. Standing next to her in the flesh. She couldn’t even really fathom eating right now but she knew she had to at least try to keep her strength up. But fucking damn. Of all the ways this day was going to go, this was certainly not one of them, not that she was complaining.

His finger captured her chin and tilted her gaze to his, pulling her from her thoughts as if he could sense her inner turmoil.

“What is the expression, ‘I am here for the...’ ah.” He looked up to think an moment as if the phrase was written in the sky before seemingly finding it among the clouds and looking back down at her, grinning from ear to ear. “‘I am... ‘In this for the long haul’, as you say.” She snorted a laugh at him letting her head fall foreword against him as he pulled her further into his embrace. “So stop looking at me as if I’m going to suddenly disappear.” Her fingers squeezed his in response and she looked up resting her chin on his shoulder now.

“Promise?” She whispered, making his chest rumble in laughter.

“Yakusoku.” He affirmed before kissing her forehead loving.

————————————

They had eaten their fill of some synth beef chilli at the camps mess tent and Goro wasn’t about to disclose how much he had actually enjoyed the hot meal. Wandering around in the desert for a week he had been living off of whatever least expired protein bars and soda cans he could find, which had been almost as awful as the scop burgers and noodles in night city, but at least they had been some way warm.

They had made their way to V’s tent which was set up next to her Thorton and some work benches and a trailer with two bikes standing in it. He recognise one to be her beloved Arch and the other a gold and silver heavy terrain 700cc bike with the clans name spray painted boldly along the side of it.

“Here we are. Home sweet home I guess. For now.” She sighed, flopping down into her large sleeping cot with a heavy plop. Takemura stood awkwardly for a moment before fastening the entrance flap closed. There was a fold up chair and two electric lamps illuminating the small space. He suddenly felt out of place but V was quick to pick up on his uncharacteristic fidgeting, giving him an inquisitive glance.

“Cot’s a bit small but we can manage for tonight. Or there’s another cot in storage we can go and-.” Takemura shook his head.

“We can manage.” He grinned sheepishly and she giggled at him, taking a seat on the edge of the cot, patting the spot next to her as an invitation to join her. He took two long strides and he was at her side once again, his hand snaking around her waist as he leaned his head gently on her shoulder. Leaning into him, V interlaced their free hands together, marvelling at how well they fit together.

“You must be exhausted.” She sighed, extending her hand to his face where she swiped away a errant few strands of silver hair that escaped his otherwise well kept topknot, her cool fingers a welcome sensation against his forehead.

“Not really.” He stifled a yawn and she looked up at him pointedly, his own gaze eluding her.

“Evidently.” She chuckled, but a sudden flash of inspiration hit her and she grinned up at him.

“What are you doing?” He asked warily as she began to slink herself around to kneel in front of him, her hands running up and down his thighs in a firm yet teasing trail.

“Well we do have a lot to do in the morning and you require a good nights sleep for what’s coming.” He eyed her suspiciously but couldn’t help the small grin threatening to tug at the corner of his lips. “Couldn’t possibly let you lie awake all night and screw yourself over tomorrow.” She ran her hand over the growing bulge at the apex of his legs, which he opened wider as she settled between them.

“V...” he breathed his head beginning to loll back and eyes flutter closed, his breath hitching she she unzipped him and pulled him of the confines of his suit pants, his member springing free, already fully hard. She gave him some light pumps, enclosing her fist around as much of him as she could. He wasn’t a monster in size, but impressive.

“Speaking of impressive cocks.” Johnny’s voice pierced her mind and she wanted to scream. “Can we leave mine out of this. Please, if yourself gonna fuck the corpo grandpa just take a fucking omega blocker so I don’t have to as well.” She shook her head and sighed, pulling away from Goro.

His eyes fluttered open.

“Is something wrong?” He breathed.

“Just gotta take something before I forget.” She smiled back at him reassuringly before popping two of the red pills.

She turned back to him and something about seeing him sitting there, disheveled clothes, cock standing to attention, lips parted and panting lightly in anticipation, sent a rush of some indescribable feeling through her system. He watched her hungrily but patient in his pining, she couldn’t help the heat between her own legs beginning to rise. She locked their gaze, lips still curved into her signature teasing grin and she began to pull off her tank top painfully slowly, dragging it up to her chest. He watched her relieve her body of the sweat and dirt stained cloth throwing it over her head and groaned lowly when he saw she wasn’t wearing anything underneath save for her tattooed flesh. Lotus flowers bloomed colourfully at her shoulders, and just between her pert little breasts. He traced them with his eyes and felt his body tense in suspense as she saunter toward him, a sultry sway in her hips saying she knew exactly what she was doing to him. She sank down to her knees again before him, her fingers wrapping around his still hard manhood making him hiss at the contact before a strangled gasp tore from his throat as she resumed pumping him again. He reached out his hand to touch her but she slapped him away lightly.

“Ah, ah, ah.” She wagged her finger tauntingly at him, then running them down his chest back down to curl back around his member, giving him a tug that made him groan once more. “Look. Don’t touch.” She then began to lower her lips to him, his eyes nearly rolling to the back of his head as she encased him in her warm pink lips, her devilish tongue flicking along the sensitive underside of his cock. He moaned louder as she moved against him but forced his hand over his mouth to stifle himself. They weren’t alone out here so he had to remember to control his vocalisations but she was not making it easy.

He leaned back further down on his elbows watching her intently through hooded eyes as she devoured him, her mouth sinking down slowly, taking him all the way to the hilt letting him hit the back of her throat with an audible gag that made him whine in need then gliding back up, dragging her lips back to the tip, letting her tongue swirl around him a few times before swallowing him once again. He struggled against his urge to fist his hands into her hair as she kept up her ministrations, fearing she’d stop what she was doing, because what she was doing was so fucking good he thought he was going to die if she didn’t finish.

“V... please I’m going to....” he gasped, one hand stretched out behind him as he bit the knuckle of his other hand to surpress his cries.

He felt her chuckle against him, his end so close he could practically taste it as she continued to bob energetically against him. A few more pumps and he had to bite his knuckle so hard he drew blood so as not to roar from the force of his climax, blowing his load in her mouth which she swallowed it readily. He swore he saw stars for a moment, a blinding light show all of his own as he rode the high for as long as he could until he fell back against the cot, attempting to catch his breath as V released him from her mouth with a faint pop.

She pulled herself up and crawled over him, resting her chin against his chest that now rose and fell erratically from his ragged breathing, waiting there patiently for it to even. He lifted his head to look at her, small beads of sweat clinging to his forehead but a stupidly pleased grin now plastered his face as he lifted a hand to caress her cheek and stroked her cheekbone with the pad of his thumb tenderly. He held her there for a moment, unsure if it was the aftermath of his climax or the low lighting of the tent, but to him, right now in all her dishevelment, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld. He dragged her up to him, lips meeting hers at last, tasting her felt like home, regardless of the lingering taste of himself on her lips. Goro pulled her closer to deepen the kiss before pulling away to gaze at her agin. She was the one panting now, her full pink lips, that had only a few moments been driving him to near insanity were parting enough for him so see her devilishly nimble tongue and the flush dusting her cheeks was starting to do things he didn’t know could be done, his member already twitching to life again, slowly but surely.

“You feeling more relaxed then?” Her laugh, like a tinkling bell, brought his attention back into the room and he could only smirk down at her slyly.

“Partially.” He lifted himself up fully wrapping his arms around her then flipping them so she was trapped underneath him. “But I’m afraid I’m more awake now than I was before.” He whispered, lowering his lips to suckled at her collarbone where he began to trail a searing line of bites and kisses down her chest, stopping to tease her nipples as he lavished them thoroughly, leaving her shivering and gasping uncontrollably beneath him. “The opposite of the desired effect I think.” He chuckled lowly, lifting his hand to her mouth and clamping firmly over it to quieten her mewls while he began to drag the fingers of his other hand up to the bottom half of her netrunner jumpsuit. Untying the sleeves he pulled the zipper further down to the end. It reached just above her mound, a few more inches on the zip and he’d have been able to access her. Shame, he though but immediately tugged the skintight nano plastic material down over her hips, her purple thong coming with it. He didn’t pull it all the way down, allowing the material to bunch at her knees before pulling back, letting both her legs stretch up to rest against his shoulder as he stared down at her, a shit eating grin breaking over his lips as he soaked in the sight of her, trapped in his web. She huffed at him in mild displeasure at the loss of control but her eyes widened when she felt his fingers trace her slit softly. His arm curled around her legs, anchoring them against him as he continued to tease her.

“What are you-?” He silenced her with two fingers plunging inside her, making her arch her back as she barely managed to stifle a moan. He thrust his fingers into her wetness again and again, all while his gaze fixed on her face, contorted by pleasure as he took delight in her every twitch and convulsion.

He let another finger enter her, curling them, tickling a sensitive collection of nerves inside her. Her juices dripped down his hand, his attention switching down to where his fingers pumped relentlessly and he felt himself moan at the sight of her absolutely soaking his hand. He felt his cock strain against her thigh but he ignored his growing need. He had work to do. She nearly cried out when he stopped, her eyes finally fluttered open to see him gazing down at her, smirking triumphantly above her.

“Hey.” She pouted, wiggling against him only making him chuckle quietly.

He pulled her legs free finally, tossing the jumpsuit to the far corner of the tent but trailing his hands from the underside of her thighs, to the under side of her ankles, yanking up sharply which pulled her further down the cot so her ass now rested on his lap. Her ground himself against her, his free member brushing against her slit as he draped each of her legs against either shoulder. He leaned foreword her legs stretching to rest nearly by her ears with how flexible she was. Without warning he entered her, both of them gasping quietly. He filled her so completely, V let the feeling wash over her until he began moving at an achingly slow pace. He found purchase at the head of the cot, using it to drive himself harder and harder into her. Reaching up she caressed his head in her hands, his eyes closing at the contact, savouring it, then opening again to see her.

His breath hitched in his throat, not just at the majesty of her wild curls fanned out and framing her so perfectly. Not at her being stretched and splayed out for him, like a cover pin up they used to sneak into the army barracks, back when he did foolish brazen things like that, no. The trust in her eyes. She was letting him take control, letting him take her, however he wanted. She wasn’t scanning the room for the nearest viable exit like she did in every room or so far away in her mind he wondered if she could even hear him above the noise of the engram erasing her. She was right here, willing and ready for him. He wasn’t going to last long, not after already climaxing earlier but he refused to leave her hanging, letting his thumb roll her clit firmly, over and over. He leaned forward to swallow her cries as she came undone beneath him, his own release coming not to far behind her.

He leaned back, letting her legs down on either side of his hips, but stayed connect with her. He leaned back into her, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her nose then her lips, making her smile sleepily against him.

“You’re still in your clothes.” She taunted against his shoulder as he chuckled.

“It’s hard to think about anything clearly with you around.” He mumbled against her neck.

“Hey, don’t you dare fall asleep on me dickhead.” She snorted, poking him enough to make him groan then move to the side, allowing her to stand up from the cot. She walked over to a duffel bag where she pulled a loose white shirt from and threw it on. The fabric reached her knees and he scoffed at how small she was.

“Oi, no sand in my bed, get those dusters off.” She ordered and he sighed, pulling himself from his bliss to shed his coat and other garments leaving him only in his boxers. He fell back into the cot heavily, rubbing his eyes as a yawn escaped his lips. She rejoined him, crawling and moulding herself into his side while his arms immediately snaked around her as he buried her face into the crook of her neck, V stroking his hair soothingly.

For the first time in what felt like forever, he went to sleep without knowing where he was going to be tomorrow and not caring in the slightest.

[wafflefries13]

A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing

Hey there, it’s your girl, back at it with another story that probably took way too long to finish. 

Warnings: Fighting, cursing, threat of violence. 

~~~

It was fine. This was fine. Staying in a small cabin in the middle of the woods, getting back to nature, away from the city, away from those yakuza who were tracking you down because your dad had skipped out on the massive amounts of gambiling debt he had, and seriously, Dad, you knew he had a problem, not that he would ever listen to you, but did he really have to go and play mahjong, freaking mahjong, with some super sketchy people and really think everything was just going to be fine that he was going to be okay when he already had a massive pile of debt from that pyramid scheme that you told him was a pyramid scheme or the loss from that horse race last month, and seriously, Dad, this is why mom left-!

But it was fine. You were fine. 

The cabin was small, a one room structure that gave you flashbacks to ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ Thankfully, the owners had attached the outhouse to the actual house a few years back, installing a slim standing shower. Electricity came from either solar power or a gas generator hook-up out back, but there was no way you would ever get an internet connection all the way out here.  But it had a fireplace! That was pretty cool, right? 

You weren’t exactly sure how long you’d be out here. The detective from vice told you to stay off the grid as much as possible, that they’d get in touch with you, not the other way around. The police officer had dropped you off about an hour ago after bumping over an unpaved road tangled by tree roots and overgrown underbrush. You would never have been able to find this place by yourself. But you supposed that that was the whole point. 

You’d spent your first few hours there getting the cabin to an actual livable condition. Vice had told you that this place wasn’t used a lot, and you could immediately see it. Every surface was coated in a thick layer of dust. The windows were covered in who knows how many years of grime. Cobwebs littered with tiny insect carcases huddled in every corner and crevice. You were lucky you hadn’t found a racoon nest in the chimney flue. 

Finally, as the sun set, your muscles aching from the work, you decided that your temporary home was livable enough. You summoned all your knowledge from watching ‘Man vs Wild’ and lit a fire. You heated up a can of chicken noodle soup on the gas stove. The cabin didn’t have a bed, so you stacked several thick quilts stored in a cupboard, rolling out your sleeping bag on top. 

You sat on your makeshift bed, back pressed against the wall, slurping your soup. Outside the window, you watched as the light slowly faded away. Wow, you didn’t realize how dark it could really get out here. You put way too much stock in the light you could get from the moon and stars, apparently. There was no accounting for the noise, though. It sounded like a million different insects were screaming from the woods outside. You thought cricket noises were supposed to be comforting, like listening to the ocean to try and fall asleep. But this just made you itch and wish for another can of bug spray.  Man, vice really sent you out here with nothing, didn’t they? 

Sitting back and contemplating your possible execution via yakuza boss in the near future, it took you a while before you recognized the change. Every noise outside your four walls had fallen silent. The popping of logs in the fireplace was tantamount to gun fire. 

Slowly, you set down your half-finished can of soup, dragging a wooden bat out that you had snagged before the vice police shoved you in the car to bring you here. Staying as low to the floor as possible, you crawled to the front window. You pressed your back against the wall, like you had seen spies do in movies, and slowly lifted one corner of the thick curtains. You tried to crane your head to look out, but it hurt more than you thought it would and your visibility was cut by way more than half. 

Why hadn’t vice at least given you a gun or something? 

Taking a deep breath, you stood, holding the bat in front of you like a sword. Before you could convince yourself that this was a bad idea (too late) you burst open the front door, ready to swing at whatever you saw first. 

Noise exploded back into existence as soon as you stepped into the small clearing around the cabin. Panting heavily and breaking out in a cold sweat from the adrenaline, you whipped your head back and forth to look for intruders. Left? Clear. Right? Clear. Front? Clear. Behind-?! Wait, that was the cabin, you were just there. 

You felt all the energy leave you at once. The bat suddenly felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. You slumped forward, bracing your head on the backs of your hands settled on the pommel of the bat. 

You heard something from the other side of the cabin. A low groan, the result of footsteps. Gulping hard, you raised the bat again, silently making your way to the corner of the house. You whipped around the corner. 

A giant furry shape was slumped in a pile in front of you. It let out a low whine. You could see the powerful muscles under its thick fur coat ripple and stretch as the thing tried to get comfortable. Sensing your presents, it reared its large head, pinning you down with ruby red eyes. 

A wolf. There was a wolf in front of you. You had always assumed wolves would sort of look like giant dogs, but this close you could see how different they really were. This thing was huge, first of all. Its head would come up to your shoulder when it stood. It also had long thin legs, built for fast running and careening over obstacles. The wolf snared at you, its lips pulling back as a deep growl emanate from its throat. You could almost swear it was glaring at you. 

Its threat was cut short, however, by a pained yip. As it tried to stand, it faltered and fell over, back into a furry heap. You could see a patch of mismatched fur coating its back leg up along its haunch. The fur was matted, dark with something wet. 

You dropped the bat, holding your hands in front of you in what you hoped was a non-threatening pose. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” You said softly. “I’m just gonna… I’ll be right back.” You ducked back around the corner, heading into the cabin. You threw open the cabinet doors, rummaging for a first aid kit you could have sworn you saw somewhere while cleaning. You found the small white box, hoping that whatever was inside was as suitable for giant wolves as it was for people. 

You headed back out. Going around the cabin, you saw the wolf trying to stand and limp away again. He didn’t make it two steps before collapsing. Instead of a pained noise, this time he just left out a frustrated humph. You giggled despite yourself. The wolf’s head reared back around, locking eyes with you again. It growled at you. 

“I don’t think you look as menacing as you think you do right now,” You said. You tried to talk calmly in a low voice. That’s what you were supposed to do with frightened and injured animals, right? Well, you also were supposed to leave them alone and call animal control or something, but you didn’t really have the option of doing that right now. And you didn’t think you could sleep, much less live with yourself, if you knowingly just let this wolf suffer right outside your door. 

You took another step closer. The wolf snapped his jaws at you but didn’t move from his heap. “Hey, easy, big guy. I just want to help.” You held up the first aid kit, as if that was supposed to mean anything to a wild animal. The wolf glared at you, but didn’t make any movement as you took another cautious step forward. As you knelt down beside his injured back leg, he huffed again, turning his head away and resting it on his massive paws, resigned to accept you unasked for help. This close up, you could see his fur was an unusual blond. It reminded you of wheat fields just before harvest (not that you had ever seen that, being such a city kid, but pictures and imagination counted for something, right?). 

You opened the kit and pulled on a pair of gloves. Parting his fur, you hissed in sympathy at his wound. There was a gash slicing through his entire haunch, more wide than it was deep, but still bleeding profusely. You could see smaller cuts and bite marks, punchers in his flesh, littering the rest of his leg and up his back. Some of these wounds had already half-healed, but had reopened again, oozing and clotted. 

You threaded a hand comfortingly through his fur, speaking softly as you dabbed an antiseptic wipe along the largest gash. The wolf winced and barked at you in annoyance at the sting, but after a glare (you didn’t even know wolves could glare with such intensity before this), he resigned himself and plopped his head back down. There were some butterfly sutures that you hoped would stick on with his fur. You pushed them down, pulling the edges so the flesh closed. You tried your best to clean the other injuries, but you didn’t have a lot of butterfly sutures, and bandaids certainly weren’t going to stay down. 

As you were contemplating this, a chorus of howls erupted from the woods around you. The blond wolf sprung into action immediately, jumping up and circling himself around you. You probably would have thought that was amazing or cute or something if a sense of panic hadn’t seized you. The wolf was still limping, trying to keep his back leg off the ground. His head jerked from side to side, ears constantly twitching. Whatever was out there, you could only imagine that it was closing in, and it was out for blood. 

“Oh, this is going to be a bad idea,” You said to yourself. The wolf cocked his head at you. “But, hey, I’m not making any good choices tonight, I guess. Come on.” You picked up your abandoned bat, standing to guard the wolf from the tree line. You started backing up, genteling nudging the wolf with your hip in the direction of the cabin door. He seemed to get your meaning, limping along, but trying to maintain his sense of canine bravado by making threatening growls and fangs bared. 

Backing your way into the cabin, you quickly locked and barred the door. You had no idea if conventional locks would keep out blood-thirsty wolves, but you figured it wouldn’t do much against determined yakuza members either, so maybe you should just cut your losses. 

You heard a loud slurping and turned around. The blond wolf had his muzzle buried in your reheated soup, lapping it up and spilling everything that didn’t immediately make it into his mouth. 

“Hey!” You chastised. You could have sworn he rolled his eyes at you. Could wolves do that? Like, physically? His long tongue licked his chops when he was done. He took a few stumbling steps then collapsed by the fire. 

“Alright,” You said to yourself. “I guess this is happening, huh?” You could have sworn the wolf made a sound of agreement. 

~~~

You woke up to the sound of bird song and a mouth full of fur. 

Sputtering, you pieced together the events of last night in your head. The wolf had you pinned against the wall of your makeshift bed, his back pressed against your stomach and chest. You had a fleeting thought that he was putting himself between you and any danger that might break in. You had heard stories of mother wolves protecting human babies, maybe this was something like that? Or were you thinking of The Jungle Book? The founding of Rome? Whatever. 

Either way, it made you smile a bit, petting his fur. Wow, you had no idea wolf fur was so thick! Your hand just seemed to drop forever through his soft coat. Your action was enough to rouse the wolf from his sleep just a bit. He cast a tired glance over his shoulder at you. You could have sworn you could read his expression. “Really? You’re waking me up for this?” 

“Hey there, sunshine,” You said. “I should probably take another look at that leg, huh?” 

The wolf huffed, rolling over. You thought for a second he was giving you room to get up, but when you started to move he rolled back over, landing heavily across you and pinning you down. “That’s, uh, that’s a no then, huh?” The wolf just shuffled to a more comfortable position (on top of you) and closed his eyes. 

You sighed, reaching up and rubbing the fur between his ears. “This is my life now, huh?” 

He blinked open his eyes, staring right into yours. They were a deep red, almost like uncut garnets. You had no idea animals could have eyes like that. Not just that, but something about them looked almost too… human to you. The proportion of iris to whites just sort of off from what you would expect from your average dog. Before you could put your finger on it, the wolf closed his eyes and rested his head again. 

His heat radiated through you like a miniature sun. You pet through his fur, deciding to narrate your thoughts out loud. You told him about how you came to be in these woods, in this cabin, your struggles with dealing with your father's gambeling addiction for so many years, the fall festival you had gone to last year, how you wanted to start hiking now that you were trapped out here, this song you couldn’t remember the words to, summarizing the plot from some book you had to read for English class. 

After the sun had already started to rise high in the sky, the wolf (you really needed a name for him, huh?) slinked off of you. You let out an exaggerated breath, thumbing your chest a few times. He flicked his tail at you. 

You opened up the cooler you brought with you. Take two slices for yourself, you handed the wolf the rest of the sliced turkey you had bought for sandwiches. He ate the entire pack in one massive bite, looking at you expectantly for more. Huffing in mock annoyance, you tossed him the other two slices. He caught them in the air, flicking his tongue to get the juice from his canine maw. 

He tested his weight on his back leg. You could tell it still hurt him, but he still tried to walk with his other three legs. He stretched out, arching his back. “Oooh, big stretch!” You said. There was that glare again. 

He limped over to the door, scratching it. You opened it for him, assuming he had to do his doggy business or something (wait, was he trained to go outside? That would explain some things). But when you tried to close the door again, he barked at you. He scratched the door frame until you followed him outside. He would walk several feet ahead then sit, looking over at you and barking. You went back inside and tugged on your hiking shoes, spraying yourself down with a healthy dose of bug spray. 

The wolf was still pretty unsteady on his feet. He would stumble occasionally, but when you would put out a hand to help him, he would snap back at you. Whatever the case, he at least seemed to know where he was going. Even in his injured state, he could keep a good distance ahead of you. 

You heard water rushing as the wolf dropped out of sight. Thinking he might have fallen, you rushed to where you last saw him. The trees broke away, revealing a rippling river with cool pools stretching through the forest. You took in the beautiful scenery, the ice blue water cascading down tiny waterfalls, when sudden movement caught your eye. You focused where you saw it and gasped. A salmon jumped from the water, swimming upstream. That one was joined by another, then two more, until the whole river seemed to burst with fish. 

You laughed in shock and amusement at the sight, but were cut off short by something cold and slimy hitting your face. You sputtered against it, swiping it away from you. Looking down, you saw your assailant was flopping on the sandy river bank. A giant salmon, mouth gapping and scales shimmering in the sunlight. 

You heard a huff that you could have sworn sounded amused. Looking up, you saw the wolf at the edge of the bank, dipping his paw in the water. He looked deeply into the river, still as a rock, before striking all at once and bringing his paw up. He batted another fish out of the water. You put your hands up, catching it in a slimy, uncertain grip. The fish thrashed around and you ended up dropping him on his friend. 

“You know all the best places, huh?” You said. The wolf shook water off of his fur and went back to focusing on the river. “I’m going to run back and get the cooler! We’ll be able to carry a lot more that way!” You weren’t sure why you were telling a wolf this, as if he could understand you, but it felt right somehow. 

You carefully followed your footsteps back to the cabin, breaking a twig or making a mark on a tree as you went to make a path. Back at the cabin, you quickly pulled the food you had brought with you out of the cooler, shoving it in the mini-fridge. You didn’t have an ice maker in the cabin, so you hoped the already half-thawed cold packs would work. Almost as an afterthought, you grabbed the first aid kit, tossing it in the cooler. Luging the cooler over your shoulder, you followed your improvised markers back to the river. 

You set the bulky cooler down heavily on the bank, looking up with a wide grin for your new companion. Scanning the banks and treeline, your face gradually fell as your search turned fruitless. Your new wolf buddy was nowhere to be seen. 

At first, you felt sad that he had just up and left, then scared for his injury. He was still having trouble walking. What if whatever was prowling around your cabin last night came back and tried to take a bite of him? 

“Wolf?” You called out, almost immediately feeling like an idiot for doing so. You knew you should have named him. Although, it wasn’t like he was trained to respond to your call. You had to remind yourself that this was a wild animal and not a trained dog from the pound, despite his reluctant friendliness. “Wolf? Where’d you go, big guy? Hello?” 

“If you keep yelling like that, a whole pack is going to come and tear you apart.” 

You nearly jumped out of your skin at the very human response. Bracing your hands on your knees, you looked down the drop away from the bank to the river. There was a tiny beach there. Leaving against the sandy drop was a boy, head tilted back and face bathed in the sunlight. Despite his relaxed body posture, one leg spread out in front of him, the other bent to his chest, arms loosely crossed, he had an annoyed if not pained expression across his face. His hair was the color of fresh cut wheat, but as spiky as a porcupine. Lolling his head in your direction, he opened his eyes under furrowed brows. You thought it was a trick of the light, but you could swear they were a deep red. ‘Like garnets…’ You thought, memory jumping back to your missing wolf friend. 

“Uh, sorry,” You said. “I was just looking for-” 

And then your heart stopped as you suddenly remembered why you were out in the middle of the woods. The whole reason you had come here, why the police had dragged you away from your everyday life for your own protection. 

You tripped over your own feet flinging yourself backwards. You landed heavy on your butt. Scrambling back, your head whipped from side to side looking for something to defend yourself with. Damn it! You should have grabbed your bat when you got the cooler! 

“Hey!” He yelled up at you. “You going to keep spazzing out or give me a hand here?” 

“Depends,” You said. “What are you doing out here? We’re in the middle of nowhere.” 

“The hell do you think I’m doing? I work out here.” You saw his hand come up and grip the edge of the bank. He pulled himself up, but winced in pain. Bracing his arms against the bank, he said, “I’m a forest ranger, kind of. Tag some of the animals, make sure no one’s starting forest fires, keep poachers away, that sort of thing. I kind of got banged up here, though, can’t put a lot of weight on my ankle.” He rolled his eyes, leaving the statement hanging in the air for your response. 

“Oh!” Of course, you thought to yourself, you had no real reason to trust what he was saying. He didn’t look like a ranger, dressed in a black muscle shirt and dark green cargo pants. But you could tell he was having trouble standing. But then, that could be an act too… 

“Sure,” You finally decided. “Hang on.” You looked through the brush until you found a fallen tree branch. You lugged it over, dropping half down the bank and keeping it ancored under your foot. You held out your hand to him. He grasped just beyond your wrist, pulling up and using the branch and a foothold to push himself up. Once he was up on the upper bank, he tried to take a step. You could immediately see his ankle give out, crumbling like wet paper. He fell to his knees with an annoyed sound, catching himself on his palms. 

“You okay?” You said, retrieving the branch and not so subtly holding it in front of you. 

“Yeah, fine. Whatever.” He tried to brush you off. You could see his entire calf was wrapped in bandages. It looked like some wound had reopened and was bleeding through. 

“What happened?” You ask, nodding to his leg. 

He looked down, growling at the red soaking through the bandages. “I have to get pretty close to some animals for my job. Checking tags or making sure they’re not hurting themselves. I thought I’d tranquilized a bear, but I guess he wasn’t all the way under.” 

“A bear?! You fought a bear?” 

He waved a hand at you. “I didn’t ‘fight a bear.’ I was just trying to get a blood sample and must have spooked him. He took a swipe at me. I’ll be fine.” 

“That sure doesn’t look fine.” You pointed to his bandage. 

He clicked his tongue. “Damn it.” 

You rung your hands around the branch. “I have a first aid kit. I’m pretty good at it. I could take a look if you want.” 

He practically snarled at you, trying to stand up again. “I don’t need some-” As he tried to put weight on his ankle, he let out a choked yelp, cutting into that tough guy persona he obviously was trying very hard to portray. He lost his balance, wheeling his arms. You dropped your branch, lunging forward just as he fell. You caught him under his arms, throwing your balance off. You both fell, you landing on your back. You groaned, rubbing the back of your head. Opening your eyes, you squeaked seeing his face so close to yours, bright red eyes locked on to yours. Your mouth suddenly went dry and your face went hot. He was practically pinning you down. 

His face burst into a blush as he threw himself off of you. He crossed his arms stubbornly.  Looking away, he said, “Yeah, fine. Maybe I need a new bandage.” 

“C-cool! Yeah! Great!” Well, at least you were pretty sure he wasn’t here to kill you. That would have been a pretty good opportunity. Unless he wanted to slay you with embarrassment, which seemed like a possibility. 

You silently checked out his ankle, spraying it out with antibacterial and put a fresh bandage on it. At this rate, you were going to run out of medical supplies before the week was over. 

“Hey,” You said in an effort to break the tension. You noticed the tips of his ears were still a blushed red. “I don’t suppose you know anything about the wolves around here?” 

His eyes snapped back to you, suddenly suspicious. “There haven’t been wild wolves in this area for over a hundred years.” 

You blinked. “Wait, no, that can’t be. There was a wolf at my cabin last night. It sounded like he was being attacked by another pack or something.” 

He looked at you hard. “There haven’t been wolves here in a long time. If you think you saw one, you didn’t.” 

You huffed. “I’m pretty sure I know what I saw, not to mention felt. He spent the night in my cabin.” 

“What kind of idiot lets a wolf spend the night in their cabin with them?” 

“Ha! So you admit it could have been a wolf!” 

“I didn’t say that!” 

You smiled, leaning back on your hands and looking out over the river. “It was fine though. He seemed trained or something. A little prickly, but he was hurt so I didn’t mind.” You heard him mutter something that sounded like “not prickly.” You continued, “He disappeared this morning, though. Around here. I’m kinda disappointed. It’s kind of lonely out here. But hey! I guess I have a new friend now!” You good naturally punched his shoulder. He winced and you just now noticed the fading bruise. “Oops. Sorry.” 

“Sure you are. And who said we were friends, anyway? You don’t even know my name.” 

Putting on your most welcoming smile (and trying not to grimace at his tone), you held out your hand. “(Y/N) (L/N), trapped out in the middle of nowhere for the foreseeable future for reasons I cannot currently disclose. Very nice to meet you.” 

He looked from your hand to your face a few times. He looked like he was turning something over in his head. Flexing his hand, he lifted it up and gripped yours strongly. You could feel the heat radiating from it, like he was a living space heater. “Bakugo. And that’s all you’re getting.” 

You fake pouted. “We will be friends, mark my words.” 

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. “What were you doing out here anyway?” 

“I told you, I cannot currently discloses that information.” 

He huffed a laugh. “What, are you a spy or something? Lost princess?” 

If only, you thought. “Something like that.” 

“Hmm. You don’t have a fishing rod.” 

“Uh, yeah. I was kind of counting on my wolf friend to help me out. He did this thing where he just sort of whacked them out of the water.” You mimicked the motion in the air. 

“For the last time, there aren’t any wolves around here. Just drop it.” 

“Fine, fine. There wasn’t a wolf even though there definitely was. And I don’t know what I’ll do, exactly. I suppose I can survive on canned soup, saltines, and beans for however long I’m stuck out here.” 

“That’s disgusting.” He leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head and looking up at the clouds. “Alright, here’s what you do. You at least have a knife, right? Good. I’m going to teach you how to make a fish weir.” 

For the next hour, Bakugo talked you through cutting reeds and shaping them into a W-shaped trap in the river. According to Bakugo, the V-like entrance made it easy for fish to get in, while the indented center made it hard or impossible to get out. After some (a lot) of trial and error,  you successfully trapped a huge salmon. 

“I got one!” You yelled in excitement. “I got it!” 

“Good for you,” Bakugo said. “Now take your knife and stab it.” 

“Yeah, what?” 

“Right behind the gills.” 

“Uh, right, okay.” For a few blissful seconds there, you forgot you had to kill a fish to be able to eat it. Using another reed you cut for an unsuccessful weir, you pinned the fish to the side. Wincing, you stabbed the fish’s gills, trying to ignore how it flopped around the trap. Spearing it on your knife, you hoisted it out of the water, flicking it onto the bank. 

“Oh, gross, gross, gross, gross, gross!”  You flapped your hands. Bakugo laughed at your distress. You tried to ignore how much you liked the sound. “Oh, shut up. It’s my first time.” 

He smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Your first time, huh? Glad I could walk you through it.” 

You felt yourself flush. “Oh my god!” Without thinking too much about it, you speared another fish in the trap, using your knife to fling it. The half alive fish landed smack on his chest, flopping around in a mess of falling scales and fish slime. 

He sputtered, slapping it away. He snarled, “Hey!” 

You laughed, hands resting on your thighs. “What? Now we both have dinner.” 

Catching a few more and storing them in your cooler, Bakugo taught you how to make a box-like campfire. Creating a grill with your reeds, you roasted some of the fish over the fire, picking it off with your fingers. You both sat by the river and watched the sun set. 

Not wanting your time together to end, but becoming too aware of the late hour, you said, “I should probably get back to the cabin. Not sure I could find it in the dark.” 

Bakugo shrugged. He struggled to stand up, waving you off when you tried to help him. Taking a few separate steps, he gripped a low hanging branch from a tree. With a thunderous crack, he ripped the branch off. Pulling off a few twigs, he held it under his arm as a makeshift crutch. 

“Hey,” He said, not looking at you. It sounded like he was deliberating something. “If you ever need help, I’m usually at the fire watchtower. See? You can see the roof from here. It’s about two miles that way.” He pointed over the tree line. You could just make out the top of a brown corrugated roof. 

“Sure you don’t want to take any of these back?” You asked, motioning to the cooler of fish. 

“Naw. You need all the help you can get.” 

“Hey!” As he wandered off, you yelled to him, “Watch out for the wolves!”

“There aren’t any wolves!” 

“You’ll believe me eventually!” 

~~~ 

You methodically tapped your fingers against the mug you held, letting the heat of your hot chocolate seep into your fingers. You were sitting in a folding chair just outside the cabin, bat leaning against the chair’s arm. You were snuggled up in a heavy blanket, watching the fireflies dance through the heavy trees, trying to remember consolations. 

But really, if you were being honest with yourself, you were waiting for the wolf. 

It didn’t matter if Bakugo said he wasn’t real. You knew what you saw. Maybe he had escaped from some conservation area or zoo? And he seemed used to people, so maybe he was trained? But that didn’t explain the howls you heard as you tended to the wolf’s wounds. It definitely sounded like some rival pack was hunting him down. 

It broke your heart to think of him all alone and injured out there. 

As if called by your thoughts, a round of howling rose from the depths of the forest. You jumped to your feet. The hot chocolate sloshed from your mug, burning your hand. Frantically waving your hand to ease the burn, you didn’t notice the heavy foot falls until it was too late. You turned as the thumping was right behind you. 

It felt like you were hit by a train. Your breath left you with a ‘woomp.’ Falling hard, your arms came up to wrap around what had just barrelled into you, catching it like a football. You would like to say that you were more surprised than you actually were  when your fingers dug into thick fur and bursts of dog breath panted in your face. 

“Hey there, Golden Boy,” You said, rubbing between his ears. You had decided on his name, Golden Boy, while trying to convince Bakugo of his existence. It seemed apt given his brilliant coat.  Your wolf friend yipped at you. Scrambling off, he crouched down in an attack position, growling at the trees. “Come on, bud.” You juggled your folding chair, blanket, bat, and (now empty) mug, pushing open the cabin door with your hip. The wolf backed into the cabin, eyes never leaving the tree line, lips curled into a snarl, until you closed and locked the door again. 

You took out a bowl from the cabinets. Opening a bottle of water, you filled up the bowl, placing it near the tired wolf. Crawling over on his stomach, he didn’t even lift his head as he started to lap at the water. 

“Yikes,” You said. “Rough night, huh?” You ran a hand along his back. He managed a half-hearted glare at you before deciding it wasn’t worth it and going back to his water. 

“So, you’re a wolf, right?” He ignored you, which is what you expected. But you always had a habit of talking to animals like they could talk back. “Because I met a guy today, yeah, I’m not the only person stranded out here, can you imagine, and he said there aren’t any wolves in this area. I mean, I guess you could just be a really big dog. You ever seen an Irish wolfhound? Probably taller than me. Or a Caucasian shepherd dog? I hear they used to breed those in Russia to hunt bears.

“I guess it’s kind of nice to have someone else around. Not that you’re not great company.” Could wolves roll their eyes? “Just… It can get kind of scary out here, you know? Well, probably not, you live in the woods and all. No offence and all, but this isn’t really my idea of a vacation.” 

You leaned against the wall, sitting cross-legged on your bed pallet. Golden Boy shuffled to you, resting his massive head in your lap while you checked his wound and changed the dressing. It seemed to be healing rapidly, way faster than you would have expected. 

“The truth is,” You continued. “I’m actually in hiding. There are some people who, uh, I’m pretty sure they want me dead. Maybe not me specifically. My dad made some bad choices, hey, that can be the title of my autobiography, and now I’m paying for it.” 

You felt your throat tighten up as a wave of emotion snuck up and crashed over you. You hiccuped, pressing your lips together as you tried not to cry in front of your canine audience. He looked up at you, wide, deep red eyes. Your eyes burned as tears threatened to spill out. 

Without warning, Golden Boy jerked his head up, wiping his long, wet tongue across your cheek, ineffectively wiping away your tears. You sputtered at the dog drool, breaking out into a giggle fit as he kept licking your face. 

“Okay, okay, I get it, stop already! I have a big, strong protector here to take care of me, huh?” He buried his head in your lap again. You  rubbed his ear between your fingers. “And I’ll take care of you, too. You know that, right? We’re in this together.” 

~~~

“Bakugo! I’ve come to pester you!” 

The next day, you awoke to find your wolf friend missing. You weren’t exactly sure how he managed to get out of the cabin since all the doors and windows were still securely closed, but you’d seen videos of pets doing weirder things. Maybe you should have named him Houdini. After cleaning up the cabin a little and finding a more stable storage space for the salmon you caught yesterday, a deep loneliness started gnawing at you. Stowing a tin of shortbread cookies under your arm, you set out in the direction of the river to find the watchtower Bakugo had pointed out to you yesterday. 

You finally found it about midday, only being scared to death at the possibility of getting hopelessly lost twice. You climbed up the high stairs to the box structure on top. The sides were made up of mesh screens, covered from the inside by thick curtains, you guessed so that he could keep an eye out for possible forest fires. 

“Hello? I brought an offering!” 

You heard some grumbling and banging around from inside the box. You heard a heavy lock slide open as the door cracked open. Bakugo’s ruby eyes met yours and you felt a pang of worry for your Golden Boy. 

“An offering, huh?” Smiling, you held up the tin. “Fine. I guess that’s a good enough reason to bug me.” 

You practically skipped inside. Bakugo pulled at the curtains causing them to zip up and spin on their rollers. The room was cluttered, which you mostly expected from going over to your bachelor friend’s houses. What you didn’t expect was exactly how it was cluttered. It wasn’t like clothes had been dropped on the floor and forgotten, a pile of dirty dishes and overflowing trash. The reality was more chaotic, like someone had turned over the place robbing it. Papers about the geography, flora, and fauna of the forest were strewn on every flat surface. The cot bed was stripped bare, looking like it hadn’t been slept in in days. There was a tall stack of books stacked on a table next to a wooden folding chair half pushed under a desk. A cork board was above the desk, red string connecting bits of cut-out newspaper articles, Polaroid photos, sticky notes with chicken-scratch handwriting, and marked-up calandras. 

Bakugo half-heartedly picked up a shirt from the ground. “Wasn’t really expecting company.” 

You shrugged. “You a big reader?” 

You set the cookie tin down, picking up one of the books. Its pages were marked with various colored tabs. Flipping through the pages, you saw blocks of text that had been highlighted. The book fell open to reveal a copy of a wood-cut illustration of a large man with a wolf head. His snout was pointed to the sky, jaw open in mid-howl. In his meaty hands, tipped with razor sharp claws, he cradled a woman in some medieval German peasant dress. Her head was fallen back, eyes rolled back in her head, a blood stain spreading across her neck and chest. In the background, a mass of angry villagers marched forward, armed with the standard torches and pitchforks. A bone white full moon hung overhead. 

Bakugo snapped the book closed in your hands. “Didn’t your parents teach you not to snoop through people's stuff?” 

“I wasn’t snooping,” You said defensively. “And just so you know, no, they didn’t. My folks weren’t exactly the etiquette type.” 

“Clearly.” 

“Hey!” 

He smirked at you, prying open the cookie tin and munching on a piece of shortbread. You sat down in the folding chair, looking down dubiously when it creaked under you. 

“So, how does a guy get a gig hanging out in the middle of the woods, anyway?” 

“How do you?” 

You pressed your lips, trying not to let Bakugo feel the sudden drop in your mood. You blinded him with a smile. “Maybe I just really like bird-watching.” 

“Sure. Bird-watching.” 

You swallowed a lump in your throat. Standing, you turned away and looked out the messy windows, taking in the acres upon acres of unspoiled wilderness. “Wow, you can see for forever up here.” Squinting, you saw the dip in trees around your cabin, the red roof just barely visible. “Hey, that’s my place!” You looked over your shoulder at him and winked. “You’re not spying on me, are you?” 

He popped in another cookie, wolfing it down in one bite. “You wish.” 

You hummed, looking back out over the trees. “Can you..” You trailed off. “Can you see if people come into the woods?” 

He came over to stand next to you, hiding the tin in the crook of his arm. “I don’t get records of who comes in or out, if that’s what you mean. That’s for the rangers at the front gates. I see campfires, sometimes. Need to make sure they don’t get out of control.” 

“And if someone, or, like, a group, maybe, was trying to sneak in? Like, not going through the front gates so there was no record of them being here?” 

He paused mid-bite and looked at you sideways. “You’re hiding.” 

You mock-laughed. “What? No, no. Of course I’m not hiding. Why would I be hiding?” 

“(Y/N),” He cut you off. He moved his head so you were forced to look directly into his ruby-red eyes. 

You crossed your arms and looked away. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.” 

He leaned back. “That’s okay. But, hey, we can look out for each other, yeah?” He curled his biceps, flexing his muscles. “Besides, you got a big, strong protector here, don’t ya? You don’t have anything to worry about.” 

“Big, strong protector, huh?” You echoed. 

He leaned closer, eyes half lidded. His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Yeah.” 

You suddenly became away of how close you two were standing, how you could smell the remnants of the sweet cookies on his breath, about how soft his hair looked and thinking about what it might be like to run your hand through it, about how his muscles looked when he flexed them. 

You blinked hard, jerking yourself out of this impromptu daydream. You felt the tips of your ears burn as your face flushed. 

“The wolf came back last night,” You blurted. 

His eyebrows furrowed, mouth falling from a sultry smirk to a frustrated frown. “He did, huh?” 

“Yup! I named him, even. Golden Boy. Cause his fur is this really pretty yellow, you know? Kind of like your hair, but less shaggy.” Before you could stop yourself, you reached up and messed his bed-head. Good god, it was just as soft as you thought. 

He pulled away, scrunching his nose and fixing his hair. “Th-that’s stupid. Why would I look like some dog?” 

“So you admit he’s real?” 

“I said dog, not wolf. His owner probably just dropped him off in the woods somewhere. It’s sad, but it happens. Sounds like he’s doing alright for himself.” 

“I wouldn’t say that exactly.” You leaned on your elbows. “Every night he’s come to my cabin he’s been pretty beat up. Could another animal be targeting him? A bear or another wolf - sorry, abandoned dog?” 

Bakugo looked away, scratching the back of his neck. “I mean, maybe. There’s a lot of dangerous creatures out in those woods.” His voice dropped low. “A lot of dangerous creatures.” 

You looked over at the stack of books, the one with the werewolf illustration placed haphazardly on the top. “Like werewolves?” You joked. 

He didn’t answer you. 

~~~

“Buckle up, Golden Boy, we are going on a field trip.” 

It was night again a few days later. You’d spent almost two weeks in the woods by this point. Your days were mostly spent hanging out with Bakugo in the fire watch tower or hiking through the forest with him. He’d given you a blank mole-skin notebook. You’d started sketching and labeling plants and animals you saw on your hikes with him. He’d ramble off information he’d learned from preparing for this job. While your drawing skills needed some improvement, you liked the calm, methodical motions and scratch of pen on paper, taking note of the tiny details that made one plant safe to eat and different from the poisonous one. 

Your nights were spent with Golden Boy. His wound had long since cleared up, surprisingly fast, but don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all. You weren’t exactly sure why he kept coming to you at night. He obviously didn’t need any help finding food. Maybe he felt safer with you behind protective walls? A few times, you thought you saw reflective eyes in the depths of the trees, watching as you let Golden Boy inside the cabin as the moon rose. Or maybe he really did used to be someone’s pet and just felt lonely abandoned out here. He’d always be gone by the time you woke up, no matter how many times you’d fallen asleep leaning against him or curled under your arm. 

You’d also  kept arguing his existence to your hot-headed friend. Tonight, you finally decided to prove yourself right. You were going to bring your proof right to his front door. 

“Come on,” You said, clapping your hands at the wolf lounging by the fire. “You’re going to help me rub some sweet ‘I told you so’ in a cute guy’s face.” He raised his head at you, giving you a look you had come to read from his doggy face. “What? He is. Or maybe I’ve just been stranded in the woods for too long.” You shrugged. Golden Boy let out his ‘you’re ridiculous’ puff of air noise and flopped over so the fire could warm his belly. You took two quick steps forward and rubbed your hand over his belly, it sinking into the thick fur. He let out a surprised yip and curled up, nipping at your hand before licking it and resigning himself to your attention. 

You laughed, heading back to the door. “Come on! I haven’t gone hiking at night before. Think of all the cool nocturnal animals I can record in my journal. And I need my bodyguard, right? It’ll be fun-“ 

You cut yourself off. You opened the door, freezing as you came face-to-face with a fist, poised to knock. Looking past the fist, your throat went dry, heart dropping into your stomach, head going fuzzy. A man stood there in an expensive looking suit. He looked a little surprised, then flashed a wide used-car-salesman smile. One of his teeth was golden. You could see scars criss-crossing his knuckles and up one of his cheeks. His hair was practically a helmet with all the pomade in it. 

“Well, hello there!” He said, chipper. That somehow made it worse. “I don’t suppose you’re (Y/N) (L/N), are you?” 

The door blurred as you slammed it shut. Just before it closed, the man stopped it with his hands, which now seemed way too large and strong. You tried pushing it closed, but your muscles, even flooded with the adrenaline shooting through your veins, were no match for his. 

You stumbled backward as he threw the door open. You saw several more equally if not more menacing men behind him. One was rolling up his sleeves, one checking the knuckle-dusters shining on his hands, one methodically fiddling with the safety on a gun. 

You backed away, stopping when the back of your calves nudged into Golden Boy, who was now standing, a low growl emanating from his throat. 

“Hey there, pup,” The smiling man said. He leaned down, rubbing his fingers together to encourage Golden Boy to come forward. Your wolf just snapped his fangs. “Aw, well. You hate hurting animals, but sometimes it’s just a hazard of the job.” He drew out a long hunting knife from a sheath shoved in his belt loop. It glistened in the fire light. 

You were going to throw up. 

“I don’t know anything,” You said, hating the waver in your voice. How could you have become so comfortable, so careless? Where the hell was your bat? “I don’t know where my dad is, I don’t know where your money is. I don’t know anything, I promise.” Tears were blurring your vision, stinging the back of your eyes. 

“I’m sure you don’t, sweetheart,” He said. The other men crowded in through the door. The cabin suddenly felt ten times smaller. “But, you know, loose ends.” 

Yellow blurred in your vision. Golden Boy flashed in front of you, powerful jaws clamping down on the man’s knife hand. He yowled in pain and shock, the knife clattering to the floor. The other men were stunned for a moment before lunging forward. One hit Golden Boy hard on the back of his head, another grabbing his back legs and yanking hard. Golden Boy kept his death-grip, red oozing from his mouth. 

You scrambled backward, head whipping around to look for your bat. It now felt woefully useless. There, cast off in a corner. You’d been using it to dry dish towels. 

It felt like 100 pounds in your hands. 

You heard an unsettling thump followed by a yelp. Whipping around, you saw the man had managed to dislodge Golden Boy, throwing him against the wall. You cried a broken noise. You felt a hand grab the scruff of your neck. You jammed the bat behind you, connecting with the soft bulge of the man’s stomach. He “oof”ed and his grip loosened. You flung yourself forward, landing hard on your knees, and scrambled up. The door was wide open, the men temporarily distracted. You didn’t think twice. 

You shot up, sliding like a baseball player going to home plate in front of Golden Boy. You held your bat in front of you like Excalibur itself. 

“Don’t you fucking touch my dog!” You’d never said anything with such venom in your voice, but you still didn’t feel like it was enough to appropriately express your rage. Golden Boy shook his head, getting back to his feet. He stood by your side, head lowered between his shoulders, baring his teeth stained with blood. 

The smiling man, who was now scowling in disgust, wrapped his bleeding hand with a way too expensive handkerchief. “God, typical. I hate dogs. Let’s hurry up and finish this.” 

The one with the gun raised it, pointing it right between your eyes. You stood fast, gripping the bat so hard your hands were turning white. 

You wanted to see Bakugo. It hit you like lightening that that was who was coming to your mind. You wanted to say something to him, an explanation of why you wouldn’t wake him up tomorrow morning. You wanted to make him promise he would take care of Golden Boy, after making him admit that you were right about the wolves. You wanted to hug him, to go on a walk someplace other than the woods, you wanted to cook a real meal in a real kitchen with him, you wanted to wake up in the morning with him at your side, Golden Boy at your feet. 

You wanted so many things you knew you wouldn’t be getting. So you had to focus on what you could get. You wanted Golden Boy to get out of here, to be safe. And by hell or high water, you were going to do that. 

You swung the bat back, aiming for the gunman’s wrist. You would knock the gun out of his hand, grab Golden Boy, kick him if you had to, get him out the door to get a head start. You’d probably get shot in the back doing it, but maybe the loud noise would startle him into running away. As long as he was safe, what else mattered? 

One second you were staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, making peace with yourself. The next, the gun was gone, and so was the man. Blinking, you looked around to see where he had disappeared to. The other men, equally baffled, didn’t have time to react as they were tackled to the ground along with their firearm friend. 

Golden Boy was in front of you, pushing you back by leaning his weight against your legs. You watched as your tiny cabin filled with giant wolves, gray, red, black, brown, all with flashing fangs and claws. One man with a knife reared up, pulling his arm back to throw the knife at you. Materializing out of thin air, a new man, one you hadn’t seen before, appeared behind him, catching the first in a headlock and pulling him down until he went limp in a choked-out sleep. 

The new man snarled, whipping his head around to stare right into your soul. And he was naked. How did you not notice that? The man looked like he threw full grown trees around for fun, and cut them down for work. Every inch of skin, and there was a lot of skin, had some scar tissue or mark indicating a life of hard-scraps. 

His eyes snapped down to Golden Boy, still setting himself firmly between you and the raucous crowd. The man jerked his head to the open door. “Wait outside,” He said, voice unbelievably gruff and low. “We’ll take care of this.” 

“Okay?” You said, voice loose. You felt like you were going to faint. You grounded yourself with a tug on your sleeve. Looking down, you saw Golden Boy, his teeth gently closed around your sleeve. He somehow managed to avoid looking at you, pulling you on unsteady feet out in the cool night air. He kicked the door shut with his hide leg as soon as you were out. 

All of your energy left you at once. You slumped against a tree, forehead leaning on your knees and blood rushing back into your hands as you dropped your bat. You sat there, still save for the involuntary tremors that racked your body, for who knows how long. 

You heard a quiet whimper. Peeking your eyes through your fingers, you saw Golden Boy. He was pacing, eyes downcast and tail tucked between his legs. He was limping a little, his old wound bothered in no small part due to being bodily thrown against the wall. 

“Hey,” You said softly. He jerked to a stop and looked up at you, bringing his eyes back down in a guilty expression. “It’s okay. Come here.” You held your hands out, palms up and fingers splayed. He trotted over to you, resting his enormous head in your hands and laying down, his chest pressing on your legs. You buried your face in the thick fur on the back of his neck. “It’s okay. We’re okay.” 

When the cabin door creaked open, panic seized your adrenaline abandoned muscles. Your hand shot to the bat, its strange weight now frighteningly familiar. Golden Boy barely stirred in your lap, only lazily opening his eyes and shifting closer to you as if hiding from some sort of punishment. 

The burly man stepped out first, still naked, you (unfortunately) noticed. He had two yakuza members with him, one slung over each shoulder, limp and unmoving. Next came three huge wolves, one of them walking backward while pulling along another gang member by the cuff of his pants. A woman came out with him, also naked, with the longest hair you had ever seen, similarly scuffed and scraped as the first man. She was followed by two more wolves. The strange group dumped the bodies of your attackers in a haphazard pile near the tree line. Were they dead? You couldn’t tell. God, which option was better? 

The man stretched, thick cords of muscle rippling under his skin. He sighed, like a tired parent, and turned to you. You cut your gaze away quickly, making sure to keep your eyes above a certain level. 

“Are you badly hurt?” His voice was the same low rumble of an earthquake. 

“Um, no. I-I think we’re okay. Thank you.” 

He hummed, rolling his shoulders. “No thanks necessary. We stand for our own, no matter the pack.” 

“I’m sorry, pack?” You asked, voice squeaking. Your brain was working overtime to process everything. 

“Hmph.” The man looked disappointed but not surprised. He nudged Golden Boy with his foot. The wolf whined again, turning his head away. “You still can’t shift on command? How are you meant to lead your pack when you can’t do the most basic things?” Golden Boy whined and grumbled. 

“I-what? What does any of this have to do with my dog?” You wrapped your arms protectively around him. 

The man quirked an eyebrow. “A wolf without a pack is a dangerous thing. A lone creature who can’t even control his own body needs to be culled. Now that he has found a pack, he has a greater responsibility. He’s part of a whole, not only himself.” 

“Hang on-” You tried to stand up only for Golden Boy to shove his weight down on you harder. “Were you the ones hurting Golden Boy? What’s the matter with you? Why would you hurt an animal? And, sorry, but why are you naked? I tried not to say anything but it’s kind of bothering me a lot.” 

The man stared you down, looking back to your wolf. “You didn’t tell her anything?” Golden Boy whined. The man sighed. “This will be more difficult than I thought. Our pack must move. We’ve completed our duty.We’ll deal with this… refuse.” He looked at the unconscious yakuza. He nudged Golden Boy again. “Take care of this one. He has a lot to learn.” 

The man turned, a yell building in your throat. In front of your eyes, he shifted, skin sprouting silver gray hair. You heard the pop of bones as the man seemed to fall over, but you quickly realized his entire body structure had changed. Where a person had once stood, a wolf walked. The woman from before was also gone, now just the group of wolves. The gray wolf looked back at you, nodding once, before raising up a howl with the rest of his pack. 

When you finally managed to feel your heartbeat slow to a non-life-threatening level, you looked down. “Alright, we have a lot to talk about, because apparently you can do that?” Golden Boy turned away from you. “Yeah, alright, nap first. Nap sounds good.” 

You passed out. 

~~~ 

You woke up with a headache knocking at your temples. Your mouth felt thick with cotton. You felt warm, gradually taking note of the blanket that had been carefully draped over you. Blearily opening your eyes, you watched dust motes float through shafts of light that filtered through the curtains on your cabin windows. You must have forgotten to dose the fire before you went to bed. It was still crackling in the fireplace. 

“Golden Boy?” You said, voice craggy. Why were you still wearing your day clothes? “Yout there, bud?” 

A knuckle rapped gently on your forehead. “Exactly how hard did you hit your head?” 

You shot up, immediately regretting it as pain flared up your spine to bloom in your skull. “Whoa, hey, take it easy.” A pair of hands steadied your shoulders, helping you sit up. 

You blinked hard, looking up into now familiar red eyes. “Bakugo?” 

He looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. “You can call me Katsuki now, you know. I think we’re close enough, after everything.” 

“Everything-? Oh. Oh! Oh my god!” You tried to jump up, knees giving out underneath you. Your limbs felt like they were encased in lead. 

“I told you to take it easy, dumbass,” Bakugo, Katsuki, said. He caught you before you fell, helping you sit back down. He stood up, going to the stove and sliding a pancake on top of a stack, still steaming. Pulling half onto a separate plate, he came back, handing one to you.

Numbly, you took it, tearing a piece off and shoving it in your mouth. “You have pecans in here.” 

“We didn’t have any syrup, so I thought this would be a good substitute. Having pancakes on their own is kind of boring.” 

“Sure. Yeah. So.” You let it hang there, watching him avoid your eyes and much on pancakes. 

He swallowed. “So.” He ate half of another one before continuing. “I’m a werewolf.” 

You blinked. “Okay.” 

He scowled. ‘There it is,’ You thought. “‘Okay’? That’s all you have to say?” 

You shrugged. “I mean, what else am I supposed to say? I’m pretty sure a group of werewolves saved my life last night. I literally saw a guy turn into a wolf, so that checks out. I might still be in shock a little bit, to be honest. So, uh, werewolf, huh?” He scoffed, rolling his eyes and shoving another pancake in his mouth. You cracked a smile and joked, “Well, you sure eat like a dog.” He punched your shoulder. You both laughed anyway. 

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” He said eventually. “I don’t think anyone does. I got bit by a rogue wolf. Turned pretty soon after. I’m not going to lie, I did some pretty bad stuff. I was freaked out, half out of my mind, those wolf instincts kicking in. It’s not an excuse, but… I got a job out here, thought I could isolate myself, research to see if I could find a cure or something. The pack found me almost immediately. I mean, I practically waltzed right in to their territory, so I can’t blame them. That rule they have, it’s true. A lone werewolf, someone without a pack, they’re dangerous. Unpredictable. They tried to… put me down. I usually managed to get away, but one night I made a stupid mistake. I should have died.” He looked up at you. “And then I ran in to you.” 

“And then you ran in to me.” You reached out, petting your hand through his hair. It was still soft, whether as a golden wolf or a human. “So, I’m your pack now? That’s what that guy said, the other werewolf. What does that mean, exactly?” 

He blushed, pulling apart his remaining pancakes. “A pack is like a family. They look out for each other, stand with each other. I didn’t tell them we were a pack or anything. I guess they just sort of inferred. Since, like, we’ve been spending a lot of time together, no matter what form.” 

You grinned. “They think you’re my boyfriend?”  He punched you again, with less malice this time. “Hey, I didn’t say I minded.” 

“It’s a lot,” Katsuki continued quickly, the words all rushing out as if he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to say it all. “I still don’t know a lot about all this. I always shift at night. I’m trying to get better at controlling it, but it’s hard. And it’s hard to go through all the history and stuff and pull out fact from fiction. I feel like I can’t control anything and I’m so fucking useless and I-“ 

You pressed your lips against his. Finally. His lips were chapped, and your teeth clacked together at first, but the warmth that spread through your chest made it all worth it. A plate clattered against the floor as he shifted closer to you. His hand came up to cradle the back of your head, bringing you closer. Your fingers clenched the fabric of his shirt, pulling. 

He pulled back, your breath mixing together. 

“I think I like the woods, now,” You said, softly. “It’s nice out here. Good company.” He chuckled, lowley. “And I like you. A lot. And I love dogs.”

He laughed loudly, once, before pulling you back in for another kiss.

[monochrome-in-madness]

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My Top 10 Favourite Horrors

Within this top 10 list, some will include the prequels, sequels and any other follow ups as 1 ranking number. Some may be considered thriller, sci-fi, suspence etc, however, I do regard these as horrors myself.

I have take many aspects into account, such as videography, actor quality, SFX makeup quality, soundtrack, directors, CGI etc.

Note : this is my personal opinion. You do not have to agree with it, though if you haven't seen these, I highly reccomend them.

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1. The Conjuring

(1 & 2)

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The Conjuring 1 :

The Perron family moves into a farmhouse where they experience paranormal phenomena. They consult demonologists, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to help them get rid of the evil entity haunting them.

The Conjuring Trailer :

The Conjuring 2 :

Peggy, a single mother of four children, seeks the help of occult investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren when she and her children witness strange, paranormal events in their house

The Conjuring 2 Trailer :

My Opinion :

The Conjuring was the start of an incredible series of horrors that beat any other horror to the ground. It is absolutely fantastic and I basically worship these films. James Wan is my favourite director and he never ceases to amaze me.

Paranormal horror is my favourite and as someone who actually believes in the paranormal and who has had paranormal experiences, I can confirm that The Conjuring is much more realistic than any other paranormal films, which just makes it extra spooky.

The actors, camera angles, music, sfx makeup and storyline is just - chefs kiss -. I've been waiting for the 3rd one for so long, but they keep extending the release date. (R. I. P)

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2. Annabelle

(all of them)

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Annabelle :

John and Mia Form are attacked by a Satan worshipping couple, who uses their doll as a conduit to make their life miserable. This unleashes a string of paranormal events in the Forms' residence.

Annabelle Trailer :

Annabelle Creation :

Samuel and Elle embed their daughter's spirit into a doll, only to realise it is a demon. Years later, they open their home to a nun and six orphan girls, one of whom finds the doll.

Annabelle Creation Trailer :

Annabelle Comes Home :

Judy and her babysitter are left alone in her house after her parents leave to investigate a case. However, an unexpected guest sets Annabelle free, unleashing demonic activity in the house.

Annabelle Comes Home Trailer :

My Opinion :

Another great film series that was birthed form The Conjuring. Definitely less realistic, with many more jumpscares and spooky characters, which is appreciated in the horror world. Many people find dolls far more creepy than ghosts, myself included, so that's another perfect aspect that adds to the suspense.

I prefer Annabelle 3 over the others, mainly because I found that one to be more scary overall, even though Daniela is an idiot and she makes me so frustrated 😂

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3. Saw

(all of them)

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For the totally unindoctrinated, the Saw movie franchise revolves around the Jigsaw Killer (a.k.a. John Kramer), who tortures victims he believes are complacent or guilty, in order to make them appreciate their time on Earth.

All Saw Trailers :

Obviously I'm not going to list every Saw movie, because there are 7 (Jigsaw aka number 8, does NOT count. It is a disgrace).

My Opinion :

A classic for horror and gore lovers of all kinds. Of course I need to list this as number 3. I simply adore these movies. I even have the DVD set, so I am definitely a long term fan haha.

The obstacles and creativity regarding Saw as a whole needed a lot of thought put into it, plus it has a happy little side note of "make sure you don't cause harm to others in life and don't take anything for granted" which some may have not even noticed while being overwhelmed by the amount of fake blood.

Yes, a lot of characters are annoying, but that just makes us enjoy seeing them tortured even more (shh it's not real). Some of the blood doesn't look very realistic, the sfx can lack attention, BUT... It's still great and I can overlook these few flaws to appreciate the movies to the max.

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4. Blair Witch

(2016)

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A young man and his friends venture into the Black Hills Forest in Maryland to uncover the mystery surrounding his missing sister. Many believe her disappearance 17 years earlier is connected to the legend of the Blair Witch.

At first the group is hopeful, especially when two locals act as guides through the dark and winding woods. As the night wears on, a visit from a menacing presence soon makes them realize that the legend is all too real, and more sinister than they could have ever imagined.

Blair Witch Trailer :

My Opinion :

I love the camerawork. Not because it's perfect, because it's the opposite. It's a documentary style and this makes it feel more realistic, as if you are within the film yourself. I enjoy how they skip to the action at just the right time after a mild buildup.

The visuals are great as well and there were definitely some parts where I was disgusted and claustrophobic, which is good to experience while enjoying these types of films.

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5. Under The Skin

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Disguising itself as a human female, an extraterrestrial drives around Scotland attempting to lure unsuspecting men into her van. Once there, she seduces and sends them into another dimension where they are nothing more than meat.

Under The Skin Trailer :

My Opinion :

I would classify this as horror, but many won't. Either way, this is an amazingly artistic film with beautiful imagery and silent awe. It definitely makes you feel the suspense in a calming manner and it has some really dark moments. Without reading the description, one might be confused as to what is going on, but how art is supposed to be interpretated is by the imagination of individuals.

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6. Veronica

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During a solar eclipse, young Verónica and her friends want to summon the spirit of Verónica's father using an Ouija board. However, during the session she loses consciousness and soon it becomes clear that evil demons have arrived.

Veronica Trailer :

My Opinion :

A Spanish masterpiece, to put it simply. It's hard to find proper horrors like this in English. I really enjoyed this one and I watched it subbed not dubbed, because I feel like voiceovers tend to ruin the art of the original film. The buildup is perfect and unlike many horrors, it barely shows you the face of the "monster". That leaves it to the imagination, which in general makes it far more scary.

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7. Underwater

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Disaster strikes more than six miles below the ocean surface when water crashes through the walls of a drilling station. Led by their captain, the survivors realize that their only hope is to walk across the sea floor to reach the main part of the facility. But they soon find themselves in a fight for their lives when they come under attack from mysterious and deadly creatures that no one has ever seen.

Underwater Trailer :

My Opinion :

This movie was released quite recently and I didn't know what to expect. I was definitely blown away by how good it was. Being trapped underwater gives most people a sense of anxiety. Add being trapped underwater and being hunted by creepy sea monsters and you've got yourself a good horror. Kristen Stewarts general anxious personality definitely suits this film well.

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8. Split

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Kevin, who is suffering from dissociative identity disorder and has 23 alter egos, kidnaps three teenagers. They must figure out his friendly personas before he unleashes his 24th personality.

Split Trailer :

https://youtu.be/84TouqfIsiI

My Opinion :

An incredible film with phenomenal acting on the part of James McAvoy. You can get lost within his character and almost feel as if you are the character itself. Suspense is built up slowly and the climax of the film is released rapidly. People I know who do not enjoy horror, love this film themselves, which is saying something. It's definitely one of the best modern films that draws you in from the start. 

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9. A Quiet Place

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A family struggles for survival in a world where most humans have been killed by blind but noise-sensitive creatures. They are forced to communicate in sign language to keep the creatures at bay.

A Quiet Place Trailer :

https://youtu.be/WR7cc5t7tv8

My Opinion :

As you can tell by now, I love anything alien related. This film has some of the most amazing looking aliens I've seen, I was honestly in awe by how great they looked. Another silent film, but in a different sense to the previous one. Instead of being the hunter, this family is being hunted and this adds more to the fear factor.

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10. Unfriended - Dark Web

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When a teen finds a laptop with a cache of hidden files, he and his friend discover that the previous owner has access to the dark web and is watching over them.

Unfriended - Dark Web Trailer :

https://youtu.be/XenTM_C9fxM

My Opinion :

A modern take on horror. Involving the actual dangers of the dark web and the use of technology and turning it into a horror was a magnificent idea. It definitely had me at the edge of my seat.

Due to another film type that is not often explored (thus being that most of the movie is equal to what it would be like to look at your computer and video chat), it makes it different and therefore more compelling than the usual videography styles.

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Thank you for reading, if you've made it this far! Feel free to share your top 10 in the comment section, I am definitely interested in your opinions and finding new movies to watch myself. Any questions are also welcome.

Until next time, take care and stay spooky!

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[mst3kproject]

Menace from Outer Space

 With that for a title, we can only be looking at one of two things: this is either a Star Man movie or an installment of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger!  I’d ask you to guess but I’m sure you all recognize the Orbit Jet up there, so without further ado, Menace from Outer Space.

Little Bobby thought he was gonna get a comet named after him, but a closer look at the approaching object reveals a missile of some sort, headed straight for Earth!  Vena determines that it could only have been launched from Fornax, an incredibly hot moon of Jupiter where it was thought nothing could live.  Rocky and the gang immediately set out for Fornax to ask them if they can please stop shooting at us, but when they arrive, they learn that they are not the first Earthlings to land here.  The wicked Professor Cardos crashed his own rocket here eight years ago, and he plans to use the power of Fornax’ unique crystals to conquer the galaxy!

The opening of Menace from Outer Space had me groaning.  I’ve seen enough movies about comets or asteroids about to strike the Earth to have a good idea what was coming, and I did not want to see 1956’s version of Armageddon.  Imagine my relief when the meteor turned out to be a missile, which came down and blew up and the whole thing was over and done with inside of five minutes!  I kind of want to apologize to the writers of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger!  I should have had more faith in you guys.

The rest of the movie has everything a MSTie could want from our old friend Rocky Jones.  The technobabble is completely meaningless when it’s not just dead wrong, the aliens are white guys in stupid costumes, the special effects are delightfully hokey, and the fight scenes are as clumsy and stilted as anything with William Shatner in it!  Even Cleolanta makes a cameo appearance, just when I was resigned to not seeing her again. The plot goes through a number of the twists typical of the series, with multiple bad guys making and breaking alliances against the heroes.  It’s pretty involving, and you honestly do want to keep watching and see what happens next.

Traditions are good, so I shall keep one up by talking about the science that appears in this storyline.  One of the most breathtakingly stupid lines comes very early in the movie, when Professor Newton announces that the object he’s spotted can’t be a comet, because it’s making a wooshing noise and “there’s no sound associated with a comet or meteor”.  Uh… professor?  There’s no sound in space, period, on account of the vacuum.  Tom Servo’s head would have exploded.

Then there’s the moon Fornax, which is presented as a bizarre and glittering landscape of crystal pyramids and weird, hourglass-shaped monuments.  There doesn’t seem to be any plant life, which leaves me wondering what the Fornacians eat.  Perhaps they don’t need food, since Professor Newton describes the life of the moon as being based on crystals.  Earth’s scientists had believed that nothing could live in such heat, but crystals, the professor says, can grow, and “growth is life!”  This leads to a bit of a disappointment, as I was hoping we’d get to see something weird and alien like the Horta from Star Trek or the crystal-based organisms of The Monolith Monsters.  But no, the Fornacians are merely people in vaguely Arabian costumes.  I probably should have known better.

Although the moon is described as far too hot for life, with a reference to thousands of degrees, when the Orbit Jet lands there the crew climbs out in their shirtsleeves and likens the weather to a nice day on Palm Beach.  So… what happened to the inhospitable heat?  When King Zorovac visits Earth with Rocky, he never comments on the cold – or on the fact that Earth’s gravity is said to be half that of Fornax’.  The high gravity makes landing and taking off on the moon difficult, but otherwise doesn’t seem to affect anything the humans try to do there. It’s like the writers couldn’t be bothered with their own plot point.

Well… there is that nasty little scene where the guys tease Vena about gaining weight, but that doesn’t count.

The other weird thing about the high gravity is that it implies some very odd things about Fornax itself.  Let’s say Fornax is the biggest moon in the solar system – that would make it the size of Ganymede, a real-life moon of Jupiter, which has a radius of 2600 km.  The surface gravity of Ganymede is about fourteen percent of Earth’s.  In order to make it twice Earth’s, the moon would need a mass about a third that of our home planet, which doesn’t sound like much until you consider that it’s thirteen times Ganymede’s real-life mass and would require a density of nearly ten grams per cubic centimetre.  Such a moon would have to be made almost out of pure lead! And that still wouldn’t have the weird gravitational effects further out in space…

The writers, of course, did not do that math (I can barely believe I did that math). It seems they were just assigning their fictional moon traits willy-nilly, without worrying about whether it was astrophysically possible or even internally consistent.  So it’s actually kind of interesting that Jupiter does, in fact, have a hot little moon!  That, of course, is Io, which has been squashed and stretched by Jupiter’s gravity until its insides spill out in the form of sulfurous volcanoes. The writers of Menace from Outer Space couldn’t have known that, since the volcanism of Io wasn’t discovered until 1979, when astronomer Linda Morabito noticed a volcanic plume in one of the Voyager I photos.  A neat coincidence, though.

As for the people of this curious world – the standard trope would have the inhabitants of a hot planet be belligerent and impulsive (fiery, if you will), so it’s kind of nice that the Fornacians are very much the opposite of this.  They’re presented as valuing reason and careful in their judgment.  Cardos has told the king of Fornax about Earth, but when given the opportunity Zorovac would rather see for himself.  His un-named queen clearly knows what kind of movie she’s in, because she actually listens to children who come to her with information relevant to the plot.  Princess Vollica is a quick study in English and quite resourceful, even though she’s no more than eight years old.  Their missile, we learn, was not actually an attack, but a misguided attempt at communication!

Despite the title being Menace from Outer Space, the real menace in the storyline is the very earthly Professor Cardos. He has told the Fornacians that Earthlings will come to them speaking sweet words about friendship and trade, only to conquer and enslave when Zorovac has his guard down.  I think we’re supposed to be angry that he would say such things, but considering human history, it’s not as if he’s lying. When Zorovac insists on making up his own mind about what Rocky and co have to say, Cardos turns instead to some more reliably evil allies.  This seems to imply that the greatest threat to humans in the entire universe is ourselves, which… again, history makes that seem reasonable.

Menace from Outer Space does do one thing neither of the MST3K installments of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger! did, which is to give us a bit of an idea what some of the characters besides Rocky and Winky actually do.  We still don’t find out exactly how Bobby joined this team but it seems he is a child prodigy and an invaluable assistant to Professor Newton.  When they’re figuring out what they can and can’t take to Fornax with them, Newton argues that Bobby is ‘worth more than his weight in equipment’, and there are bits where he rattles off some rather intense technobabble that Winky is shown as unable to keep up with.  At the same time, the writers never forget that Bobby is only about twelve and while Rocky and Winky joke about his ‘romance’ with Princess Vollica, the friendship between the two children is clearly nothing of the sort.

Vena, too, does a little better in Menace. She’s shown to be a skilled mathematician, and capable of taking over as Rocky’s navigator if Winky is out of commission.  It’s clearly not that she isn’t intelligent, it’s just that her bubbly personality makes her come across as a ditz.  If this were used in the plot, by having the villains underestimate her, I would want to think that it was an intentional attempt to make the audience examine our prejudices about women, but sadly it never is.  Rather, I get the impression that the writers didn’t know what to do with Vena. She makes her one contribution early on when she determines the missile’s origin, and then spends much of the rest of the movie as a hostage.

When people describe Rocky Jones, Space Ranger! as a proto-Star Trek, they’re mostly speaking in terms of the plot, which involves exploring space and meeting very human-like aliens who all speak English.  This isn’t entirely fair.  While obviously not as progressive as Star Trek tried to be, Rocky Jones is smarter than I think it’s given credit for.  The politics of the no-win situation in Crash of Moons, or Cardos disguising his own imperial ambitions by projecting them onto his enemies, is actually pretty weighty for a half-hour tv show.  The acting may be bad, the science wrong, and the gender roles dated, but Rocky Jones, Space Ranger! does a good job of giving the audience food for thought.

[laurasinele]

To bring him back (a Fictober19 Stucky drabble)

Prompt 21: “Changes is annoyingly difficult”

Fandom: MCU

Tags: light angst, canonical memory loss, implied past relationship, stucky

Warnings: none apply

Ao3

It comes a time in one’s life when, after being confronted with the impossible enough times, nothing is impossible anymore. 

Steve Rogers had faced enough impossibles to believe almost anything. That’s why he didn’t second-guess much his gut when it jolted at the close sight of the ultimate assassin’s eyes. He could have sworn that was Bucky’s brow, Bucky’s nose bridge, Bucky’s determined gaze. He just needed to confirm with some authority that whatever unbelievable lost link in this narrative was a reality. Time travel, cloning, more super-soldier serum… He didn’t even questioned why his childhood friend, his best and only true friend, was trying to kill him. There sure must have been a reasonable explanation for it. Like extraterrestrial forces. Or fairies. 

The following months of fights and disagreement, of conspiracies and treason, were just a blur. Nothing compared to the fact that Bucky was alive. Nothing as hurtful as the fact that his childhood friend, his best and only true friend, didn’t remember him. Nothing as plunging as the realisation that this was the proverbial end of the line. Again. 

In the end, at a great cost, the Avengers assembled anew, and they took Bucky in. Better with them than against them, was the reasoning behind his recruitment. He underwent a gruelling neuro-psychological procedure to get rid of each and every trigger mechanism. The matter of getting his pre-Winter Soldier memories back was never risen. When Steve asked, everybody from SHIELD’s medical staff to Banner and even Loki and Dr. Strange told him it could happen or not, but there wasn’t a way to bring them back on purpose. As knowledgeable as they all were in their own fields, the human mind, they said, was still one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. 

The Avenger known as Winter Soldier was a quiet superhuman with an enhanced metal arm. His face and voice and date of birth were those of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, declared missing in action during a Howling Commandos mission against HYDRA. There’s where any similarity ended. Where Bucky had been good-humored, the Winter Soldier was brooding. Where Bucky had been extroverted and easy-going, the Winter Soldier kept to himself and was always one fraction of a step away of inabiliting the closest menace. Where there used to be that famous charming smile of Bucky, the Winter Soldier’s lips where always pressed thin, downcast, and his gaze was the closest thing to the void Steve could imagine. 

After all, the end of the line had arrived when Bucky fell of that moving train and Steve failed to catch him. There was no impossible turned true for them. His childhood friend, his best and only true friend, was gone. 

The world underwent several catastrophes, most of which never made the public eye, a handful of them solved without even leaving the Avengers headquarters. Old frictions smoothed, new friendships were born. Steve only looked longingly at the Winter Soldier every now and then, trying to find any sign of old Bucky’s personality resurfacing. It was an afterthought now. Those who had been worried for him and called it obsession in the first weeks didn’t even noticed.

The first time the Winter Soldier smiled, Steve dropped his mug of coffee. He said it was lack of sleep and everyone believed him. 

It wasn’t a big smile. His face relaxed for a moment and the corners of his lips perked up slightly. Steve had made a joke that he thought no-one would get when they’d asked him about being in “active service”. They meant literally, as in the military, but he made a sexual innuendo, because in his time “active service” could mean being sexually active. He said it rejoicing in the fact that no-one would get it and he would left them wondering once more about his sex life. But Bucky, no, the Winter Soldier, had smiled imperceptibly as he kept his head down, studying the history of the decades he had missed. 

Wanda catched the mug before it shattered against the floor, Steve made his lame excuse about not sleeping enough, retrieved his coffee and headed to his bedroom to try and calm down. It had been just a smile. A smile because of a joke that could have been funny in the forties. A joke he did several times with the Howling Commandos. “I’ve never been officially in active service in my whole life”. It could mean anything and it was funny because, literally, it was true but, figuratively, it left them wondering. But the Winter Soldier surely didn’t remember that. He probably smiled because that bit of slang was in his vocabulary, nothing more. Bucky was gone. He was the Winter Soldier now. 

Steve wasn’t sure if he needed a nap or a 50 miles sprint, now. He took his sweatpants off and put on a pair of rated jeans and a zipped hoodie over his plain white tee. He put on his baseball cap and fake glasses and headed out, to his exhibit. That, he reminded himself, was the only place where he could see Bucky, the real one. He looked more alive in the black and white footage than the Winter Soldier had ever managed to look in the real world. Now Steve needed to punch something, since there was no one left of those who did that to Bucky. The ones that killed Bucky. The ones creating an impossible in this stupid world where everything could be but this. It was a too loud world, too bright, too fast. Steve needed some respite. Maybe sleep would have been a better idea.

--

He couldn’t help but try, because of course he couldn’t. He had never been known for dropping things. He had been known for following his gut and ending up being right. So he kept peppering his speeches and chats with subtle hints to the thirties and forties in Brooklyn. Very specific things that only someone who’d been there would get, but not as singular as to catch the other Avenger’s attention. 

The Winter Soldier got them all. And Steve emboldened with each smirk, huff and glance. They were all very subtle and never led to a meaningful conversation. The Winter Soldier’s acknowledgement of Steve’s strategy finished in the non verbal hints of getting the reference. Tony Stark’s acknowledgement of Steve’s strategy was more direct. 

“A word, Cap”, said Tony after a briefing. When everybody left the room to their assignments, Steve cocked his head and waited for Tony to say something. “You know I am not against him anymore, do you?”

Steve rolled his eyes. 

“Tony…”

“Because I don’t. I swear, I learnt. We all learnt. He was a problem, until we realised he was a victim, and now he is a very valuable asset”

“What’s your point?”

Tony sighed through his nose while pursing his lips and weighing Steve with a stare. 

“I wouldn’t want him to become a liability”.

Steve felt the all anger of their Civil War creep in and zero into Tony’s solar plexus. He managed to refrain but he wasn’t amiable when he spoke. 

“Again, what’s your point?”

“I know what you are doing. I don’t think anybody else has, I just happen to pay a lot of attention to you. Well, probably Nat knows too, because she’s rolled her eyes at me a couple of times when you drop…”

“Okay, enough”. Steve knew better that denying it, but that didn’t mean he was willing to discuss it. “Your advice is noted. I won’t let it become a liability, but I won’t let it go either, because if there is a single chance to bring him back I will try. I won’t put it before the Avengers or the world’s safety, but will keep trying until he’s back or until one of us dies, whatever happens first”.

When Tony spoke he did it softly, measuring his words, the ghost of their past enmity very much present.

“Captain. Bucky is gone. You mourned him. If he ever comes back, that’s great, but chances are he won’t. And we cannot afford to have the greatest strategic mind of the planet distracted with psychological games and grief. It wouldn’t be betrayal if you let it go”

“It would”, he said defiantly, before speaking more calmly: “Advice noted, Stark. I will bear it in mind, I promise. You don’t have to worry”.

--

It had been a long time since Steve had gotten in the exhibition outside opening hours. Still, the guard tipped his cap as he opened the door for him.

“Long time no see, Captain”

“Been busy”, he smiled. “How are things, Alan?”

“Great as usual. You’ve got company by the way”, added Alan when Steve was about to round the corner. He stopped on his tracks to ask who, a cautious, calculating expression on his face, but then he saw the Winter Soldier standing in front of one of the panels. He turned his head and saluted, wearing that blank expression of his.

Steve approached him and stood by his side for a while. When the video on the screen had finished a loop, Steve talked in a low voice:

“Never took you for a nostalgic”.

The Winter Soldier hummed and turned to Steve:

“Me or your good ol’ pal Bucky?”

Steve looked at him not really sure if that was a genuine question, and accusation a retort or what in hell. The Winter Soldier walked to the next panel and Steve followed him.

“I come here every now and then. I try to make sure we won’t meet, because I don’t want to disturb you. I know this has some importance for you”.

“It has. I appreciate the thought”. And then, after hesitating for a while, he added: “Why do you come?”

The Winter Soldier shrugged.

“To see if it all comes back. It never does though”.

Steve’s face fell and the Winter Soldier noticed. He continued, this time looking at Steve.

“I come here after certain dreams or flashes. I don’t remember much aside from my.. HYDRA missions. And some unconnected things. More sensations than images or memories. Sometimes I dream a game of throw in an alley. Sometimes it’s me lying on a couch, looking at a chapped ceiling. A fan is buzzing and someone is drawing. I can hear the pencil against the paper and I can feel boredom and frustration, because I want them to stop and go play. I remember some things from the war too. As I said, only flashes. I come here and look at the pictures and try to find some link between them”.

Steve breathing was heavy and his jaw was set without him even realizing. He made himself look away from the Winter Soldier and into Bucky’s mugshot in the panel. Their expressions were so different it could have been an entirely different face. 

“Why haven’t you come to me? I could help you figure out those memories. We were joined at the hip, I probably remember those moments too. If I had known you were starting to remember I’d probably…”

“Change…” interrupted the Winter Soldier in his low monotone voice, “is annoyingly difficult. Specially when your mind has been set to a single track and you were excellent at it. It feels slow. It feels like disappointment. I don’t really remember you. I know we were good friends because I’ve been told, and I’ve read here”, he said nodding towards the panel in front of them, “but I don’t know why. I don’t know what happened. And I see what you do to try and bring this guy back, and the faces you make when I just don’t react. I didn’t want to give you false hopes in case he never really comes back. I know you must miss him a lot”.

“Oh, yeah? How would you know that?”, asked Steve with a sad laugh. The Winter Soldier turned his back to the panel, sighed and put his hands in his pockets. 

“There’s this feeling whenever I look at you. Like I want to punch you and kiss you at the same time. And during missions, there’s this need to protect you at all costs, as if you weren’t a virtually immortal super soldier. I don’t know where it comes from, but I know it’s Bucky’s”.

Steve looked at him, mouth hanging slightly. The Winter Soldier sighed again, turned his face to Steve and tried a small, apologetic smile. 

“That’s how I know, pal. He misses you too”.

Steve watched the Winter Soldier walk down the hall towards the exit. He turned back to the panel and Bucky’s mugshot. And he saw the very same smile the Winter Soldier had just given him. Steve smiled in return. It wasn’t a sad or unrealistically hopeful smile. It was the smile that had always made his way to his lips whenever Bucky was around. The one with which he said “hello” to him, and “goodbye”. The one with which he said “thank you”, “I’m sorry” or “I’m glad you’re here”. The one that loudly stated “I love you” for nobody to hear but his childhood friend, his best and only true friend. And he might be getting the echoes of it. 

[batallanr123-blog]

Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda

20 minute read

This text was initially featured on Alliance Magazine here.

The 2019 AVPN conference in Singapore put its cards firmly on the table from the begin.

The main target can be on massive themes: schooling, gender equality, hunger and malnutrition, and climate change – most of all on climate change. From the first session, speaker after speaker reminded us that we solely have 15 years through which to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions before the effects of local weather change turn out to be irreversible.

Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets

And Asia is at the sharp end. The struggle to combat climate change shall be gained and lost there, stated Maria Athena Ballesteros, of the Growald Household Fund. Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets, noted that the country had declared 2018 an official yr of climate motion. Rising sea ranges and rising temperatures (the island state is heating up twice as shortly as the rest of the world, she stated) posed a menace to its future. It’s investing in solar power and expanding its public transport community so that eight out of each 10 Singaporeans can be inside strolling distance of a railway station. But, she stated, the authorities could not do it alone. It needed the help of both enterprise and civil society. Fung Wing-ah of BRACE Hong Kong defined that the funding firm had now aligned its whole portfolio on local weather change mitigation and, like Minister Khor, also careworn that the efforts of one sector alone wouldn’t be enough. Enter another key conference theme: all of the issues beneath discussion will require partnerships that contain not just cash but joint motion.

Later in the conference, Christine Heenan of the Rockefeller Foundation additionally touched on both of those in a keynote speech. The challenge is not to find options to local weather change, she argued. These exist already. The problem is to deliver them to scale. That’s the place partnerships come into play, partnerships based on mutual respect, complementary strengths and synergy.

Words to deeds The convention also marked the launch of AVPN’s local weather motion platform. Naina Batra, AVPN chair and CEO, signalled the want for a deeper and extra lively dedication which was evident all by means of proceedings. The platform, she stated, will probably be greater than a bit of symbolism, a board which all members have been invited to signal as an earnest of their solidarity, it should attempt to attach all the sectors, offering funding opportunities and information. However, she added, to achieve success, ‘it needs your engagement’. She spoke of the power of networks, which not solely deliver individuals collectively (her welcoming remarks have been addressed to 1348 delegates from 48 nations, itself a token of the formidable convening power of AVPN), they convey campaigns together and they bridge divides. However convening is just not enough. We have to catalyse and allow action. We need to cooperate, to behave urgently, whereas not dropping endurance and we have to make change irresistible.

Eileen Rockefeller Growald of the Growald Family Fund (GFF) struck a constructive word: ‘we can and are finding climate solutions together,’ she insisted. GFF is seeding social enterprises and innovators and collaborating with them and with funders to further climate options. The obstacles, nevertheless, remain formidable.  Know-how must be delivered to bear more shortly, stated Dan Choon of Cycle Group. Know-how transfer presently takes too lengthy – historically, 45-60 years to get to 20 per cent market penetration. We have to transfer a lot quicker. In the similar session, Britt Groosman of the Environmental Defense Fund spoke of the difficulties of shifting finance in the direction of measures to combat climate change. The subsequent-best factor, she stated, is to induce sectors who produce large-scale emissions, like aviation and delivery to think about carbon pricing, indeed there are indicators that they are doing so. Geoffrey Seeto of New Forests Asia endorsed this from his personal expertise. A variety of airways, one among which is Indigo in India, have agreed to offset their carbon emissions from 2020 and they see funding forestry from the proceeds of pricing carbon as part of doing that. Nevertheless, while funding carbon sequestration at scale is a confirmed technique of local weather change mitigation, only three per cent of local weather finance presently goes into it.

Ideas for attracting finance for local weather solutions brainstormed amongst all members in the session ranged from coaching grassroots installers of solar panels, debt aid for governments funding clean power and banks cooperating to offer concessionary ESG bonds.

Breaking boundaries Along with what we have to do, there’s the additional question of the place we’ll get the assets to do it. AVPN COO, Kevin Teo reminded the viewers that, if the SDGs are to be achieved, an estimated $2.5 trillion per yr will probably be needed (he was not the just one to cite this figure over the coming days). Giant buyers, subsequently, will need to make giant investments with proportionally huge influence and the convention title, Breaking Boundaries, signalled the need to attract those buyers – public and personal – into the social and environmental sphere. How to do this shaped one other strand linking convention proceedings. For its half. AVPN has been actively working with buyers in each these sectors, making an attempt to hyperlink personal influence or would-be impression buyers with social businesses on the one aspect and continuing to press forward with the APx coverage discussion board on the different.

Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own needs quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have?

James Chen, Founder of Clearly.

In his quest to ‘privatise failure and socialise success’ James Chen referred to as on philanthropists to train their much-touted capability for danger. ‘If you are serious about impact,’ he stated, ‘high risk is where the real returns occur.’ He provided Gates Basis’s work with malaria as a mannequin of catalytic philanthropy and an example of how ‘perseverance and domain expertise’ might have great influence. His personal organisation, Clearly, which aims to deliver low-cost imaginative and prescient correction to poor communities round the world, had overcome initial objections from funders, amongst them the World Financial institution, that there was no proof for the impact of imaginative and prescient correction programmes and no model of the intervention in low-income nations, by providing each in the form of Vision for a Nation, a programme run collectively with the authorities of Rwanda, and a serious research in the Lancet. Each, he stated, had helped to de-risk investment in sight correction.

Suitability and sustainability How are you going to construct a philanthropic culture when the word ‘philanthropy’ is barely understood, or has connotations of charity and patronage because it does in both Myanmar and Indonesia? The questions have been asked in a breakout session on unlocking native philanthropic funding in South-East Asia. In a spot like Myanmar the place investment and philanthropy are both discovering their ft, individuals have to build good companies, not just give away cash from successful ones, argued Aung Htun of Myanmar Investments. Ruel Maranan of the Ayala Foundation (Philippines) agreed, noting that the younger era is extra aware of the concept of social impression, so change is on the method. A more direct means of encouraging giving, believes Victor Hartono of the Djarum Basis in Indonesia, is for governments to offer tax incentives, a problem to which Veronica Colondam of YCAB Foundation in Indonesia would return later in the conference. The restrictive surroundings for philanthropy in that nation has meant, amongst different things, that YCAB took longer to find a suitable technique and type for its operation, since there are not any endowments.

Ertharin Cousin, Energy of Vitamin.

Inevitably, there was a lot speak of sustainability over the three and half days of the convention. It was Ruel Maranan who matched it with the notion of suitability. Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own wants quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have? It makes for larger engagement: ‘they [communities] are already involved and open,’ and if all stakeholders are concerned, all of them win, he argued. The theme of suitability also arose in discussion of the question of influence. Victor Hartono urged donors to assume ‘what’s applicable for you’ as well as for beneficiaries. Djarum, which has pioneered a form of vocational faculty that the authorities is now copying, crops timber as part of its local weather change mitigation efforts. It’s inside reach whereas funding in a more refined carbon seize know-how will not be.

The themes of collaboration and ‘feet on the ground’ have been additionally in proof in the session. Hartono spoke of the importance of ‘staying local. You are there, your people are there.’

The malnourished and the hungry 81.7 million youngsters in Asia endure from stunting because of malnutrition, stated Ertharin Cousin, previously of the World Food Programme and now a board member of the Energy of Vitamin. Opening a discussion on investing for higher vitamin, she introduced that the international value of malnutrition is now a staggering $three.5 trillion per yr, leaving apart the value in distress and suffering. We have to reform the international meals system, she stated, and we will’t do it without personal sector funding and involvement. To get it, we’d like agreed metrics outlined based on business rules. One other method, instructed both Martin Brief, CEO of the Energy of Vitamin and Rebecca Boustead of Kellogg, may be appealing to buyers’ bottom line, mentioning the economic effects of the drawback. Ertharin Cousin also sees nothing incorrect in corporations taking advantage of social investments, as long as they work and social benefits accrue.

If self-interest was a approach into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra of their malnourished communities?

For Rebecca Boustead, there are two questions. How can we make meals which is both nutritious and appealing, and how can we get it to small village markets? She spoke of partnerships which Kellogg had with the Breakfast Revolution and with the Sesame Workshop. In the former case, meals was attending to the hard-to-reach and in the second, the message of the significance of vitamin was being conveyed.

If self-interest was a means into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra in their malnourished communities? ‘Engage, engage, engage – with hard data’, was Ertharin Cousin’s recipe. Give them sensible solutions that help them get monetary savings, instructed Rebecca Boustead, a prescription not up to now faraway from that advocated by individuals for use with the personal sector.

Impression investing: time, transparency and demonstration These three issues are wanted to ramp up influence funding throughout all sectors. Whereas it is perhaps true to say, as Richard Ditzio of the Milken Institute, who chaired the subsequent panel discussion, did, that there is spare capital and it needs to spend money on sustainability, there are still obstacles. Didier von Daeniken, additionally of Normal Chartered questioned how banks and monetary institutions might help shoppers translate words like sustainability, influence investing and philanthropy into language they might perceive. Measurement continues to be a sticking level, he noted, as is the lack of knowledge about funding alternatives. Angela Bai of China Alliance of Social Worth Funding (CASVI) and Roy Swan of the Ford Foundation each endorsed this in a later session. Bai added a 3rd challenge: the problem of creating investments scalable.

Doug Lee of D3Jubilee Partners, an impression enterprise fund in South Korea famous a Catch-22 state of affairs arising. First-time funds have the lowest price of return, so buyers draw back, but if funds can’t appeal to buyers, how are they to succeed? Foundations have the added problem of persuading the trustees. Roy Swan associated that it took two years to induce Ford’s trustees to release eight per cent of the foundation’s endowment to dedicate to influence investing! Frank Niederlander of BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt agreed that endurance is needed and caution. The pioneer buyers, he stated, have to be apostles. They will’t afford to fail.

Many banks in Asia (native and worldwide) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable funding.

Rashesh Shah (proper) CEO of Edelweiss.

All that stated, there is progress. Rashesh Shah of Edelweiss (India) famous that particular person buyers are asking extra of their banks. Banks themselves, represented by Jose Vinals of Normal Chartered, can earn a living and assist save the world at the similar time, he stated. From doing no harm, Commonplace Chartered is now shifting in the direction of being a pressure for good. He referred to as for benchmarks on inexperienced bonds, tips for company disclosure and higher sustainability built into the financial system.  This remark itself is progress, says Annie Chen (RS Group, Hong Kong). She noted that she could not have imagined listening to a financial institution saying it ought to do good 10 years ago. The Sustainable Finance Initiative in Hong Kong which RS launched a yr earlier helps to spread the word on influence investing amongst household workplaces there and to foment a strong impression investment group. She famous, nevertheless, that many banks in Asia (local and international) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable investment. Didier von Daeniken agreed. Communication is their largest drawback. Normal Chartered’s research among its Asian shoppers, nevertheless, means that 20 per cent of respondents at the moment are allocating some investment in the direction of the SDGs and that there’s higher understanding of impression investing.

There are different grounds for optimism. Each Annie Chen and Eliza Foo of Temasek International (Singapore) see hope in the evident want for change, particularly among the younger, and in the tempo of change. And there’s a lot at stake. If influence investing actually takes maintain, stated Amit Bouri of the International Influence Investing Community (GIIN), we’d change the means the financial markets work.

Measurement The challenge the convention returned to most frequently, although, was measurement of impression. Eric Rice of Wellington Management Singapore noted little progress on this, but influence is ‘what distinguishes this segment. We won’t get mainstream capital if we don’t determine it out, he warned. Moreover, new era donors are notably eager on impression, stated Giovanni Zenteno from LGT Enterprise Philanthropy. On the plus aspect, should you can present it, money is extra more likely to come your means.

Adam McCarty of Mekong Economics, whom I had marked down as a hard-shell pragmatist from previous periods, has a barely totally different take. We do influence measurement, he stated, because that’s the deal of influence investing. If you would like free or low cost cash, it’s a must to answer for the good you’re doing. Most influence measurement at the second is rudimentary, he advised and extra refined means gained’t emerge until donors demand it. Usually, panellists agreed, influence measurement is donor-driven, though Ronald Abraham of iDinsight in India feels that each side have to take it critically. He sees three essential challenges: first, impression evaluation is sluggish. It may take between one and three years, by which era the programme has changed. Second, the quality of the knowledge is usually poor. Third, it’s costly, though it could actually repay expenditure by the NPO, even if it doesn’t lead to extra funding. Idinsight had labored with Educate Women on a machine-learning venture which has enabled them to work with more youngsters on their price range, regardless of the initial value of the train.

Collaborative philanthropy For those who ask donors whether or not they practise collaboration, all of them say ‘yes’, stated Nadia Roumani of the Institute of Design at Stanford, though a show of arms in a breakout session on the matter revealed that only half a dozen or so out of an viewers of 50-60 are actually pooling assets. Why so few when it’s clear that more may be completed by working with others? The chief purpose given in the session was lack of management. Smaller contributors worry being swamped by larger ones, moreover, it is troublesome to reconcile giving unrestricted grants from the pool with the specific needs of particular person donors? Co-Influence tries to bypass this by allowing smaller contributors to vote on where they want their funds to go within the framework of the programme, stated Anne-Marie Harling of Co-Influence. Individuals also want a specific amount of humility. Erin Hulme of the Gates Basis stated that in the collaboration on polio involving Gates, WHO and UNICEF, the foundation had been prepared to ‘go where the expertise lies’ and did not want to steer. Boon Heong Ng of Temasek Worldwide agreed. Temasek was originally the sole donor of Challenge Silver Display in Singapore which works to fight listening to deficiencies amongst the elderly. Silver Display now includes other corporations, the Ministry of Well being and individuals’s associations, all of whom deliver totally different sorts of expertise.

Regardless of apparent advantages, collaboration remains troublesome, especially amongst establishments.

It’s not just massive funders who can benefit from collaboration. Ludwig Forrest of the King Baudouin Basis (KBF) explained the concept of umbrella foundations. These permit modest donors to pool assets beneath the aegis of a bigger entity like KBF and to provide to causes they have in widespread. It’s a approach of democratising philanthropy, he stated. KBF presently has 750 smaller foundations sheltering underneath its umbrella.

Regardless of obvious advantages, collaboration stays troublesome, especially amongst establishments. Establishing collaborations requires giving a number of thought to the construction, which must be clear, yet flexible sufficient to adapt, stated Nadia Roumani.

Larry Kramer, President of the Hewlett Foundation.

What’s efficient philanthropy? For these – and there have been many – who had been urging the non-profit to be more like the for-profit sector, Larry Kramer of the Hewlett Basis, had some words of warning. ‘It’s an enormous mistake,’ he stated. ‘We all want to be efficient but that’s not enterprise, it’s good organisational considering.’ Non- and for-profit organisations have totally different strategies, totally different areas of work and, most essential, totally different technique of measuring. Enterprise has one easy metric Philanthropy can’t have, however that doesn’t imply it could actually’t be effective. There are three parts to effective philanthropy: have a aim, have a story about the way to obtain it and have a approach to measure progress. The criterion for the last, he argued, is ‘reasonableness under the circumstances.’ Don’t mislead yourselves and don’t drive it. Settle for that there can be some fuzziness. He urged the viewers to assume when it comes to learning, not of success or failure.

Prizes If the ethos of the non-profit sector is – or should be – collaboration, the MacArthur Foundation has discovered competition can typically be helpful. Its 100 and Change prize gives $100 million for any answer to any drawback, defined Celia Conrad. The primary winner in 2017 was the Sesame Workshop. Along with sparking innovation, the applicants, even the unsuccessful ones, can generate invaluable concepts which could possibly be shared. For the winners themselves, the prize money will help deliver in more funds, as has happened for Sesame Workshop. Lisa George from the MacQuarie Group Basis in Australia had launched an identical, though more modest ($10 million) prize to mark its 50th anniversary. Like MacArthur, that they had been stunned by the high quality and breadth of the purposes. The shortlist of finalists had included initiatives as numerous as the Ocean Cleanup, Human Rights Watch and Woman Impact.

It’s a high-stakes recreation although, cautioned Safeena Hussain of Educate Women, a profitable applicant to the Audacious Challenge run by TED for its efforts to deliver 1.5 million women back into the faculty system in India. Whereas the software process may also help NGOs assume by way of what they do, additionally it is time-consuming. ‘If we hadn’t gained, we might have struggled,’ she stated, ‘because we had invested so much in the process for over a year.’ She urged funders to think about the value of the acquisition of their money.

Previous power, new energy The nature of power is changing and donors and buyers want to adjust to cope with the shift, says Jeremy Heimans of Function. Previous power is formal, specialist, non-participatory. It’s what he termed energy as foreign money. Harvey Weinstein is previous power (an unsympathetic instance in case you have been wondering which aspect you should be on). New power is transparent, casual, fluid, participatory, or energy as present, as he put it. Examples embrace #MeToo, Occupy and Airbnb. The longer term might be a battle for mobilisation, he predicted and the drawback philanthropists want to unravel is find out how to work with new power.

Workshops The final day of the convention offered the probability to work in more element in a collection of workshop throughout the morning and afternoon. As with the breakout and plenary periods, these coated a variety of subjects, among them, options journalism and the influence of storytelling, methods to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic follow, utilizing finance as a software to deal with gender-based violence, and figuring out impression funding opportunities in Asia. Each of the ones I attended proved fascinating and involving. In a single, Eric Nee, editor of Stanford Social Innovation Evaluate (SSIR) and Fan Li, his counterpart on the Chinese language version of SSIR, introduced the concept of options journalism. Moderately than providing exposés of issues, as traditional journalism tended to do, Nee defined, options journalism – nicely, the clue is in the identify – focuses on the response to the drawback, goes into element on how the response works and supplies lessons and frameworks, not just inspiration. He and Fan Li also outlined ways on presenting concepts in order that they might persist with the audience, telling tales that have been credible, concrete, simple and arresting.

‘Make expectations clear at the outset, listen more than you talk and be clear and consistent in your dealings with the grantee.’

The workshop on the effectiveness of philanthropy, introduced by Lindsay Louie of the Hewlett Basis, looked at 4 parts of Hewlett’s follow, values, strategy, measurement and grant apply. Louie underlined the importance that Hewlett attaches to analysis, spending two per cent of its finances on the difficulty. Moreover, Hewlett periodically evaluates its own evaluations. Evaluations need to watch three criteria, she steered: utility, acceptability and suitability. In different phrases, assessment needs to fit the intervention in question, it has to make respondents really feel part of the venture and it must be tied to implementation. When it comes to how one can be a great grantmaker, she provided the following: be responsive, show curiosity about the grantee organisation, not just the programme, make expectations clear at the outset, pay attention more than you speak and be clear and constant in your dealings with the grantee.

Consuming the conference As regular, AVPN offered an array of periods and subjects that have been virtually overwhelming in quantity and selection. When you’re catering for as giant and numerous an viewers as the conference attracts, it’s a must to put on an enormous menu.

It was thoughtfully set out, although. The subjects, although assorted, by no means strayed removed from the major themes of the convention. It appeared to me, too, that this yr, it was higher paced, with fewer, but longer periods which allowed larger discussion and there was an urgency and a conviction about proceedings which was putting. There were additionally more – and welcome – modifications of tempo, with a larger number of participatory periods. The standard of the periods, as all the time, depends on the presenters. Everyone could have their very own highlights, in response to taste. For me, James Chen’s and Larry Kramer’s keynotes, the workshops, and the local weather finance and the listening to the voices of grantees breakout periods stood out.

‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In the event you’re expecting inventory market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’

One panellist remarked that you would put all of the individuals into three bins – those that want money, those that have it to provide and those who mediate in numerous capacities between them. He could also be proper, however those are very huge bins, accommodating many differing kinds and sizes of organisation – funders, non-profits, investment managers of different stripes, researchers, CSR officers and consultants and native and regional social enterprises who have been pitching to the ‘deal share’platform all added to the combine. A trademark of the AVPN conference remains its power and its curiosity. There’s a willingness to satisfy and to strike up conversations that isn’t all the time apparent at different gatherings. Little question individuals convey this with them, however AVPN deserves some credit score for offering the setting and the environment to allow them to do so.

One factor extra: Quite a few audio system appealed to an financial, fairly than a normative, rationale for addressing the points discussed which – for me – felt jarring. True, there were a lot of people in the room accustomed to considering in monetary phrases and each mode of life has its own conceptual body and its personal vocabulary. Perhaps, too, they thought the message of the social sector can be heard more readily by mainstream capital if it have been couched in phrases it might readily grasp. In any respect events, it felt at occasions like listeners have been being urged to take on social issues for the sake of worldwide GDP, slightly than for causes extra primarily human.

Clearly, it is going to take more than two or three days to break the boundaries between the social and mainstream investment worlds. Even those already on the social and impression funding bus – so to speak – weren’t all the time clear about the place to take a seat, who to take a seat with, or even what route the bus should take to its vacation spot. One participant I spoke to had a easy rule of thumb: ‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In case you’re anticipating stock market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’ But if members are typically hazy about their very own roles and nomenclature and the difficulties of bringing others who are presently outdoors the ambit of social investment (nevertheless outlined) remain unresolved, certainly one of the things the convention made clear is that working in widespread takes time and plenty of conversations. You must start someplace. AVPN’s convention was a firm and essential first step.

The post Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda appeared first on Android Smart Gears.

[ourwinterana0universe]

Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda

20 minute read

This text was initially featured on Alliance Magazine here.

The 2019 AVPN conference in Singapore put its cards firmly on the table from the begin.

The main target can be on massive themes: schooling, gender equality, hunger and malnutrition, and climate change – most of all on climate change. From the first session, speaker after speaker reminded us that we solely have 15 years through which to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions before the effects of local weather change turn out to be irreversible.

Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets

And Asia is at the sharp end. The struggle to combat climate change shall be gained and lost there, stated Maria Athena Ballesteros, of the Growald Household Fund. Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets, noted that the country had declared 2018 an official yr of climate motion. Rising sea ranges and rising temperatures (the island state is heating up twice as shortly as the rest of the world, she stated) posed a menace to its future. It’s investing in solar power and expanding its public transport community so that eight out of each 10 Singaporeans can be inside strolling distance of a railway station. But, she stated, the authorities could not do it alone. It needed the help of both enterprise and civil society. Fung Wing-ah of BRACE Hong Kong defined that the funding firm had now aligned its whole portfolio on local weather change mitigation and, like Minister Khor, also careworn that the efforts of one sector alone wouldn’t be enough. Enter another key conference theme: all of the issues beneath discussion will require partnerships that contain not just cash but joint motion.

Later in the conference, Christine Heenan of the Rockefeller Foundation additionally touched on both of those in a keynote speech. The challenge is not to find options to local weather change, she argued. These exist already. The problem is to deliver them to scale. That’s the place partnerships come into play, partnerships based on mutual respect, complementary strengths and synergy.

Words to deeds The convention also marked the launch of AVPN’s local weather motion platform. Naina Batra, AVPN chair and CEO, signalled the want for a deeper and extra lively dedication which was evident all by means of proceedings. The platform, she stated, will probably be greater than a bit of symbolism, a board which all members have been invited to signal as an earnest of their solidarity, it should attempt to attach all the sectors, offering funding opportunities and information. However, she added, to achieve success, ‘it needs your engagement’. She spoke of the power of networks, which not solely deliver individuals collectively (her welcoming remarks have been addressed to 1348 delegates from 48 nations, itself a token of the formidable convening power of AVPN), they convey campaigns together and they bridge divides. However convening is just not enough. We have to catalyse and allow action. We need to cooperate, to behave urgently, whereas not dropping endurance and we have to make change irresistible.

Eileen Rockefeller Growald of the Growald Family Fund (GFF) struck a constructive word: ‘we can and are finding climate solutions together,’ she insisted. GFF is seeding social enterprises and innovators and collaborating with them and with funders to further climate options. The obstacles, nevertheless, remain formidable.  Know-how must be delivered to bear more shortly, stated Dan Choon of Cycle Group. Know-how transfer presently takes too lengthy – historically, 45-60 years to get to 20 per cent market penetration. We have to transfer a lot quicker. In the similar session, Britt Groosman of the Environmental Defense Fund spoke of the difficulties of shifting finance in the direction of measures to combat climate change. The subsequent-best factor, she stated, is to induce sectors who produce large-scale emissions, like aviation and delivery to think about carbon pricing, indeed there are indicators that they are doing so. Geoffrey Seeto of New Forests Asia endorsed this from his personal expertise. A variety of airways, one among which is Indigo in India, have agreed to offset their carbon emissions from 2020 and they see funding forestry from the proceeds of pricing carbon as part of doing that. Nevertheless, while funding carbon sequestration at scale is a confirmed technique of local weather change mitigation, only three per cent of local weather finance presently goes into it.

Ideas for attracting finance for local weather solutions brainstormed amongst all members in the session ranged from coaching grassroots installers of solar panels, debt aid for governments funding clean power and banks cooperating to offer concessionary ESG bonds.

Breaking boundaries Along with what we have to do, there’s the additional question of the place we’ll get the assets to do it. AVPN COO, Kevin Teo reminded the viewers that, if the SDGs are to be achieved, an estimated $2.5 trillion per yr will probably be needed (he was not the just one to cite this figure over the coming days). Giant buyers, subsequently, will need to make giant investments with proportionally huge influence and the convention title, Breaking Boundaries, signalled the need to attract those buyers – public and personal – into the social and environmental sphere. How to do this shaped one other strand linking convention proceedings. For its half. AVPN has been actively working with buyers in each these sectors, making an attempt to hyperlink personal influence or would-be impression buyers with social businesses on the one aspect and continuing to press forward with the APx coverage discussion board on the different.

Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own needs quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have?

James Chen, Founder of Clearly.

In his quest to ‘privatise failure and socialise success’ James Chen referred to as on philanthropists to train their much-touted capability for danger. ‘If you are serious about impact,’ he stated, ‘high risk is where the real returns occur.’ He provided Gates Basis’s work with malaria as a mannequin of catalytic philanthropy and an example of how ‘perseverance and domain expertise’ might have great influence. His personal organisation, Clearly, which aims to deliver low-cost imaginative and prescient correction to poor communities round the world, had overcome initial objections from funders, amongst them the World Financial institution, that there was no proof for the impact of imaginative and prescient correction programmes and no model of the intervention in low-income nations, by providing each in the form of Vision for a Nation, a programme run collectively with the authorities of Rwanda, and a serious research in the Lancet. Each, he stated, had helped to de-risk investment in sight correction.

Suitability and sustainability How are you going to construct a philanthropic culture when the word ‘philanthropy’ is barely understood, or has connotations of charity and patronage because it does in both Myanmar and Indonesia? The questions have been asked in a breakout session on unlocking native philanthropic funding in South-East Asia. In a spot like Myanmar the place investment and philanthropy are both discovering their ft, individuals have to build good companies, not just give away cash from successful ones, argued Aung Htun of Myanmar Investments. Ruel Maranan of the Ayala Foundation (Philippines) agreed, noting that the younger era is extra aware of the concept of social impression, so change is on the method. A more direct means of encouraging giving, believes Victor Hartono of the Djarum Basis in Indonesia, is for governments to offer tax incentives, a problem to which Veronica Colondam of YCAB Foundation in Indonesia would return later in the conference. The restrictive surroundings for philanthropy in that nation has meant, amongst different things, that YCAB took longer to find a suitable technique and type for its operation, since there are not any endowments.

Ertharin Cousin, Energy of Vitamin.

Inevitably, there was a lot speak of sustainability over the three and half days of the convention. It was Ruel Maranan who matched it with the notion of suitability. Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own wants quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have? It makes for larger engagement: ‘they [communities] are already involved and open,’ and if all stakeholders are concerned, all of them win, he argued. The theme of suitability also arose in discussion of the question of influence. Victor Hartono urged donors to assume ‘what’s applicable for you’ as well as for beneficiaries. Djarum, which has pioneered a form of vocational faculty that the authorities is now copying, crops timber as part of its local weather change mitigation efforts. It’s inside reach whereas funding in a more refined carbon seize know-how will not be.

The themes of collaboration and ‘feet on the ground’ have been additionally in proof in the session. Hartono spoke of the importance of ‘staying local. You are there, your people are there.’

The malnourished and the hungry 81.7 million youngsters in Asia endure from stunting because of malnutrition, stated Ertharin Cousin, previously of the World Food Programme and now a board member of the Energy of Vitamin. Opening a discussion on investing for higher vitamin, she introduced that the international value of malnutrition is now a staggering $three.5 trillion per yr, leaving apart the value in distress and suffering. We have to reform the international meals system, she stated, and we will’t do it without personal sector funding and involvement. To get it, we’d like agreed metrics outlined based on business rules. One other method, instructed both Martin Brief, CEO of the Energy of Vitamin and Rebecca Boustead of Kellogg, may be appealing to buyers’ bottom line, mentioning the economic effects of the drawback. Ertharin Cousin also sees nothing incorrect in corporations taking advantage of social investments, as long as they work and social benefits accrue.

If self-interest was a approach into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra of their malnourished communities?

For Rebecca Boustead, there are two questions. How can we make meals which is both nutritious and appealing, and how can we get it to small village markets? She spoke of partnerships which Kellogg had with the Breakfast Revolution and with the Sesame Workshop. In the former case, meals was attending to the hard-to-reach and in the second, the message of the significance of vitamin was being conveyed.

If self-interest was a means into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra in their malnourished communities? ‘Engage, engage, engage – with hard data’, was Ertharin Cousin’s recipe. Give them sensible solutions that help them get monetary savings, instructed Rebecca Boustead, a prescription not up to now faraway from that advocated by individuals for use with the personal sector.

Impression investing: time, transparency and demonstration These three issues are wanted to ramp up influence funding throughout all sectors. Whereas it is perhaps true to say, as Richard Ditzio of the Milken Institute, who chaired the subsequent panel discussion, did, that there is spare capital and it needs to spend money on sustainability, there are still obstacles. Didier von Daeniken, additionally of Normal Chartered questioned how banks and monetary institutions might help shoppers translate words like sustainability, influence investing and philanthropy into language they might perceive. Measurement continues to be a sticking level, he noted, as is the lack of knowledge about funding alternatives. Angela Bai of China Alliance of Social Worth Funding (CASVI) and Roy Swan of the Ford Foundation each endorsed this in a later session. Bai added a 3rd challenge: the problem of creating investments scalable.

Doug Lee of D3Jubilee Partners, an impression enterprise fund in South Korea famous a Catch-22 state of affairs arising. First-time funds have the lowest price of return, so buyers draw back, but if funds can’t appeal to buyers, how are they to succeed? Foundations have the added problem of persuading the trustees. Roy Swan associated that it took two years to induce Ford’s trustees to release eight per cent of the foundation’s endowment to dedicate to influence investing! Frank Niederlander of BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt agreed that endurance is needed and caution. The pioneer buyers, he stated, have to be apostles. They will’t afford to fail.

Many banks in Asia (native and worldwide) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable funding.

Rashesh Shah (proper) CEO of Edelweiss.

All that stated, there is progress. Rashesh Shah of Edelweiss (India) famous that particular person buyers are asking extra of their banks. Banks themselves, represented by Jose Vinals of Normal Chartered, can earn a living and assist save the world at the similar time, he stated. From doing no harm, Commonplace Chartered is now shifting in the direction of being a pressure for good. He referred to as for benchmarks on inexperienced bonds, tips for company disclosure and higher sustainability built into the financial system.  This remark itself is progress, says Annie Chen (RS Group, Hong Kong). She noted that she could not have imagined listening to a financial institution saying it ought to do good 10 years ago. The Sustainable Finance Initiative in Hong Kong which RS launched a yr earlier helps to spread the word on influence investing amongst household workplaces there and to foment a strong impression investment group. She famous, nevertheless, that many banks in Asia (local and international) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable investment. Didier von Daeniken agreed. Communication is their largest drawback. Normal Chartered’s research among its Asian shoppers, nevertheless, means that 20 per cent of respondents at the moment are allocating some investment in the direction of the SDGs and that there’s higher understanding of impression investing.

There are different grounds for optimism. Each Annie Chen and Eliza Foo of Temasek International (Singapore) see hope in the evident want for change, particularly among the younger, and in the tempo of change. And there’s a lot at stake. If influence investing actually takes maintain, stated Amit Bouri of the International Influence Investing Community (GIIN), we’d change the means the financial markets work.

Measurement The challenge the convention returned to most frequently, although, was measurement of impression. Eric Rice of Wellington Management Singapore noted little progress on this, but influence is ‘what distinguishes this segment. We won’t get mainstream capital if we don’t determine it out, he warned. Moreover, new era donors are notably eager on impression, stated Giovanni Zenteno from LGT Enterprise Philanthropy. On the plus aspect, should you can present it, money is extra more likely to come your means.

Adam McCarty of Mekong Economics, whom I had marked down as a hard-shell pragmatist from previous periods, has a barely totally different take. We do influence measurement, he stated, because that’s the deal of influence investing. If you would like free or low cost cash, it’s a must to answer for the good you’re doing. Most influence measurement at the second is rudimentary, he advised and extra refined means gained’t emerge until donors demand it. Usually, panellists agreed, influence measurement is donor-driven, though Ronald Abraham of iDinsight in India feels that each side have to take it critically. He sees three essential challenges: first, impression evaluation is sluggish. It may take between one and three years, by which era the programme has changed. Second, the quality of the knowledge is usually poor. Third, it’s costly, though it could actually repay expenditure by the NPO, even if it doesn’t lead to extra funding. Idinsight had labored with Educate Women on a machine-learning venture which has enabled them to work with more youngsters on their price range, regardless of the initial value of the train.

Collaborative philanthropy For those who ask donors whether or not they practise collaboration, all of them say ‘yes’, stated Nadia Roumani of the Institute of Design at Stanford, though a show of arms in a breakout session on the matter revealed that only half a dozen or so out of an viewers of 50-60 are actually pooling assets. Why so few when it’s clear that more may be completed by working with others? The chief purpose given in the session was lack of management. Smaller contributors worry being swamped by larger ones, moreover, it is troublesome to reconcile giving unrestricted grants from the pool with the specific needs of particular person donors? Co-Influence tries to bypass this by allowing smaller contributors to vote on where they want their funds to go within the framework of the programme, stated Anne-Marie Harling of Co-Influence. Individuals also want a specific amount of humility. Erin Hulme of the Gates Basis stated that in the collaboration on polio involving Gates, WHO and UNICEF, the foundation had been prepared to ‘go where the expertise lies’ and did not want to steer. Boon Heong Ng of Temasek Worldwide agreed. Temasek was originally the sole donor of Challenge Silver Display in Singapore which works to fight listening to deficiencies amongst the elderly. Silver Display now includes other corporations, the Ministry of Well being and individuals’s associations, all of whom deliver totally different sorts of expertise.

Regardless of apparent advantages, collaboration remains troublesome, especially amongst establishments.

It’s not just massive funders who can benefit from collaboration. Ludwig Forrest of the King Baudouin Basis (KBF) explained the concept of umbrella foundations. These permit modest donors to pool assets beneath the aegis of a bigger entity like KBF and to provide to causes they have in widespread. It’s a approach of democratising philanthropy, he stated. KBF presently has 750 smaller foundations sheltering underneath its umbrella.

Regardless of obvious advantages, collaboration stays troublesome, especially amongst establishments. Establishing collaborations requires giving a number of thought to the construction, which must be clear, yet flexible sufficient to adapt, stated Nadia Roumani.

Larry Kramer, President of the Hewlett Foundation.

What’s efficient philanthropy? For these – and there have been many – who had been urging the non-profit to be more like the for-profit sector, Larry Kramer of the Hewlett Basis, had some words of warning. ‘It’s an enormous mistake,’ he stated. ‘We all want to be efficient but that’s not enterprise, it’s good organisational considering.’ Non- and for-profit organisations have totally different strategies, totally different areas of work and, most essential, totally different technique of measuring. Enterprise has one easy metric Philanthropy can’t have, however that doesn’t imply it could actually’t be effective. There are three parts to effective philanthropy: have a aim, have a story about the way to obtain it and have a approach to measure progress. The criterion for the last, he argued, is ‘reasonableness under the circumstances.’ Don’t mislead yourselves and don’t drive it. Settle for that there can be some fuzziness. He urged the viewers to assume when it comes to learning, not of success or failure.

Prizes If the ethos of the non-profit sector is – or should be – collaboration, the MacArthur Foundation has discovered competition can typically be helpful. Its 100 and Change prize gives $100 million for any answer to any drawback, defined Celia Conrad. The primary winner in 2017 was the Sesame Workshop. Along with sparking innovation, the applicants, even the unsuccessful ones, can generate invaluable concepts which could possibly be shared. For the winners themselves, the prize money will help deliver in more funds, as has happened for Sesame Workshop. Lisa George from the MacQuarie Group Basis in Australia had launched an identical, though more modest ($10 million) prize to mark its 50th anniversary. Like MacArthur, that they had been stunned by the high quality and breadth of the purposes. The shortlist of finalists had included initiatives as numerous as the Ocean Cleanup, Human Rights Watch and Woman Impact.

It’s a high-stakes recreation although, cautioned Safeena Hussain of Educate Women, a profitable applicant to the Audacious Challenge run by TED for its efforts to deliver 1.5 million women back into the faculty system in India. Whereas the software process may also help NGOs assume by way of what they do, additionally it is time-consuming. ‘If we hadn’t gained, we might have struggled,’ she stated, ‘because we had invested so much in the process for over a year.’ She urged funders to think about the value of the acquisition of their money.

Previous power, new energy The nature of power is changing and donors and buyers want to adjust to cope with the shift, says Jeremy Heimans of Function. Previous power is formal, specialist, non-participatory. It’s what he termed energy as foreign money. Harvey Weinstein is previous power (an unsympathetic instance in case you have been wondering which aspect you should be on). New power is transparent, casual, fluid, participatory, or energy as present, as he put it. Examples embrace #MeToo, Occupy and Airbnb. The longer term might be a battle for mobilisation, he predicted and the drawback philanthropists want to unravel is find out how to work with new power.

Workshops The final day of the convention offered the probability to work in more element in a collection of workshop throughout the morning and afternoon. As with the breakout and plenary periods, these coated a variety of subjects, among them, options journalism and the influence of storytelling, methods to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic follow, utilizing finance as a software to deal with gender-based violence, and figuring out impression funding opportunities in Asia. Each of the ones I attended proved fascinating and involving. In a single, Eric Nee, editor of Stanford Social Innovation Evaluate (SSIR) and Fan Li, his counterpart on the Chinese language version of SSIR, introduced the concept of options journalism. Moderately than providing exposés of issues, as traditional journalism tended to do, Nee defined, options journalism – nicely, the clue is in the identify – focuses on the response to the drawback, goes into element on how the response works and supplies lessons and frameworks, not just inspiration. He and Fan Li also outlined ways on presenting concepts in order that they might persist with the audience, telling tales that have been credible, concrete, simple and arresting.

‘Make expectations clear at the outset, listen more than you talk and be clear and consistent in your dealings with the grantee.’

The workshop on the effectiveness of philanthropy, introduced by Lindsay Louie of the Hewlett Basis, looked at 4 parts of Hewlett’s follow, values, strategy, measurement and grant apply. Louie underlined the importance that Hewlett attaches to analysis, spending two per cent of its finances on the difficulty. Moreover, Hewlett periodically evaluates its own evaluations. Evaluations need to watch three criteria, she steered: utility, acceptability and suitability. In different phrases, assessment needs to fit the intervention in question, it has to make respondents really feel part of the venture and it must be tied to implementation. When it comes to how one can be a great grantmaker, she provided the following: be responsive, show curiosity about the grantee organisation, not just the programme, make expectations clear at the outset, pay attention more than you speak and be clear and constant in your dealings with the grantee.

Consuming the conference As regular, AVPN offered an array of periods and subjects that have been virtually overwhelming in quantity and selection. When you’re catering for as giant and numerous an viewers as the conference attracts, it’s a must to put on an enormous menu.

It was thoughtfully set out, although. The subjects, although assorted, by no means strayed removed from the major themes of the convention. It appeared to me, too, that this yr, it was higher paced, with fewer, but longer periods which allowed larger discussion and there was an urgency and a conviction about proceedings which was putting. There were additionally more – and welcome – modifications of tempo, with a larger number of participatory periods. The standard of the periods, as all the time, depends on the presenters. Everyone could have their very own highlights, in response to taste. For me, James Chen’s and Larry Kramer’s keynotes, the workshops, and the local weather finance and the listening to the voices of grantees breakout periods stood out.

‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In the event you’re expecting inventory market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’

One panellist remarked that you would put all of the individuals into three bins – those that want money, those that have it to provide and those who mediate in numerous capacities between them. He could also be proper, however those are very huge bins, accommodating many differing kinds and sizes of organisation – funders, non-profits, investment managers of different stripes, researchers, CSR officers and consultants and native and regional social enterprises who have been pitching to the ‘deal share’platform all added to the combine. A trademark of the AVPN conference remains its power and its curiosity. There’s a willingness to satisfy and to strike up conversations that isn’t all the time apparent at different gatherings. Little question individuals convey this with them, however AVPN deserves some credit score for offering the setting and the environment to allow them to do so.

One factor extra: Quite a few audio system appealed to an financial, fairly than a normative, rationale for addressing the points discussed which – for me – felt jarring. True, there were a lot of people in the room accustomed to considering in monetary phrases and each mode of life has its own conceptual body and its personal vocabulary. Perhaps, too, they thought the message of the social sector can be heard more readily by mainstream capital if it have been couched in phrases it might readily grasp. In any respect events, it felt at occasions like listeners have been being urged to take on social issues for the sake of worldwide GDP, slightly than for causes extra primarily human.

Clearly, it is going to take more than two or three days to break the boundaries between the social and mainstream investment worlds. Even those already on the social and impression funding bus – so to speak – weren’t all the time clear about the place to take a seat, who to take a seat with, or even what route the bus should take to its vacation spot. One participant I spoke to had a easy rule of thumb: ‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In case you’re anticipating stock market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’ But if members are typically hazy about their very own roles and nomenclature and the difficulties of bringing others who are presently outdoors the ambit of social investment (nevertheless outlined) remain unresolved, certainly one of the things the convention made clear is that working in widespread takes time and plenty of conversations. You must start someplace. AVPN’s convention was a firm and essential first step.

The post Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda appeared first on Android Smart Gears.

[dreadsleepblog-blog]

Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda

20 minute read

This text was initially featured on Alliance Magazine here.

The 2019 AVPN conference in Singapore put its cards firmly on the table from the begin.

The main target can be on massive themes: schooling, gender equality, hunger and malnutrition, and climate change – most of all on climate change. From the first session, speaker after speaker reminded us that we solely have 15 years through which to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions before the effects of local weather change turn out to be irreversible.

Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets

And Asia is at the sharp end. The struggle to combat climate change shall be gained and lost there, stated Maria Athena Ballesteros, of the Growald Household Fund. Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets, noted that the country had declared 2018 an official yr of climate motion. Rising sea ranges and rising temperatures (the island state is heating up twice as shortly as the rest of the world, she stated) posed a menace to its future. It’s investing in solar power and expanding its public transport community so that eight out of each 10 Singaporeans can be inside strolling distance of a railway station. But, she stated, the authorities could not do it alone. It needed the help of both enterprise and civil society. Fung Wing-ah of BRACE Hong Kong defined that the funding firm had now aligned its whole portfolio on local weather change mitigation and, like Minister Khor, also careworn that the efforts of one sector alone wouldn’t be enough. Enter another key conference theme: all of the issues beneath discussion will require partnerships that contain not just cash but joint motion.

Later in the conference, Christine Heenan of the Rockefeller Foundation additionally touched on both of those in a keynote speech. The challenge is not to find options to local weather change, she argued. These exist already. The problem is to deliver them to scale. That’s the place partnerships come into play, partnerships based on mutual respect, complementary strengths and synergy.

Words to deeds The convention also marked the launch of AVPN’s local weather motion platform. Naina Batra, AVPN chair and CEO, signalled the want for a deeper and extra lively dedication which was evident all by means of proceedings. The platform, she stated, will probably be greater than a bit of symbolism, a board which all members have been invited to signal as an earnest of their solidarity, it should attempt to attach all the sectors, offering funding opportunities and information. However, she added, to achieve success, ‘it needs your engagement’. She spoke of the power of networks, which not solely deliver individuals collectively (her welcoming remarks have been addressed to 1348 delegates from 48 nations, itself a token of the formidable convening power of AVPN), they convey campaigns together and they bridge divides. However convening is just not enough. We have to catalyse and allow action. We need to cooperate, to behave urgently, whereas not dropping endurance and we have to make change irresistible.

Eileen Rockefeller Growald of the Growald Family Fund (GFF) struck a constructive word: ‘we can and are finding climate solutions together,’ she insisted. GFF is seeding social enterprises and innovators and collaborating with them and with funders to further climate options. The obstacles, nevertheless, remain formidable.  Know-how must be delivered to bear more shortly, stated Dan Choon of Cycle Group. Know-how transfer presently takes too lengthy – historically, 45-60 years to get to 20 per cent market penetration. We have to transfer a lot quicker. In the similar session, Britt Groosman of the Environmental Defense Fund spoke of the difficulties of shifting finance in the direction of measures to combat climate change. The subsequent-best factor, she stated, is to induce sectors who produce large-scale emissions, like aviation and delivery to think about carbon pricing, indeed there are indicators that they are doing so. Geoffrey Seeto of New Forests Asia endorsed this from his personal expertise. A variety of airways, one among which is Indigo in India, have agreed to offset their carbon emissions from 2020 and they see funding forestry from the proceeds of pricing carbon as part of doing that. Nevertheless, while funding carbon sequestration at scale is a confirmed technique of local weather change mitigation, only three per cent of local weather finance presently goes into it.

Ideas for attracting finance for local weather solutions brainstormed amongst all members in the session ranged from coaching grassroots installers of solar panels, debt aid for governments funding clean power and banks cooperating to offer concessionary ESG bonds.

Breaking boundaries Along with what we have to do, there’s the additional question of the place we’ll get the assets to do it. AVPN COO, Kevin Teo reminded the viewers that, if the SDGs are to be achieved, an estimated $2.5 trillion per yr will probably be needed (he was not the just one to cite this figure over the coming days). Giant buyers, subsequently, will need to make giant investments with proportionally huge influence and the convention title, Breaking Boundaries, signalled the need to attract those buyers – public and personal – into the social and environmental sphere. How to do this shaped one other strand linking convention proceedings. For its half. AVPN has been actively working with buyers in each these sectors, making an attempt to hyperlink personal influence or would-be impression buyers with social businesses on the one aspect and continuing to press forward with the APx coverage discussion board on the different.

Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own needs quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have?

James Chen, Founder of Clearly.

In his quest to ‘privatise failure and socialise success’ James Chen referred to as on philanthropists to train their much-touted capability for danger. ‘If you are serious about impact,’ he stated, ‘high risk is where the real returns occur.’ He provided Gates Basis’s work with malaria as a mannequin of catalytic philanthropy and an example of how ‘perseverance and domain expertise’ might have great influence. His personal organisation, Clearly, which aims to deliver low-cost imaginative and prescient correction to poor communities round the world, had overcome initial objections from funders, amongst them the World Financial institution, that there was no proof for the impact of imaginative and prescient correction programmes and no model of the intervention in low-income nations, by providing each in the form of Vision for a Nation, a programme run collectively with the authorities of Rwanda, and a serious research in the Lancet. Each, he stated, had helped to de-risk investment in sight correction.

Suitability and sustainability How are you going to construct a philanthropic culture when the word ‘philanthropy’ is barely understood, or has connotations of charity and patronage because it does in both Myanmar and Indonesia? The questions have been asked in a breakout session on unlocking native philanthropic funding in South-East Asia. In a spot like Myanmar the place investment and philanthropy are both discovering their ft, individuals have to build good companies, not just give away cash from successful ones, argued Aung Htun of Myanmar Investments. Ruel Maranan of the Ayala Foundation (Philippines) agreed, noting that the younger era is extra aware of the concept of social impression, so change is on the method. A more direct means of encouraging giving, believes Victor Hartono of the Djarum Basis in Indonesia, is for governments to offer tax incentives, a problem to which Veronica Colondam of YCAB Foundation in Indonesia would return later in the conference. The restrictive surroundings for philanthropy in that nation has meant, amongst different things, that YCAB took longer to find a suitable technique and type for its operation, since there are not any endowments.

Ertharin Cousin, Energy of Vitamin.

Inevitably, there was a lot speak of sustainability over the three and half days of the convention. It was Ruel Maranan who matched it with the notion of suitability. Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own wants quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have? It makes for larger engagement: ‘they [communities] are already involved and open,’ and if all stakeholders are concerned, all of them win, he argued. The theme of suitability also arose in discussion of the question of influence. Victor Hartono urged donors to assume ‘what’s applicable for you’ as well as for beneficiaries. Djarum, which has pioneered a form of vocational faculty that the authorities is now copying, crops timber as part of its local weather change mitigation efforts. It’s inside reach whereas funding in a more refined carbon seize know-how will not be.

The themes of collaboration and ‘feet on the ground’ have been additionally in proof in the session. Hartono spoke of the importance of ‘staying local. You are there, your people are there.’

The malnourished and the hungry 81.7 million youngsters in Asia endure from stunting because of malnutrition, stated Ertharin Cousin, previously of the World Food Programme and now a board member of the Energy of Vitamin. Opening a discussion on investing for higher vitamin, she introduced that the international value of malnutrition is now a staggering $three.5 trillion per yr, leaving apart the value in distress and suffering. We have to reform the international meals system, she stated, and we will’t do it without personal sector funding and involvement. To get it, we’d like agreed metrics outlined based on business rules. One other method, instructed both Martin Brief, CEO of the Energy of Vitamin and Rebecca Boustead of Kellogg, may be appealing to buyers’ bottom line, mentioning the economic effects of the drawback. Ertharin Cousin also sees nothing incorrect in corporations taking advantage of social investments, as long as they work and social benefits accrue.

If self-interest was a approach into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra of their malnourished communities?

For Rebecca Boustead, there are two questions. How can we make meals which is both nutritious and appealing, and how can we get it to small village markets? She spoke of partnerships which Kellogg had with the Breakfast Revolution and with the Sesame Workshop. In the former case, meals was attending to the hard-to-reach and in the second, the message of the significance of vitamin was being conveyed.

If self-interest was a means into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra in their malnourished communities? ‘Engage, engage, engage – with hard data’, was Ertharin Cousin’s recipe. Give them sensible solutions that help them get monetary savings, instructed Rebecca Boustead, a prescription not up to now faraway from that advocated by individuals for use with the personal sector.

Impression investing: time, transparency and demonstration These three issues are wanted to ramp up influence funding throughout all sectors. Whereas it is perhaps true to say, as Richard Ditzio of the Milken Institute, who chaired the subsequent panel discussion, did, that there is spare capital and it needs to spend money on sustainability, there are still obstacles. Didier von Daeniken, additionally of Normal Chartered questioned how banks and monetary institutions might help shoppers translate words like sustainability, influence investing and philanthropy into language they might perceive. Measurement continues to be a sticking level, he noted, as is the lack of knowledge about funding alternatives. Angela Bai of China Alliance of Social Worth Funding (CASVI) and Roy Swan of the Ford Foundation each endorsed this in a later session. Bai added a 3rd challenge: the problem of creating investments scalable.

Doug Lee of D3Jubilee Partners, an impression enterprise fund in South Korea famous a Catch-22 state of affairs arising. First-time funds have the lowest price of return, so buyers draw back, but if funds can’t appeal to buyers, how are they to succeed? Foundations have the added problem of persuading the trustees. Roy Swan associated that it took two years to induce Ford’s trustees to release eight per cent of the foundation’s endowment to dedicate to influence investing! Frank Niederlander of BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt agreed that endurance is needed and caution. The pioneer buyers, he stated, have to be apostles. They will’t afford to fail.

Many banks in Asia (native and worldwide) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable funding.

Rashesh Shah (proper) CEO of Edelweiss.

All that stated, there is progress. Rashesh Shah of Edelweiss (India) famous that particular person buyers are asking extra of their banks. Banks themselves, represented by Jose Vinals of Normal Chartered, can earn a living and assist save the world at the similar time, he stated. From doing no harm, Commonplace Chartered is now shifting in the direction of being a pressure for good. He referred to as for benchmarks on inexperienced bonds, tips for company disclosure and higher sustainability built into the financial system.  This remark itself is progress, says Annie Chen (RS Group, Hong Kong). She noted that she could not have imagined listening to a financial institution saying it ought to do good 10 years ago. The Sustainable Finance Initiative in Hong Kong which RS launched a yr earlier helps to spread the word on influence investing amongst household workplaces there and to foment a strong impression investment group. She famous, nevertheless, that many banks in Asia (local and international) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable investment. Didier von Daeniken agreed. Communication is their largest drawback. Normal Chartered’s research among its Asian shoppers, nevertheless, means that 20 per cent of respondents at the moment are allocating some investment in the direction of the SDGs and that there’s higher understanding of impression investing.

There are different grounds for optimism. Each Annie Chen and Eliza Foo of Temasek International (Singapore) see hope in the evident want for change, particularly among the younger, and in the tempo of change. And there’s a lot at stake. If influence investing actually takes maintain, stated Amit Bouri of the International Influence Investing Community (GIIN), we’d change the means the financial markets work.

Measurement The challenge the convention returned to most frequently, although, was measurement of impression. Eric Rice of Wellington Management Singapore noted little progress on this, but influence is ‘what distinguishes this segment. We won’t get mainstream capital if we don’t determine it out, he warned. Moreover, new era donors are notably eager on impression, stated Giovanni Zenteno from LGT Enterprise Philanthropy. On the plus aspect, should you can present it, money is extra more likely to come your means.

Adam McCarty of Mekong Economics, whom I had marked down as a hard-shell pragmatist from previous periods, has a barely totally different take. We do influence measurement, he stated, because that’s the deal of influence investing. If you would like free or low cost cash, it’s a must to answer for the good you’re doing. Most influence measurement at the second is rudimentary, he advised and extra refined means gained’t emerge until donors demand it. Usually, panellists agreed, influence measurement is donor-driven, though Ronald Abraham of iDinsight in India feels that each side have to take it critically. He sees three essential challenges: first, impression evaluation is sluggish. It may take between one and three years, by which era the programme has changed. Second, the quality of the knowledge is usually poor. Third, it’s costly, though it could actually repay expenditure by the NPO, even if it doesn’t lead to extra funding. Idinsight had labored with Educate Women on a machine-learning venture which has enabled them to work with more youngsters on their price range, regardless of the initial value of the train.

Collaborative philanthropy For those who ask donors whether or not they practise collaboration, all of them say ‘yes’, stated Nadia Roumani of the Institute of Design at Stanford, though a show of arms in a breakout session on the matter revealed that only half a dozen or so out of an viewers of 50-60 are actually pooling assets. Why so few when it’s clear that more may be completed by working with others? The chief purpose given in the session was lack of management. Smaller contributors worry being swamped by larger ones, moreover, it is troublesome to reconcile giving unrestricted grants from the pool with the specific needs of particular person donors? Co-Influence tries to bypass this by allowing smaller contributors to vote on where they want their funds to go within the framework of the programme, stated Anne-Marie Harling of Co-Influence. Individuals also want a specific amount of humility. Erin Hulme of the Gates Basis stated that in the collaboration on polio involving Gates, WHO and UNICEF, the foundation had been prepared to ‘go where the expertise lies’ and did not want to steer. Boon Heong Ng of Temasek Worldwide agreed. Temasek was originally the sole donor of Challenge Silver Display in Singapore which works to fight listening to deficiencies amongst the elderly. Silver Display now includes other corporations, the Ministry of Well being and individuals’s associations, all of whom deliver totally different sorts of expertise.

Regardless of apparent advantages, collaboration remains troublesome, especially amongst establishments.

It’s not just massive funders who can benefit from collaboration. Ludwig Forrest of the King Baudouin Basis (KBF) explained the concept of umbrella foundations. These permit modest donors to pool assets beneath the aegis of a bigger entity like KBF and to provide to causes they have in widespread. It’s a approach of democratising philanthropy, he stated. KBF presently has 750 smaller foundations sheltering underneath its umbrella.

Regardless of obvious advantages, collaboration stays troublesome, especially amongst establishments. Establishing collaborations requires giving a number of thought to the construction, which must be clear, yet flexible sufficient to adapt, stated Nadia Roumani.

Larry Kramer, President of the Hewlett Foundation.

What’s efficient philanthropy? For these – and there have been many – who had been urging the non-profit to be more like the for-profit sector, Larry Kramer of the Hewlett Basis, had some words of warning. ‘It’s an enormous mistake,’ he stated. ‘We all want to be efficient but that’s not enterprise, it’s good organisational considering.’ Non- and for-profit organisations have totally different strategies, totally different areas of work and, most essential, totally different technique of measuring. Enterprise has one easy metric Philanthropy can’t have, however that doesn’t imply it could actually’t be effective. There are three parts to effective philanthropy: have a aim, have a story about the way to obtain it and have a approach to measure progress. The criterion for the last, he argued, is ‘reasonableness under the circumstances.’ Don’t mislead yourselves and don’t drive it. Settle for that there can be some fuzziness. He urged the viewers to assume when it comes to learning, not of success or failure.

Prizes If the ethos of the non-profit sector is – or should be – collaboration, the MacArthur Foundation has discovered competition can typically be helpful. Its 100 and Change prize gives $100 million for any answer to any drawback, defined Celia Conrad. The primary winner in 2017 was the Sesame Workshop. Along with sparking innovation, the applicants, even the unsuccessful ones, can generate invaluable concepts which could possibly be shared. For the winners themselves, the prize money will help deliver in more funds, as has happened for Sesame Workshop. Lisa George from the MacQuarie Group Basis in Australia had launched an identical, though more modest ($10 million) prize to mark its 50th anniversary. Like MacArthur, that they had been stunned by the high quality and breadth of the purposes. The shortlist of finalists had included initiatives as numerous as the Ocean Cleanup, Human Rights Watch and Woman Impact.

It’s a high-stakes recreation although, cautioned Safeena Hussain of Educate Women, a profitable applicant to the Audacious Challenge run by TED for its efforts to deliver 1.5 million women back into the faculty system in India. Whereas the software process may also help NGOs assume by way of what they do, additionally it is time-consuming. ‘If we hadn’t gained, we might have struggled,’ she stated, ‘because we had invested so much in the process for over a year.’ She urged funders to think about the value of the acquisition of their money.

Previous power, new energy The nature of power is changing and donors and buyers want to adjust to cope with the shift, says Jeremy Heimans of Function. Previous power is formal, specialist, non-participatory. It’s what he termed energy as foreign money. Harvey Weinstein is previous power (an unsympathetic instance in case you have been wondering which aspect you should be on). New power is transparent, casual, fluid, participatory, or energy as present, as he put it. Examples embrace #MeToo, Occupy and Airbnb. The longer term might be a battle for mobilisation, he predicted and the drawback philanthropists want to unravel is find out how to work with new power.

Workshops The final day of the convention offered the probability to work in more element in a collection of workshop throughout the morning and afternoon. As with the breakout and plenary periods, these coated a variety of subjects, among them, options journalism and the influence of storytelling, methods to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic follow, utilizing finance as a software to deal with gender-based violence, and figuring out impression funding opportunities in Asia. Each of the ones I attended proved fascinating and involving. In a single, Eric Nee, editor of Stanford Social Innovation Evaluate (SSIR) and Fan Li, his counterpart on the Chinese language version of SSIR, introduced the concept of options journalism. Moderately than providing exposés of issues, as traditional journalism tended to do, Nee defined, options journalism – nicely, the clue is in the identify – focuses on the response to the drawback, goes into element on how the response works and supplies lessons and frameworks, not just inspiration. He and Fan Li also outlined ways on presenting concepts in order that they might persist with the audience, telling tales that have been credible, concrete, simple and arresting.

‘Make expectations clear at the outset, listen more than you talk and be clear and consistent in your dealings with the grantee.’

The workshop on the effectiveness of philanthropy, introduced by Lindsay Louie of the Hewlett Basis, looked at 4 parts of Hewlett’s follow, values, strategy, measurement and grant apply. Louie underlined the importance that Hewlett attaches to analysis, spending two per cent of its finances on the difficulty. Moreover, Hewlett periodically evaluates its own evaluations. Evaluations need to watch three criteria, she steered: utility, acceptability and suitability. In different phrases, assessment needs to fit the intervention in question, it has to make respondents really feel part of the venture and it must be tied to implementation. When it comes to how one can be a great grantmaker, she provided the following: be responsive, show curiosity about the grantee organisation, not just the programme, make expectations clear at the outset, pay attention more than you speak and be clear and constant in your dealings with the grantee.

Consuming the conference As regular, AVPN offered an array of periods and subjects that have been virtually overwhelming in quantity and selection. When you’re catering for as giant and numerous an viewers as the conference attracts, it’s a must to put on an enormous menu.

It was thoughtfully set out, although. The subjects, although assorted, by no means strayed removed from the major themes of the convention. It appeared to me, too, that this yr, it was higher paced, with fewer, but longer periods which allowed larger discussion and there was an urgency and a conviction about proceedings which was putting. There were additionally more – and welcome – modifications of tempo, with a larger number of participatory periods. The standard of the periods, as all the time, depends on the presenters. Everyone could have their very own highlights, in response to taste. For me, James Chen’s and Larry Kramer’s keynotes, the workshops, and the local weather finance and the listening to the voices of grantees breakout periods stood out.

‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In the event you’re expecting inventory market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’

One panellist remarked that you would put all of the individuals into three bins – those that want money, those that have it to provide and those who mediate in numerous capacities between them. He could also be proper, however those are very huge bins, accommodating many differing kinds and sizes of organisation – funders, non-profits, investment managers of different stripes, researchers, CSR officers and consultants and native and regional social enterprises who have been pitching to the ‘deal share’platform all added to the combine. A trademark of the AVPN conference remains its power and its curiosity. There’s a willingness to satisfy and to strike up conversations that isn’t all the time apparent at different gatherings. Little question individuals convey this with them, however AVPN deserves some credit score for offering the setting and the environment to allow them to do so.

One factor extra: Quite a few audio system appealed to an financial, fairly than a normative, rationale for addressing the points discussed which – for me – felt jarring. True, there were a lot of people in the room accustomed to considering in monetary phrases and each mode of life has its own conceptual body and its personal vocabulary. Perhaps, too, they thought the message of the social sector can be heard more readily by mainstream capital if it have been couched in phrases it might readily grasp. In any respect events, it felt at occasions like listeners have been being urged to take on social issues for the sake of worldwide GDP, slightly than for causes extra primarily human.

Clearly, it is going to take more than two or three days to break the boundaries between the social and mainstream investment worlds. Even those already on the social and impression funding bus – so to speak – weren’t all the time clear about the place to take a seat, who to take a seat with, or even what route the bus should take to its vacation spot. One participant I spoke to had a easy rule of thumb: ‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In case you’re anticipating stock market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’ But if members are typically hazy about their very own roles and nomenclature and the difficulties of bringing others who are presently outdoors the ambit of social investment (nevertheless outlined) remain unresolved, certainly one of the things the convention made clear is that working in widespread takes time and plenty of conversations. You must start someplace. AVPN’s convention was a firm and essential first step.

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Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda

20 minute read

This text was initially featured on Alliance Magazine here.

The 2019 AVPN conference in Singapore put its cards firmly on the table from the begin.

The main target can be on massive themes: schooling, gender equality, hunger and malnutrition, and climate change – most of all on climate change. From the first session, speaker after speaker reminded us that we solely have 15 years through which to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions before the effects of local weather change turn out to be irreversible.

Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets

And Asia is at the sharp end. The struggle to combat climate change shall be gained and lost there, stated Maria Athena Ballesteros, of the Growald Household Fund. Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets, noted that the country had declared 2018 an official yr of climate motion. Rising sea ranges and rising temperatures (the island state is heating up twice as shortly as the rest of the world, she stated) posed a menace to its future. It’s investing in solar power and expanding its public transport community so that eight out of each 10 Singaporeans can be inside strolling distance of a railway station. But, she stated, the authorities could not do it alone. It needed the help of both enterprise and civil society. Fung Wing-ah of BRACE Hong Kong defined that the funding firm had now aligned its whole portfolio on local weather change mitigation and, like Minister Khor, also careworn that the efforts of one sector alone wouldn’t be enough. Enter another key conference theme: all of the issues beneath discussion will require partnerships that contain not just cash but joint motion.

Later in the conference, Christine Heenan of the Rockefeller Foundation additionally touched on both of those in a keynote speech. The challenge is not to find options to local weather change, she argued. These exist already. The problem is to deliver them to scale. That’s the place partnerships come into play, partnerships based on mutual respect, complementary strengths and synergy.

Words to deeds The convention also marked the launch of AVPN’s local weather motion platform. Naina Batra, AVPN chair and CEO, signalled the want for a deeper and extra lively dedication which was evident all by means of proceedings. The platform, she stated, will probably be greater than a bit of symbolism, a board which all members have been invited to signal as an earnest of their solidarity, it should attempt to attach all the sectors, offering funding opportunities and information. However, she added, to achieve success, ‘it needs your engagement’. She spoke of the power of networks, which not solely deliver individuals collectively (her welcoming remarks have been addressed to 1348 delegates from 48 nations, itself a token of the formidable convening power of AVPN), they convey campaigns together and they bridge divides. However convening is just not enough. We have to catalyse and allow action. We need to cooperate, to behave urgently, whereas not dropping endurance and we have to make change irresistible.

Eileen Rockefeller Growald of the Growald Family Fund (GFF) struck a constructive word: ‘we can and are finding climate solutions together,’ she insisted. GFF is seeding social enterprises and innovators and collaborating with them and with funders to further climate options. The obstacles, nevertheless, remain formidable.  Know-how must be delivered to bear more shortly, stated Dan Choon of Cycle Group. Know-how transfer presently takes too lengthy – historically, 45-60 years to get to 20 per cent market penetration. We have to transfer a lot quicker. In the similar session, Britt Groosman of the Environmental Defense Fund spoke of the difficulties of shifting finance in the direction of measures to combat climate change. The subsequent-best factor, she stated, is to induce sectors who produce large-scale emissions, like aviation and delivery to think about carbon pricing, indeed there are indicators that they are doing so. Geoffrey Seeto of New Forests Asia endorsed this from his personal expertise. A variety of airways, one among which is Indigo in India, have agreed to offset their carbon emissions from 2020 and they see funding forestry from the proceeds of pricing carbon as part of doing that. Nevertheless, while funding carbon sequestration at scale is a confirmed technique of local weather change mitigation, only three per cent of local weather finance presently goes into it.

Ideas for attracting finance for local weather solutions brainstormed amongst all members in the session ranged from coaching grassroots installers of solar panels, debt aid for governments funding clean power and banks cooperating to offer concessionary ESG bonds.

Breaking boundaries Along with what we have to do, there’s the additional question of the place we’ll get the assets to do it. AVPN COO, Kevin Teo reminded the viewers that, if the SDGs are to be achieved, an estimated $2.5 trillion per yr will probably be needed (he was not the just one to cite this figure over the coming days). Giant buyers, subsequently, will need to make giant investments with proportionally huge influence and the convention title, Breaking Boundaries, signalled the need to attract those buyers – public and personal – into the social and environmental sphere. How to do this shaped one other strand linking convention proceedings. For its half. AVPN has been actively working with buyers in each these sectors, making an attempt to hyperlink personal influence or would-be impression buyers with social businesses on the one aspect and continuing to press forward with the APx coverage discussion board on the different.

Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own needs quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have?

James Chen, Founder of Clearly.

In his quest to ‘privatise failure and socialise success’ James Chen referred to as on philanthropists to train their much-touted capability for danger. ‘If you are serious about impact,’ he stated, ‘high risk is where the real returns occur.’ He provided Gates Basis’s work with malaria as a mannequin of catalytic philanthropy and an example of how ‘perseverance and domain expertise’ might have great influence. His personal organisation, Clearly, which aims to deliver low-cost imaginative and prescient correction to poor communities round the world, had overcome initial objections from funders, amongst them the World Financial institution, that there was no proof for the impact of imaginative and prescient correction programmes and no model of the intervention in low-income nations, by providing each in the form of Vision for a Nation, a programme run collectively with the authorities of Rwanda, and a serious research in the Lancet. Each, he stated, had helped to de-risk investment in sight correction.

Suitability and sustainability How are you going to construct a philanthropic culture when the word ‘philanthropy’ is barely understood, or has connotations of charity and patronage because it does in both Myanmar and Indonesia? The questions have been asked in a breakout session on unlocking native philanthropic funding in South-East Asia. In a spot like Myanmar the place investment and philanthropy are both discovering their ft, individuals have to build good companies, not just give away cash from successful ones, argued Aung Htun of Myanmar Investments. Ruel Maranan of the Ayala Foundation (Philippines) agreed, noting that the younger era is extra aware of the concept of social impression, so change is on the method. A more direct means of encouraging giving, believes Victor Hartono of the Djarum Basis in Indonesia, is for governments to offer tax incentives, a problem to which Veronica Colondam of YCAB Foundation in Indonesia would return later in the conference. The restrictive surroundings for philanthropy in that nation has meant, amongst different things, that YCAB took longer to find a suitable technique and type for its operation, since there are not any endowments.

Ertharin Cousin, Energy of Vitamin.

Inevitably, there was a lot speak of sustainability over the three and half days of the convention. It was Ruel Maranan who matched it with the notion of suitability. Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own wants quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have? It makes for larger engagement: ‘they [communities] are already involved and open,’ and if all stakeholders are concerned, all of them win, he argued. The theme of suitability also arose in discussion of the question of influence. Victor Hartono urged donors to assume ‘what’s applicable for you’ as well as for beneficiaries. Djarum, which has pioneered a form of vocational faculty that the authorities is now copying, crops timber as part of its local weather change mitigation efforts. It’s inside reach whereas funding in a more refined carbon seize know-how will not be.

The themes of collaboration and ‘feet on the ground’ have been additionally in proof in the session. Hartono spoke of the importance of ‘staying local. You are there, your people are there.’

The malnourished and the hungry 81.7 million youngsters in Asia endure from stunting because of malnutrition, stated Ertharin Cousin, previously of the World Food Programme and now a board member of the Energy of Vitamin. Opening a discussion on investing for higher vitamin, she introduced that the international value of malnutrition is now a staggering $three.5 trillion per yr, leaving apart the value in distress and suffering. We have to reform the international meals system, she stated, and we will’t do it without personal sector funding and involvement. To get it, we’d like agreed metrics outlined based on business rules. One other method, instructed both Martin Brief, CEO of the Energy of Vitamin and Rebecca Boustead of Kellogg, may be appealing to buyers’ bottom line, mentioning the economic effects of the drawback. Ertharin Cousin also sees nothing incorrect in corporations taking advantage of social investments, as long as they work and social benefits accrue.

If self-interest was a approach into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra of their malnourished communities?

For Rebecca Boustead, there are two questions. How can we make meals which is both nutritious and appealing, and how can we get it to small village markets? She spoke of partnerships which Kellogg had with the Breakfast Revolution and with the Sesame Workshop. In the former case, meals was attending to the hard-to-reach and in the second, the message of the significance of vitamin was being conveyed.

If self-interest was a means into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra in their malnourished communities? ‘Engage, engage, engage – with hard data’, was Ertharin Cousin’s recipe. Give them sensible solutions that help them get monetary savings, instructed Rebecca Boustead, a prescription not up to now faraway from that advocated by individuals for use with the personal sector.

Impression investing: time, transparency and demonstration These three issues are wanted to ramp up influence funding throughout all sectors. Whereas it is perhaps true to say, as Richard Ditzio of the Milken Institute, who chaired the subsequent panel discussion, did, that there is spare capital and it needs to spend money on sustainability, there are still obstacles. Didier von Daeniken, additionally of Normal Chartered questioned how banks and monetary institutions might help shoppers translate words like sustainability, influence investing and philanthropy into language they might perceive. Measurement continues to be a sticking level, he noted, as is the lack of knowledge about funding alternatives. Angela Bai of China Alliance of Social Worth Funding (CASVI) and Roy Swan of the Ford Foundation each endorsed this in a later session. Bai added a 3rd challenge: the problem of creating investments scalable.

Doug Lee of D3Jubilee Partners, an impression enterprise fund in South Korea famous a Catch-22 state of affairs arising. First-time funds have the lowest price of return, so buyers draw back, but if funds can’t appeal to buyers, how are they to succeed? Foundations have the added problem of persuading the trustees. Roy Swan associated that it took two years to induce Ford’s trustees to release eight per cent of the foundation’s endowment to dedicate to influence investing! Frank Niederlander of BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt agreed that endurance is needed and caution. The pioneer buyers, he stated, have to be apostles. They will’t afford to fail.

Many banks in Asia (native and worldwide) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable funding.

Rashesh Shah (proper) CEO of Edelweiss.

All that stated, there is progress. Rashesh Shah of Edelweiss (India) famous that particular person buyers are asking extra of their banks. Banks themselves, represented by Jose Vinals of Normal Chartered, can earn a living and assist save the world at the similar time, he stated. From doing no harm, Commonplace Chartered is now shifting in the direction of being a pressure for good. He referred to as for benchmarks on inexperienced bonds, tips for company disclosure and higher sustainability built into the financial system.  This remark itself is progress, says Annie Chen (RS Group, Hong Kong). She noted that she could not have imagined listening to a financial institution saying it ought to do good 10 years ago. The Sustainable Finance Initiative in Hong Kong which RS launched a yr earlier helps to spread the word on influence investing amongst household workplaces there and to foment a strong impression investment group. She famous, nevertheless, that many banks in Asia (local and international) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable investment. Didier von Daeniken agreed. Communication is their largest drawback. Normal Chartered’s research among its Asian shoppers, nevertheless, means that 20 per cent of respondents at the moment are allocating some investment in the direction of the SDGs and that there’s higher understanding of impression investing.

There are different grounds for optimism. Each Annie Chen and Eliza Foo of Temasek International (Singapore) see hope in the evident want for change, particularly among the younger, and in the tempo of change. And there’s a lot at stake. If influence investing actually takes maintain, stated Amit Bouri of the International Influence Investing Community (GIIN), we’d change the means the financial markets work.

Measurement The challenge the convention returned to most frequently, although, was measurement of impression. Eric Rice of Wellington Management Singapore noted little progress on this, but influence is ‘what distinguishes this segment. We won’t get mainstream capital if we don’t determine it out, he warned. Moreover, new era donors are notably eager on impression, stated Giovanni Zenteno from LGT Enterprise Philanthropy. On the plus aspect, should you can present it, money is extra more likely to come your means.

Adam McCarty of Mekong Economics, whom I had marked down as a hard-shell pragmatist from previous periods, has a barely totally different take. We do influence measurement, he stated, because that’s the deal of influence investing. If you would like free or low cost cash, it’s a must to answer for the good you’re doing. Most influence measurement at the second is rudimentary, he advised and extra refined means gained’t emerge until donors demand it. Usually, panellists agreed, influence measurement is donor-driven, though Ronald Abraham of iDinsight in India feels that each side have to take it critically. He sees three essential challenges: first, impression evaluation is sluggish. It may take between one and three years, by which era the programme has changed. Second, the quality of the knowledge is usually poor. Third, it’s costly, though it could actually repay expenditure by the NPO, even if it doesn’t lead to extra funding. Idinsight had labored with Educate Women on a machine-learning venture which has enabled them to work with more youngsters on their price range, regardless of the initial value of the train.

Collaborative philanthropy For those who ask donors whether or not they practise collaboration, all of them say ‘yes’, stated Nadia Roumani of the Institute of Design at Stanford, though a show of arms in a breakout session on the matter revealed that only half a dozen or so out of an viewers of 50-60 are actually pooling assets. Why so few when it’s clear that more may be completed by working with others? The chief purpose given in the session was lack of management. Smaller contributors worry being swamped by larger ones, moreover, it is troublesome to reconcile giving unrestricted grants from the pool with the specific needs of particular person donors? Co-Influence tries to bypass this by allowing smaller contributors to vote on where they want their funds to go within the framework of the programme, stated Anne-Marie Harling of Co-Influence. Individuals also want a specific amount of humility. Erin Hulme of the Gates Basis stated that in the collaboration on polio involving Gates, WHO and UNICEF, the foundation had been prepared to ‘go where the expertise lies’ and did not want to steer. Boon Heong Ng of Temasek Worldwide agreed. Temasek was originally the sole donor of Challenge Silver Display in Singapore which works to fight listening to deficiencies amongst the elderly. Silver Display now includes other corporations, the Ministry of Well being and individuals’s associations, all of whom deliver totally different sorts of expertise.

Regardless of apparent advantages, collaboration remains troublesome, especially amongst establishments.

It’s not just massive funders who can benefit from collaboration. Ludwig Forrest of the King Baudouin Basis (KBF) explained the concept of umbrella foundations. These permit modest donors to pool assets beneath the aegis of a bigger entity like KBF and to provide to causes they have in widespread. It’s a approach of democratising philanthropy, he stated. KBF presently has 750 smaller foundations sheltering underneath its umbrella.

Regardless of obvious advantages, collaboration stays troublesome, especially amongst establishments. Establishing collaborations requires giving a number of thought to the construction, which must be clear, yet flexible sufficient to adapt, stated Nadia Roumani.

Larry Kramer, President of the Hewlett Foundation.

What’s efficient philanthropy? For these – and there have been many – who had been urging the non-profit to be more like the for-profit sector, Larry Kramer of the Hewlett Basis, had some words of warning. ‘It’s an enormous mistake,’ he stated. ‘We all want to be efficient but that’s not enterprise, it’s good organisational considering.’ Non- and for-profit organisations have totally different strategies, totally different areas of work and, most essential, totally different technique of measuring. Enterprise has one easy metric Philanthropy can’t have, however that doesn’t imply it could actually’t be effective. There are three parts to effective philanthropy: have a aim, have a story about the way to obtain it and have a approach to measure progress. The criterion for the last, he argued, is ‘reasonableness under the circumstances.’ Don’t mislead yourselves and don’t drive it. Settle for that there can be some fuzziness. He urged the viewers to assume when it comes to learning, not of success or failure.

Prizes If the ethos of the non-profit sector is – or should be – collaboration, the MacArthur Foundation has discovered competition can typically be helpful. Its 100 and Change prize gives $100 million for any answer to any drawback, defined Celia Conrad. The primary winner in 2017 was the Sesame Workshop. Along with sparking innovation, the applicants, even the unsuccessful ones, can generate invaluable concepts which could possibly be shared. For the winners themselves, the prize money will help deliver in more funds, as has happened for Sesame Workshop. Lisa George from the MacQuarie Group Basis in Australia had launched an identical, though more modest ($10 million) prize to mark its 50th anniversary. Like MacArthur, that they had been stunned by the high quality and breadth of the purposes. The shortlist of finalists had included initiatives as numerous as the Ocean Cleanup, Human Rights Watch and Woman Impact.

It’s a high-stakes recreation although, cautioned Safeena Hussain of Educate Women, a profitable applicant to the Audacious Challenge run by TED for its efforts to deliver 1.5 million women back into the faculty system in India. Whereas the software process may also help NGOs assume by way of what they do, additionally it is time-consuming. ‘If we hadn’t gained, we might have struggled,’ she stated, ‘because we had invested so much in the process for over a year.’ She urged funders to think about the value of the acquisition of their money.

Previous power, new energy The nature of power is changing and donors and buyers want to adjust to cope with the shift, says Jeremy Heimans of Function. Previous power is formal, specialist, non-participatory. It’s what he termed energy as foreign money. Harvey Weinstein is previous power (an unsympathetic instance in case you have been wondering which aspect you should be on). New power is transparent, casual, fluid, participatory, or energy as present, as he put it. Examples embrace #MeToo, Occupy and Airbnb. The longer term might be a battle for mobilisation, he predicted and the drawback philanthropists want to unravel is find out how to work with new power.

Workshops The final day of the convention offered the probability to work in more element in a collection of workshop throughout the morning and afternoon. As with the breakout and plenary periods, these coated a variety of subjects, among them, options journalism and the influence of storytelling, methods to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic follow, utilizing finance as a software to deal with gender-based violence, and figuring out impression funding opportunities in Asia. Each of the ones I attended proved fascinating and involving. In a single, Eric Nee, editor of Stanford Social Innovation Evaluate (SSIR) and Fan Li, his counterpart on the Chinese language version of SSIR, introduced the concept of options journalism. Moderately than providing exposés of issues, as traditional journalism tended to do, Nee defined, options journalism – nicely, the clue is in the identify – focuses on the response to the drawback, goes into element on how the response works and supplies lessons and frameworks, not just inspiration. He and Fan Li also outlined ways on presenting concepts in order that they might persist with the audience, telling tales that have been credible, concrete, simple and arresting.

‘Make expectations clear at the outset, listen more than you talk and be clear and consistent in your dealings with the grantee.’

The workshop on the effectiveness of philanthropy, introduced by Lindsay Louie of the Hewlett Basis, looked at 4 parts of Hewlett’s follow, values, strategy, measurement and grant apply. Louie underlined the importance that Hewlett attaches to analysis, spending two per cent of its finances on the difficulty. Moreover, Hewlett periodically evaluates its own evaluations. Evaluations need to watch three criteria, she steered: utility, acceptability and suitability. In different phrases, assessment needs to fit the intervention in question, it has to make respondents really feel part of the venture and it must be tied to implementation. When it comes to how one can be a great grantmaker, she provided the following: be responsive, show curiosity about the grantee organisation, not just the programme, make expectations clear at the outset, pay attention more than you speak and be clear and constant in your dealings with the grantee.

Consuming the conference As regular, AVPN offered an array of periods and subjects that have been virtually overwhelming in quantity and selection. When you’re catering for as giant and numerous an viewers as the conference attracts, it’s a must to put on an enormous menu.

It was thoughtfully set out, although. The subjects, although assorted, by no means strayed removed from the major themes of the convention. It appeared to me, too, that this yr, it was higher paced, with fewer, but longer periods which allowed larger discussion and there was an urgency and a conviction about proceedings which was putting. There were additionally more – and welcome – modifications of tempo, with a larger number of participatory periods. The standard of the periods, as all the time, depends on the presenters. Everyone could have their very own highlights, in response to taste. For me, James Chen’s and Larry Kramer’s keynotes, the workshops, and the local weather finance and the listening to the voices of grantees breakout periods stood out.

‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In the event you’re expecting inventory market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’

One panellist remarked that you would put all of the individuals into three bins – those that want money, those that have it to provide and those who mediate in numerous capacities between them. He could also be proper, however those are very huge bins, accommodating many differing kinds and sizes of organisation – funders, non-profits, investment managers of different stripes, researchers, CSR officers and consultants and native and regional social enterprises who have been pitching to the ‘deal share’platform all added to the combine. A trademark of the AVPN conference remains its power and its curiosity. There’s a willingness to satisfy and to strike up conversations that isn’t all the time apparent at different gatherings. Little question individuals convey this with them, however AVPN deserves some credit score for offering the setting and the environment to allow them to do so.

One factor extra: Quite a few audio system appealed to an financial, fairly than a normative, rationale for addressing the points discussed which – for me – felt jarring. True, there were a lot of people in the room accustomed to considering in monetary phrases and each mode of life has its own conceptual body and its personal vocabulary. Perhaps, too, they thought the message of the social sector can be heard more readily by mainstream capital if it have been couched in phrases it might readily grasp. In any respect events, it felt at occasions like listeners have been being urged to take on social issues for the sake of worldwide GDP, slightly than for causes extra primarily human.

Clearly, it is going to take more than two or three days to break the boundaries between the social and mainstream investment worlds. Even those already on the social and impression funding bus – so to speak – weren’t all the time clear about the place to take a seat, who to take a seat with, or even what route the bus should take to its vacation spot. One participant I spoke to had a easy rule of thumb: ‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In case you’re anticipating stock market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’ But if members are typically hazy about their very own roles and nomenclature and the difficulties of bringing others who are presently outdoors the ambit of social investment (nevertheless outlined) remain unresolved, certainly one of the things the convention made clear is that working in widespread takes time and plenty of conversations. You must start someplace. AVPN’s convention was a firm and essential first step.

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Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda

20 minute read

This text was initially featured on Alliance Magazine here.

The 2019 AVPN conference in Singapore put its cards firmly on the table from the begin.

The main target can be on massive themes: schooling, gender equality, hunger and malnutrition, and climate change – most of all on climate change. From the first session, speaker after speaker reminded us that we solely have 15 years through which to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions before the effects of local weather change turn out to be irreversible.

Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets

And Asia is at the sharp end. The struggle to combat climate change shall be gained and lost there, stated Maria Athena Ballesteros, of the Growald Household Fund. Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets, noted that the country had declared 2018 an official yr of climate motion. Rising sea ranges and rising temperatures (the island state is heating up twice as shortly as the rest of the world, she stated) posed a menace to its future. It’s investing in solar power and expanding its public transport community so that eight out of each 10 Singaporeans can be inside strolling distance of a railway station. But, she stated, the authorities could not do it alone. It needed the help of both enterprise and civil society. Fung Wing-ah of BRACE Hong Kong defined that the funding firm had now aligned its whole portfolio on local weather change mitigation and, like Minister Khor, also careworn that the efforts of one sector alone wouldn’t be enough. Enter another key conference theme: all of the issues beneath discussion will require partnerships that contain not just cash but joint motion.

Later in the conference, Christine Heenan of the Rockefeller Foundation additionally touched on both of those in a keynote speech. The challenge is not to find options to local weather change, she argued. These exist already. The problem is to deliver them to scale. That’s the place partnerships come into play, partnerships based on mutual respect, complementary strengths and synergy.

Words to deeds The convention also marked the launch of AVPN’s local weather motion platform. Naina Batra, AVPN chair and CEO, signalled the want for a deeper and extra lively dedication which was evident all by means of proceedings. The platform, she stated, will probably be greater than a bit of symbolism, a board which all members have been invited to signal as an earnest of their solidarity, it should attempt to attach all the sectors, offering funding opportunities and information. However, she added, to achieve success, ‘it needs your engagement’. She spoke of the power of networks, which not solely deliver individuals collectively (her welcoming remarks have been addressed to 1348 delegates from 48 nations, itself a token of the formidable convening power of AVPN), they convey campaigns together and they bridge divides. However convening is just not enough. We have to catalyse and allow action. We need to cooperate, to behave urgently, whereas not dropping endurance and we have to make change irresistible.

Eileen Rockefeller Growald of the Growald Family Fund (GFF) struck a constructive word: ‘we can and are finding climate solutions together,’ she insisted. GFF is seeding social enterprises and innovators and collaborating with them and with funders to further climate options. The obstacles, nevertheless, remain formidable.  Know-how must be delivered to bear more shortly, stated Dan Choon of Cycle Group. Know-how transfer presently takes too lengthy – historically, 45-60 years to get to 20 per cent market penetration. We have to transfer a lot quicker. In the similar session, Britt Groosman of the Environmental Defense Fund spoke of the difficulties of shifting finance in the direction of measures to combat climate change. The subsequent-best factor, she stated, is to induce sectors who produce large-scale emissions, like aviation and delivery to think about carbon pricing, indeed there are indicators that they are doing so. Geoffrey Seeto of New Forests Asia endorsed this from his personal expertise. A variety of airways, one among which is Indigo in India, have agreed to offset their carbon emissions from 2020 and they see funding forestry from the proceeds of pricing carbon as part of doing that. Nevertheless, while funding carbon sequestration at scale is a confirmed technique of local weather change mitigation, only three per cent of local weather finance presently goes into it.

Ideas for attracting finance for local weather solutions brainstormed amongst all members in the session ranged from coaching grassroots installers of solar panels, debt aid for governments funding clean power and banks cooperating to offer concessionary ESG bonds.

Breaking boundaries Along with what we have to do, there’s the additional question of the place we’ll get the assets to do it. AVPN COO, Kevin Teo reminded the viewers that, if the SDGs are to be achieved, an estimated $2.5 trillion per yr will probably be needed (he was not the just one to cite this figure over the coming days). Giant buyers, subsequently, will need to make giant investments with proportionally huge influence and the convention title, Breaking Boundaries, signalled the need to attract those buyers – public and personal – into the social and environmental sphere. How to do this shaped one other strand linking convention proceedings. For its half. AVPN has been actively working with buyers in each these sectors, making an attempt to hyperlink personal influence or would-be impression buyers with social businesses on the one aspect and continuing to press forward with the APx coverage discussion board on the different.

Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own needs quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have?

James Chen, Founder of Clearly.

In his quest to ‘privatise failure and socialise success’ James Chen referred to as on philanthropists to train their much-touted capability for danger. ‘If you are serious about impact,’ he stated, ‘high risk is where the real returns occur.’ He provided Gates Basis’s work with malaria as a mannequin of catalytic philanthropy and an example of how ‘perseverance and domain expertise’ might have great influence. His personal organisation, Clearly, which aims to deliver low-cost imaginative and prescient correction to poor communities round the world, had overcome initial objections from funders, amongst them the World Financial institution, that there was no proof for the impact of imaginative and prescient correction programmes and no model of the intervention in low-income nations, by providing each in the form of Vision for a Nation, a programme run collectively with the authorities of Rwanda, and a serious research in the Lancet. Each, he stated, had helped to de-risk investment in sight correction.

Suitability and sustainability How are you going to construct a philanthropic culture when the word ‘philanthropy’ is barely understood, or has connotations of charity and patronage because it does in both Myanmar and Indonesia? The questions have been asked in a breakout session on unlocking native philanthropic funding in South-East Asia. In a spot like Myanmar the place investment and philanthropy are both discovering their ft, individuals have to build good companies, not just give away cash from successful ones, argued Aung Htun of Myanmar Investments. Ruel Maranan of the Ayala Foundation (Philippines) agreed, noting that the younger era is extra aware of the concept of social impression, so change is on the method. A more direct means of encouraging giving, believes Victor Hartono of the Djarum Basis in Indonesia, is for governments to offer tax incentives, a problem to which Veronica Colondam of YCAB Foundation in Indonesia would return later in the conference. The restrictive surroundings for philanthropy in that nation has meant, amongst different things, that YCAB took longer to find a suitable technique and type for its operation, since there are not any endowments.

Ertharin Cousin, Energy of Vitamin.

Inevitably, there was a lot speak of sustainability over the three and half days of the convention. It was Ruel Maranan who matched it with the notion of suitability. Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own wants quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have? It makes for larger engagement: ‘they [communities] are already involved and open,’ and if all stakeholders are concerned, all of them win, he argued. The theme of suitability also arose in discussion of the question of influence. Victor Hartono urged donors to assume ‘what’s applicable for you’ as well as for beneficiaries. Djarum, which has pioneered a form of vocational faculty that the authorities is now copying, crops timber as part of its local weather change mitigation efforts. It’s inside reach whereas funding in a more refined carbon seize know-how will not be.

The themes of collaboration and ‘feet on the ground’ have been additionally in proof in the session. Hartono spoke of the importance of ‘staying local. You are there, your people are there.’

The malnourished and the hungry 81.7 million youngsters in Asia endure from stunting because of malnutrition, stated Ertharin Cousin, previously of the World Food Programme and now a board member of the Energy of Vitamin. Opening a discussion on investing for higher vitamin, she introduced that the international value of malnutrition is now a staggering $three.5 trillion per yr, leaving apart the value in distress and suffering. We have to reform the international meals system, she stated, and we will’t do it without personal sector funding and involvement. To get it, we’d like agreed metrics outlined based on business rules. One other method, instructed both Martin Brief, CEO of the Energy of Vitamin and Rebecca Boustead of Kellogg, may be appealing to buyers’ bottom line, mentioning the economic effects of the drawback. Ertharin Cousin also sees nothing incorrect in corporations taking advantage of social investments, as long as they work and social benefits accrue.

If self-interest was a approach into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra of their malnourished communities?

For Rebecca Boustead, there are two questions. How can we make meals which is both nutritious and appealing, and how can we get it to small village markets? She spoke of partnerships which Kellogg had with the Breakfast Revolution and with the Sesame Workshop. In the former case, meals was attending to the hard-to-reach and in the second, the message of the significance of vitamin was being conveyed.

If self-interest was a means into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra in their malnourished communities? ‘Engage, engage, engage – with hard data’, was Ertharin Cousin’s recipe. Give them sensible solutions that help them get monetary savings, instructed Rebecca Boustead, a prescription not up to now faraway from that advocated by individuals for use with the personal sector.

Impression investing: time, transparency and demonstration These three issues are wanted to ramp up influence funding throughout all sectors. Whereas it is perhaps true to say, as Richard Ditzio of the Milken Institute, who chaired the subsequent panel discussion, did, that there is spare capital and it needs to spend money on sustainability, there are still obstacles. Didier von Daeniken, additionally of Normal Chartered questioned how banks and monetary institutions might help shoppers translate words like sustainability, influence investing and philanthropy into language they might perceive. Measurement continues to be a sticking level, he noted, as is the lack of knowledge about funding alternatives. Angela Bai of China Alliance of Social Worth Funding (CASVI) and Roy Swan of the Ford Foundation each endorsed this in a later session. Bai added a 3rd challenge: the problem of creating investments scalable.

Doug Lee of D3Jubilee Partners, an impression enterprise fund in South Korea famous a Catch-22 state of affairs arising. First-time funds have the lowest price of return, so buyers draw back, but if funds can’t appeal to buyers, how are they to succeed? Foundations have the added problem of persuading the trustees. Roy Swan associated that it took two years to induce Ford’s trustees to release eight per cent of the foundation’s endowment to dedicate to influence investing! Frank Niederlander of BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt agreed that endurance is needed and caution. The pioneer buyers, he stated, have to be apostles. They will’t afford to fail.

Many banks in Asia (native and worldwide) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable funding.

Rashesh Shah (proper) CEO of Edelweiss.

All that stated, there is progress. Rashesh Shah of Edelweiss (India) famous that particular person buyers are asking extra of their banks. Banks themselves, represented by Jose Vinals of Normal Chartered, can earn a living and assist save the world at the similar time, he stated. From doing no harm, Commonplace Chartered is now shifting in the direction of being a pressure for good. He referred to as for benchmarks on inexperienced bonds, tips for company disclosure and higher sustainability built into the financial system.  This remark itself is progress, says Annie Chen (RS Group, Hong Kong). She noted that she could not have imagined listening to a financial institution saying it ought to do good 10 years ago. The Sustainable Finance Initiative in Hong Kong which RS launched a yr earlier helps to spread the word on influence investing amongst household workplaces there and to foment a strong impression investment group. She famous, nevertheless, that many banks in Asia (local and international) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable investment. Didier von Daeniken agreed. Communication is their largest drawback. Normal Chartered’s research among its Asian shoppers, nevertheless, means that 20 per cent of respondents at the moment are allocating some investment in the direction of the SDGs and that there’s higher understanding of impression investing.

There are different grounds for optimism. Each Annie Chen and Eliza Foo of Temasek International (Singapore) see hope in the evident want for change, particularly among the younger, and in the tempo of change. And there’s a lot at stake. If influence investing actually takes maintain, stated Amit Bouri of the International Influence Investing Community (GIIN), we’d change the means the financial markets work.

Measurement The challenge the convention returned to most frequently, although, was measurement of impression. Eric Rice of Wellington Management Singapore noted little progress on this, but influence is ‘what distinguishes this segment. We won’t get mainstream capital if we don’t determine it out, he warned. Moreover, new era donors are notably eager on impression, stated Giovanni Zenteno from LGT Enterprise Philanthropy. On the plus aspect, should you can present it, money is extra more likely to come your means.

Adam McCarty of Mekong Economics, whom I had marked down as a hard-shell pragmatist from previous periods, has a barely totally different take. We do influence measurement, he stated, because that’s the deal of influence investing. If you would like free or low cost cash, it’s a must to answer for the good you’re doing. Most influence measurement at the second is rudimentary, he advised and extra refined means gained’t emerge until donors demand it. Usually, panellists agreed, influence measurement is donor-driven, though Ronald Abraham of iDinsight in India feels that each side have to take it critically. He sees three essential challenges: first, impression evaluation is sluggish. It may take between one and three years, by which era the programme has changed. Second, the quality of the knowledge is usually poor. Third, it’s costly, though it could actually repay expenditure by the NPO, even if it doesn’t lead to extra funding. Idinsight had labored with Educate Women on a machine-learning venture which has enabled them to work with more youngsters on their price range, regardless of the initial value of the train.

Collaborative philanthropy For those who ask donors whether or not they practise collaboration, all of them say ‘yes’, stated Nadia Roumani of the Institute of Design at Stanford, though a show of arms in a breakout session on the matter revealed that only half a dozen or so out of an viewers of 50-60 are actually pooling assets. Why so few when it’s clear that more may be completed by working with others? The chief purpose given in the session was lack of management. Smaller contributors worry being swamped by larger ones, moreover, it is troublesome to reconcile giving unrestricted grants from the pool with the specific needs of particular person donors? Co-Influence tries to bypass this by allowing smaller contributors to vote on where they want their funds to go within the framework of the programme, stated Anne-Marie Harling of Co-Influence. Individuals also want a specific amount of humility. Erin Hulme of the Gates Basis stated that in the collaboration on polio involving Gates, WHO and UNICEF, the foundation had been prepared to ‘go where the expertise lies’ and did not want to steer. Boon Heong Ng of Temasek Worldwide agreed. Temasek was originally the sole donor of Challenge Silver Display in Singapore which works to fight listening to deficiencies amongst the elderly. Silver Display now includes other corporations, the Ministry of Well being and individuals’s associations, all of whom deliver totally different sorts of expertise.

Regardless of apparent advantages, collaboration remains troublesome, especially amongst establishments.

It’s not just massive funders who can benefit from collaboration. Ludwig Forrest of the King Baudouin Basis (KBF) explained the concept of umbrella foundations. These permit modest donors to pool assets beneath the aegis of a bigger entity like KBF and to provide to causes they have in widespread. It’s a approach of democratising philanthropy, he stated. KBF presently has 750 smaller foundations sheltering underneath its umbrella.

Regardless of obvious advantages, collaboration stays troublesome, especially amongst establishments. Establishing collaborations requires giving a number of thought to the construction, which must be clear, yet flexible sufficient to adapt, stated Nadia Roumani.

Larry Kramer, President of the Hewlett Foundation.

What’s efficient philanthropy? For these – and there have been many – who had been urging the non-profit to be more like the for-profit sector, Larry Kramer of the Hewlett Basis, had some words of warning. ‘It’s an enormous mistake,’ he stated. ‘We all want to be efficient but that’s not enterprise, it’s good organisational considering.’ Non- and for-profit organisations have totally different strategies, totally different areas of work and, most essential, totally different technique of measuring. Enterprise has one easy metric Philanthropy can’t have, however that doesn’t imply it could actually’t be effective. There are three parts to effective philanthropy: have a aim, have a story about the way to obtain it and have a approach to measure progress. The criterion for the last, he argued, is ‘reasonableness under the circumstances.’ Don’t mislead yourselves and don’t drive it. Settle for that there can be some fuzziness. He urged the viewers to assume when it comes to learning, not of success or failure.

Prizes If the ethos of the non-profit sector is – or should be – collaboration, the MacArthur Foundation has discovered competition can typically be helpful. Its 100 and Change prize gives $100 million for any answer to any drawback, defined Celia Conrad. The primary winner in 2017 was the Sesame Workshop. Along with sparking innovation, the applicants, even the unsuccessful ones, can generate invaluable concepts which could possibly be shared. For the winners themselves, the prize money will help deliver in more funds, as has happened for Sesame Workshop. Lisa George from the MacQuarie Group Basis in Australia had launched an identical, though more modest ($10 million) prize to mark its 50th anniversary. Like MacArthur, that they had been stunned by the high quality and breadth of the purposes. The shortlist of finalists had included initiatives as numerous as the Ocean Cleanup, Human Rights Watch and Woman Impact.

It’s a high-stakes recreation although, cautioned Safeena Hussain of Educate Women, a profitable applicant to the Audacious Challenge run by TED for its efforts to deliver 1.5 million women back into the faculty system in India. Whereas the software process may also help NGOs assume by way of what they do, additionally it is time-consuming. ‘If we hadn’t gained, we might have struggled,’ she stated, ‘because we had invested so much in the process for over a year.’ She urged funders to think about the value of the acquisition of their money.

Previous power, new energy The nature of power is changing and donors and buyers want to adjust to cope with the shift, says Jeremy Heimans of Function. Previous power is formal, specialist, non-participatory. It’s what he termed energy as foreign money. Harvey Weinstein is previous power (an unsympathetic instance in case you have been wondering which aspect you should be on). New power is transparent, casual, fluid, participatory, or energy as present, as he put it. Examples embrace #MeToo, Occupy and Airbnb. The longer term might be a battle for mobilisation, he predicted and the drawback philanthropists want to unravel is find out how to work with new power.

Workshops The final day of the convention offered the probability to work in more element in a collection of workshop throughout the morning and afternoon. As with the breakout and plenary periods, these coated a variety of subjects, among them, options journalism and the influence of storytelling, methods to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic follow, utilizing finance as a software to deal with gender-based violence, and figuring out impression funding opportunities in Asia. Each of the ones I attended proved fascinating and involving. In a single, Eric Nee, editor of Stanford Social Innovation Evaluate (SSIR) and Fan Li, his counterpart on the Chinese language version of SSIR, introduced the concept of options journalism. Moderately than providing exposés of issues, as traditional journalism tended to do, Nee defined, options journalism – nicely, the clue is in the identify – focuses on the response to the drawback, goes into element on how the response works and supplies lessons and frameworks, not just inspiration. He and Fan Li also outlined ways on presenting concepts in order that they might persist with the audience, telling tales that have been credible, concrete, simple and arresting.

‘Make expectations clear at the outset, listen more than you talk and be clear and consistent in your dealings with the grantee.’

The workshop on the effectiveness of philanthropy, introduced by Lindsay Louie of the Hewlett Basis, looked at 4 parts of Hewlett’s follow, values, strategy, measurement and grant apply. Louie underlined the importance that Hewlett attaches to analysis, spending two per cent of its finances on the difficulty. Moreover, Hewlett periodically evaluates its own evaluations. Evaluations need to watch three criteria, she steered: utility, acceptability and suitability. In different phrases, assessment needs to fit the intervention in question, it has to make respondents really feel part of the venture and it must be tied to implementation. When it comes to how one can be a great grantmaker, she provided the following: be responsive, show curiosity about the grantee organisation, not just the programme, make expectations clear at the outset, pay attention more than you speak and be clear and constant in your dealings with the grantee.

Consuming the conference As regular, AVPN offered an array of periods and subjects that have been virtually overwhelming in quantity and selection. When you’re catering for as giant and numerous an viewers as the conference attracts, it’s a must to put on an enormous menu.

It was thoughtfully set out, although. The subjects, although assorted, by no means strayed removed from the major themes of the convention. It appeared to me, too, that this yr, it was higher paced, with fewer, but longer periods which allowed larger discussion and there was an urgency and a conviction about proceedings which was putting. There were additionally more – and welcome – modifications of tempo, with a larger number of participatory periods. The standard of the periods, as all the time, depends on the presenters. Everyone could have their very own highlights, in response to taste. For me, James Chen’s and Larry Kramer’s keynotes, the workshops, and the local weather finance and the listening to the voices of grantees breakout periods stood out.

‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In the event you’re expecting inventory market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’

One panellist remarked that you would put all of the individuals into three bins – those that want money, those that have it to provide and those who mediate in numerous capacities between them. He could also be proper, however those are very huge bins, accommodating many differing kinds and sizes of organisation – funders, non-profits, investment managers of different stripes, researchers, CSR officers and consultants and native and regional social enterprises who have been pitching to the ‘deal share’platform all added to the combine. A trademark of the AVPN conference remains its power and its curiosity. There’s a willingness to satisfy and to strike up conversations that isn’t all the time apparent at different gatherings. Little question individuals convey this with them, however AVPN deserves some credit score for offering the setting and the environment to allow them to do so.

One factor extra: Quite a few audio system appealed to an financial, fairly than a normative, rationale for addressing the points discussed which – for me – felt jarring. True, there were a lot of people in the room accustomed to considering in monetary phrases and each mode of life has its own conceptual body and its personal vocabulary. Perhaps, too, they thought the message of the social sector can be heard more readily by mainstream capital if it have been couched in phrases it might readily grasp. In any respect events, it felt at occasions like listeners have been being urged to take on social issues for the sake of worldwide GDP, slightly than for causes extra primarily human.

Clearly, it is going to take more than two or three days to break the boundaries between the social and mainstream investment worlds. Even those already on the social and impression funding bus – so to speak – weren’t all the time clear about the place to take a seat, who to take a seat with, or even what route the bus should take to its vacation spot. One participant I spoke to had a easy rule of thumb: ‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In case you’re anticipating stock market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’ But if members are typically hazy about their very own roles and nomenclature and the difficulties of bringing others who are presently outdoors the ambit of social investment (nevertheless outlined) remain unresolved, certainly one of the things the convention made clear is that working in widespread takes time and plenty of conversations. You must start someplace. AVPN’s convention was a firm and essential first step.

The post Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda appeared first on Android Smart Gears.

[queer-gnome]

Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda

20 minute read

This text was initially featured on Alliance Magazine here.

The 2019 AVPN conference in Singapore put its cards firmly on the table from the begin.

The main target can be on massive themes: schooling, gender equality, hunger and malnutrition, and climate change – most of all on climate change. From the first session, speaker after speaker reminded us that we solely have 15 years through which to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions before the effects of local weather change turn out to be irreversible.

Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets

And Asia is at the sharp end. The struggle to combat climate change shall be gained and lost there, stated Maria Athena Ballesteros, of the Growald Household Fund. Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets, noted that the country had declared 2018 an official yr of climate motion. Rising sea ranges and rising temperatures (the island state is heating up twice as shortly as the rest of the world, she stated) posed a menace to its future. It’s investing in solar power and expanding its public transport community so that eight out of each 10 Singaporeans can be inside strolling distance of a railway station. But, she stated, the authorities could not do it alone. It needed the help of both enterprise and civil society. Fung Wing-ah of BRACE Hong Kong defined that the funding firm had now aligned its whole portfolio on local weather change mitigation and, like Minister Khor, also careworn that the efforts of one sector alone wouldn’t be enough. Enter another key conference theme: all of the issues beneath discussion will require partnerships that contain not just cash but joint motion.

Later in the conference, Christine Heenan of the Rockefeller Foundation additionally touched on both of those in a keynote speech. The challenge is not to find options to local weather change, she argued. These exist already. The problem is to deliver them to scale. That’s the place partnerships come into play, partnerships based on mutual respect, complementary strengths and synergy.

Words to deeds The convention also marked the launch of AVPN’s local weather motion platform. Naina Batra, AVPN chair and CEO, signalled the want for a deeper and extra lively dedication which was evident all by means of proceedings. The platform, she stated, will probably be greater than a bit of symbolism, a board which all members have been invited to signal as an earnest of their solidarity, it should attempt to attach all the sectors, offering funding opportunities and information. However, she added, to achieve success, ‘it needs your engagement’. She spoke of the power of networks, which not solely deliver individuals collectively (her welcoming remarks have been addressed to 1348 delegates from 48 nations, itself a token of the formidable convening power of AVPN), they convey campaigns together and they bridge divides. However convening is just not enough. We have to catalyse and allow action. We need to cooperate, to behave urgently, whereas not dropping endurance and we have to make change irresistible.

Eileen Rockefeller Growald of the Growald Family Fund (GFF) struck a constructive word: ‘we can and are finding climate solutions together,’ she insisted. GFF is seeding social enterprises and innovators and collaborating with them and with funders to further climate options. The obstacles, nevertheless, remain formidable.  Know-how must be delivered to bear more shortly, stated Dan Choon of Cycle Group. Know-how transfer presently takes too lengthy – historically, 45-60 years to get to 20 per cent market penetration. We have to transfer a lot quicker. In the similar session, Britt Groosman of the Environmental Defense Fund spoke of the difficulties of shifting finance in the direction of measures to combat climate change. The subsequent-best factor, she stated, is to induce sectors who produce large-scale emissions, like aviation and delivery to think about carbon pricing, indeed there are indicators that they are doing so. Geoffrey Seeto of New Forests Asia endorsed this from his personal expertise. A variety of airways, one among which is Indigo in India, have agreed to offset their carbon emissions from 2020 and they see funding forestry from the proceeds of pricing carbon as part of doing that. Nevertheless, while funding carbon sequestration at scale is a confirmed technique of local weather change mitigation, only three per cent of local weather finance presently goes into it.

Ideas for attracting finance for local weather solutions brainstormed amongst all members in the session ranged from coaching grassroots installers of solar panels, debt aid for governments funding clean power and banks cooperating to offer concessionary ESG bonds.

Breaking boundaries Along with what we have to do, there’s the additional question of the place we’ll get the assets to do it. AVPN COO, Kevin Teo reminded the viewers that, if the SDGs are to be achieved, an estimated $2.5 trillion per yr will probably be needed (he was not the just one to cite this figure over the coming days). Giant buyers, subsequently, will need to make giant investments with proportionally huge influence and the convention title, Breaking Boundaries, signalled the need to attract those buyers – public and personal – into the social and environmental sphere. How to do this shaped one other strand linking convention proceedings. For its half. AVPN has been actively working with buyers in each these sectors, making an attempt to hyperlink personal influence or would-be impression buyers with social businesses on the one aspect and continuing to press forward with the APx coverage discussion board on the different.

Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own needs quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have?

James Chen, Founder of Clearly.

In his quest to ‘privatise failure and socialise success’ James Chen referred to as on philanthropists to train their much-touted capability for danger. ‘If you are serious about impact,’ he stated, ‘high risk is where the real returns occur.’ He provided Gates Basis’s work with malaria as a mannequin of catalytic philanthropy and an example of how ‘perseverance and domain expertise’ might have great influence. His personal organisation, Clearly, which aims to deliver low-cost imaginative and prescient correction to poor communities round the world, had overcome initial objections from funders, amongst them the World Financial institution, that there was no proof for the impact of imaginative and prescient correction programmes and no model of the intervention in low-income nations, by providing each in the form of Vision for a Nation, a programme run collectively with the authorities of Rwanda, and a serious research in the Lancet. Each, he stated, had helped to de-risk investment in sight correction.

Suitability and sustainability How are you going to construct a philanthropic culture when the word ‘philanthropy’ is barely understood, or has connotations of charity and patronage because it does in both Myanmar and Indonesia? The questions have been asked in a breakout session on unlocking native philanthropic funding in South-East Asia. In a spot like Myanmar the place investment and philanthropy are both discovering their ft, individuals have to build good companies, not just give away cash from successful ones, argued Aung Htun of Myanmar Investments. Ruel Maranan of the Ayala Foundation (Philippines) agreed, noting that the younger era is extra aware of the concept of social impression, so change is on the method. A more direct means of encouraging giving, believes Victor Hartono of the Djarum Basis in Indonesia, is for governments to offer tax incentives, a problem to which Veronica Colondam of YCAB Foundation in Indonesia would return later in the conference. The restrictive surroundings for philanthropy in that nation has meant, amongst different things, that YCAB took longer to find a suitable technique and type for its operation, since there are not any endowments.

Ertharin Cousin, Energy of Vitamin.

Inevitably, there was a lot speak of sustainability over the three and half days of the convention. It was Ruel Maranan who matched it with the notion of suitability. Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own wants quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have? It makes for larger engagement: ‘they [communities] are already involved and open,’ and if all stakeholders are concerned, all of them win, he argued. The theme of suitability also arose in discussion of the question of influence. Victor Hartono urged donors to assume ‘what’s applicable for you’ as well as for beneficiaries. Djarum, which has pioneered a form of vocational faculty that the authorities is now copying, crops timber as part of its local weather change mitigation efforts. It’s inside reach whereas funding in a more refined carbon seize know-how will not be.

The themes of collaboration and ‘feet on the ground’ have been additionally in proof in the session. Hartono spoke of the importance of ‘staying local. You are there, your people are there.’

The malnourished and the hungry 81.7 million youngsters in Asia endure from stunting because of malnutrition, stated Ertharin Cousin, previously of the World Food Programme and now a board member of the Energy of Vitamin. Opening a discussion on investing for higher vitamin, she introduced that the international value of malnutrition is now a staggering $three.5 trillion per yr, leaving apart the value in distress and suffering. We have to reform the international meals system, she stated, and we will’t do it without personal sector funding and involvement. To get it, we’d like agreed metrics outlined based on business rules. One other method, instructed both Martin Brief, CEO of the Energy of Vitamin and Rebecca Boustead of Kellogg, may be appealing to buyers’ bottom line, mentioning the economic effects of the drawback. Ertharin Cousin also sees nothing incorrect in corporations taking advantage of social investments, as long as they work and social benefits accrue.

If self-interest was a approach into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra of their malnourished communities?

For Rebecca Boustead, there are two questions. How can we make meals which is both nutritious and appealing, and how can we get it to small village markets? She spoke of partnerships which Kellogg had with the Breakfast Revolution and with the Sesame Workshop. In the former case, meals was attending to the hard-to-reach and in the second, the message of the significance of vitamin was being conveyed.

If self-interest was a means into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra in their malnourished communities? ‘Engage, engage, engage – with hard data’, was Ertharin Cousin’s recipe. Give them sensible solutions that help them get monetary savings, instructed Rebecca Boustead, a prescription not up to now faraway from that advocated by individuals for use with the personal sector.

Impression investing: time, transparency and demonstration These three issues are wanted to ramp up influence funding throughout all sectors. Whereas it is perhaps true to say, as Richard Ditzio of the Milken Institute, who chaired the subsequent panel discussion, did, that there is spare capital and it needs to spend money on sustainability, there are still obstacles. Didier von Daeniken, additionally of Normal Chartered questioned how banks and monetary institutions might help shoppers translate words like sustainability, influence investing and philanthropy into language they might perceive. Measurement continues to be a sticking level, he noted, as is the lack of knowledge about funding alternatives. Angela Bai of China Alliance of Social Worth Funding (CASVI) and Roy Swan of the Ford Foundation each endorsed this in a later session. Bai added a 3rd challenge: the problem of creating investments scalable.

Doug Lee of D3Jubilee Partners, an impression enterprise fund in South Korea famous a Catch-22 state of affairs arising. First-time funds have the lowest price of return, so buyers draw back, but if funds can’t appeal to buyers, how are they to succeed? Foundations have the added problem of persuading the trustees. Roy Swan associated that it took two years to induce Ford’s trustees to release eight per cent of the foundation’s endowment to dedicate to influence investing! Frank Niederlander of BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt agreed that endurance is needed and caution. The pioneer buyers, he stated, have to be apostles. They will’t afford to fail.

Many banks in Asia (native and worldwide) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable funding.

Rashesh Shah (proper) CEO of Edelweiss.

All that stated, there is progress. Rashesh Shah of Edelweiss (India) famous that particular person buyers are asking extra of their banks. Banks themselves, represented by Jose Vinals of Normal Chartered, can earn a living and assist save the world at the similar time, he stated. From doing no harm, Commonplace Chartered is now shifting in the direction of being a pressure for good. He referred to as for benchmarks on inexperienced bonds, tips for company disclosure and higher sustainability built into the financial system.  This remark itself is progress, says Annie Chen (RS Group, Hong Kong). She noted that she could not have imagined listening to a financial institution saying it ought to do good 10 years ago. The Sustainable Finance Initiative in Hong Kong which RS launched a yr earlier helps to spread the word on influence investing amongst household workplaces there and to foment a strong impression investment group. She famous, nevertheless, that many banks in Asia (local and international) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable investment. Didier von Daeniken agreed. Communication is their largest drawback. Normal Chartered’s research among its Asian shoppers, nevertheless, means that 20 per cent of respondents at the moment are allocating some investment in the direction of the SDGs and that there’s higher understanding of impression investing.

There are different grounds for optimism. Each Annie Chen and Eliza Foo of Temasek International (Singapore) see hope in the evident want for change, particularly among the younger, and in the tempo of change. And there’s a lot at stake. If influence investing actually takes maintain, stated Amit Bouri of the International Influence Investing Community (GIIN), we’d change the means the financial markets work.

Measurement The challenge the convention returned to most frequently, although, was measurement of impression. Eric Rice of Wellington Management Singapore noted little progress on this, but influence is ‘what distinguishes this segment. We won’t get mainstream capital if we don’t determine it out, he warned. Moreover, new era donors are notably eager on impression, stated Giovanni Zenteno from LGT Enterprise Philanthropy. On the plus aspect, should you can present it, money is extra more likely to come your means.

Adam McCarty of Mekong Economics, whom I had marked down as a hard-shell pragmatist from previous periods, has a barely totally different take. We do influence measurement, he stated, because that’s the deal of influence investing. If you would like free or low cost cash, it’s a must to answer for the good you’re doing. Most influence measurement at the second is rudimentary, he advised and extra refined means gained’t emerge until donors demand it. Usually, panellists agreed, influence measurement is donor-driven, though Ronald Abraham of iDinsight in India feels that each side have to take it critically. He sees three essential challenges: first, impression evaluation is sluggish. It may take between one and three years, by which era the programme has changed. Second, the quality of the knowledge is usually poor. Third, it’s costly, though it could actually repay expenditure by the NPO, even if it doesn’t lead to extra funding. Idinsight had labored with Educate Women on a machine-learning venture which has enabled them to work with more youngsters on their price range, regardless of the initial value of the train.

Collaborative philanthropy For those who ask donors whether or not they practise collaboration, all of them say ‘yes’, stated Nadia Roumani of the Institute of Design at Stanford, though a show of arms in a breakout session on the matter revealed that only half a dozen or so out of an viewers of 50-60 are actually pooling assets. Why so few when it’s clear that more may be completed by working with others? The chief purpose given in the session was lack of management. Smaller contributors worry being swamped by larger ones, moreover, it is troublesome to reconcile giving unrestricted grants from the pool with the specific needs of particular person donors? Co-Influence tries to bypass this by allowing smaller contributors to vote on where they want their funds to go within the framework of the programme, stated Anne-Marie Harling of Co-Influence. Individuals also want a specific amount of humility. Erin Hulme of the Gates Basis stated that in the collaboration on polio involving Gates, WHO and UNICEF, the foundation had been prepared to ‘go where the expertise lies’ and did not want to steer. Boon Heong Ng of Temasek Worldwide agreed. Temasek was originally the sole donor of Challenge Silver Display in Singapore which works to fight listening to deficiencies amongst the elderly. Silver Display now includes other corporations, the Ministry of Well being and individuals’s associations, all of whom deliver totally different sorts of expertise.

Regardless of apparent advantages, collaboration remains troublesome, especially amongst establishments.

It’s not just massive funders who can benefit from collaboration. Ludwig Forrest of the King Baudouin Basis (KBF) explained the concept of umbrella foundations. These permit modest donors to pool assets beneath the aegis of a bigger entity like KBF and to provide to causes they have in widespread. It’s a approach of democratising philanthropy, he stated. KBF presently has 750 smaller foundations sheltering underneath its umbrella.

Regardless of obvious advantages, collaboration stays troublesome, especially amongst establishments. Establishing collaborations requires giving a number of thought to the construction, which must be clear, yet flexible sufficient to adapt, stated Nadia Roumani.

Larry Kramer, President of the Hewlett Foundation.

What’s efficient philanthropy? For these – and there have been many – who had been urging the non-profit to be more like the for-profit sector, Larry Kramer of the Hewlett Basis, had some words of warning. ‘It’s an enormous mistake,’ he stated. ‘We all want to be efficient but that’s not enterprise, it’s good organisational considering.’ Non- and for-profit organisations have totally different strategies, totally different areas of work and, most essential, totally different technique of measuring. Enterprise has one easy metric Philanthropy can’t have, however that doesn’t imply it could actually’t be effective. There are three parts to effective philanthropy: have a aim, have a story about the way to obtain it and have a approach to measure progress. The criterion for the last, he argued, is ‘reasonableness under the circumstances.’ Don’t mislead yourselves and don’t drive it. Settle for that there can be some fuzziness. He urged the viewers to assume when it comes to learning, not of success or failure.

Prizes If the ethos of the non-profit sector is – or should be – collaboration, the MacArthur Foundation has discovered competition can typically be helpful. Its 100 and Change prize gives $100 million for any answer to any drawback, defined Celia Conrad. The primary winner in 2017 was the Sesame Workshop. Along with sparking innovation, the applicants, even the unsuccessful ones, can generate invaluable concepts which could possibly be shared. For the winners themselves, the prize money will help deliver in more funds, as has happened for Sesame Workshop. Lisa George from the MacQuarie Group Basis in Australia had launched an identical, though more modest ($10 million) prize to mark its 50th anniversary. Like MacArthur, that they had been stunned by the high quality and breadth of the purposes. The shortlist of finalists had included initiatives as numerous as the Ocean Cleanup, Human Rights Watch and Woman Impact.

It’s a high-stakes recreation although, cautioned Safeena Hussain of Educate Women, a profitable applicant to the Audacious Challenge run by TED for its efforts to deliver 1.5 million women back into the faculty system in India. Whereas the software process may also help NGOs assume by way of what they do, additionally it is time-consuming. ‘If we hadn’t gained, we might have struggled,’ she stated, ‘because we had invested so much in the process for over a year.’ She urged funders to think about the value of the acquisition of their money.

Previous power, new energy The nature of power is changing and donors and buyers want to adjust to cope with the shift, says Jeremy Heimans of Function. Previous power is formal, specialist, non-participatory. It’s what he termed energy as foreign money. Harvey Weinstein is previous power (an unsympathetic instance in case you have been wondering which aspect you should be on). New power is transparent, casual, fluid, participatory, or energy as present, as he put it. Examples embrace #MeToo, Occupy and Airbnb. The longer term might be a battle for mobilisation, he predicted and the drawback philanthropists want to unravel is find out how to work with new power.

Workshops The final day of the convention offered the probability to work in more element in a collection of workshop throughout the morning and afternoon. As with the breakout and plenary periods, these coated a variety of subjects, among them, options journalism and the influence of storytelling, methods to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic follow, utilizing finance as a software to deal with gender-based violence, and figuring out impression funding opportunities in Asia. Each of the ones I attended proved fascinating and involving. In a single, Eric Nee, editor of Stanford Social Innovation Evaluate (SSIR) and Fan Li, his counterpart on the Chinese language version of SSIR, introduced the concept of options journalism. Moderately than providing exposés of issues, as traditional journalism tended to do, Nee defined, options journalism – nicely, the clue is in the identify – focuses on the response to the drawback, goes into element on how the response works and supplies lessons and frameworks, not just inspiration. He and Fan Li also outlined ways on presenting concepts in order that they might persist with the audience, telling tales that have been credible, concrete, simple and arresting.

‘Make expectations clear at the outset, listen more than you talk and be clear and consistent in your dealings with the grantee.’

The workshop on the effectiveness of philanthropy, introduced by Lindsay Louie of the Hewlett Basis, looked at 4 parts of Hewlett’s follow, values, strategy, measurement and grant apply. Louie underlined the importance that Hewlett attaches to analysis, spending two per cent of its finances on the difficulty. Moreover, Hewlett periodically evaluates its own evaluations. Evaluations need to watch three criteria, she steered: utility, acceptability and suitability. In different phrases, assessment needs to fit the intervention in question, it has to make respondents really feel part of the venture and it must be tied to implementation. When it comes to how one can be a great grantmaker, she provided the following: be responsive, show curiosity about the grantee organisation, not just the programme, make expectations clear at the outset, pay attention more than you speak and be clear and constant in your dealings with the grantee.

Consuming the conference As regular, AVPN offered an array of periods and subjects that have been virtually overwhelming in quantity and selection. When you’re catering for as giant and numerous an viewers as the conference attracts, it’s a must to put on an enormous menu.

It was thoughtfully set out, although. The subjects, although assorted, by no means strayed removed from the major themes of the convention. It appeared to me, too, that this yr, it was higher paced, with fewer, but longer periods which allowed larger discussion and there was an urgency and a conviction about proceedings which was putting. There were additionally more – and welcome – modifications of tempo, with a larger number of participatory periods. The standard of the periods, as all the time, depends on the presenters. Everyone could have their very own highlights, in response to taste. For me, James Chen’s and Larry Kramer’s keynotes, the workshops, and the local weather finance and the listening to the voices of grantees breakout periods stood out.

‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In the event you’re expecting inventory market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’

One panellist remarked that you would put all of the individuals into three bins – those that want money, those that have it to provide and those who mediate in numerous capacities between them. He could also be proper, however those are very huge bins, accommodating many differing kinds and sizes of organisation – funders, non-profits, investment managers of different stripes, researchers, CSR officers and consultants and native and regional social enterprises who have been pitching to the ‘deal share’platform all added to the combine. A trademark of the AVPN conference remains its power and its curiosity. There’s a willingness to satisfy and to strike up conversations that isn’t all the time apparent at different gatherings. Little question individuals convey this with them, however AVPN deserves some credit score for offering the setting and the environment to allow them to do so.

One factor extra: Quite a few audio system appealed to an financial, fairly than a normative, rationale for addressing the points discussed which – for me – felt jarring. True, there were a lot of people in the room accustomed to considering in monetary phrases and each mode of life has its own conceptual body and its personal vocabulary. Perhaps, too, they thought the message of the social sector can be heard more readily by mainstream capital if it have been couched in phrases it might readily grasp. In any respect events, it felt at occasions like listeners have been being urged to take on social issues for the sake of worldwide GDP, slightly than for causes extra primarily human.

Clearly, it is going to take more than two or three days to break the boundaries between the social and mainstream investment worlds. Even those already on the social and impression funding bus – so to speak – weren’t all the time clear about the place to take a seat, who to take a seat with, or even what route the bus should take to its vacation spot. One participant I spoke to had a easy rule of thumb: ‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In case you’re anticipating stock market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’ But if members are typically hazy about their very own roles and nomenclature and the difficulties of bringing others who are presently outdoors the ambit of social investment (nevertheless outlined) remain unresolved, certainly one of the things the convention made clear is that working in widespread takes time and plenty of conversations. You must start someplace. AVPN’s convention was a firm and essential first step.

The post Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda appeared first on Android Smart Gears.

[punkestboy-blog]

Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda

20 minute read

This text was initially featured on Alliance Magazine here.

The 2019 AVPN conference in Singapore put its cards firmly on the table from the begin.

The main target can be on massive themes: schooling, gender equality, hunger and malnutrition, and climate change – most of all on climate change. From the first session, speaker after speaker reminded us that we solely have 15 years through which to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions before the effects of local weather change turn out to be irreversible.

Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets

And Asia is at the sharp end. The struggle to combat climate change shall be gained and lost there, stated Maria Athena Ballesteros, of the Growald Household Fund. Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets, noted that the country had declared 2018 an official yr of climate motion. Rising sea ranges and rising temperatures (the island state is heating up twice as shortly as the rest of the world, she stated) posed a menace to its future. It’s investing in solar power and expanding its public transport community so that eight out of each 10 Singaporeans can be inside strolling distance of a railway station. But, she stated, the authorities could not do it alone. It needed the help of both enterprise and civil society. Fung Wing-ah of BRACE Hong Kong defined that the funding firm had now aligned its whole portfolio on local weather change mitigation and, like Minister Khor, also careworn that the efforts of one sector alone wouldn’t be enough. Enter another key conference theme: all of the issues beneath discussion will require partnerships that contain not just cash but joint motion.

Later in the conference, Christine Heenan of the Rockefeller Foundation additionally touched on both of those in a keynote speech. The challenge is not to find options to local weather change, she argued. These exist already. The problem is to deliver them to scale. That’s the place partnerships come into play, partnerships based on mutual respect, complementary strengths and synergy.

Words to deeds The convention also marked the launch of AVPN’s local weather motion platform. Naina Batra, AVPN chair and CEO, signalled the want for a deeper and extra lively dedication which was evident all by means of proceedings. The platform, she stated, will probably be greater than a bit of symbolism, a board which all members have been invited to signal as an earnest of their solidarity, it should attempt to attach all the sectors, offering funding opportunities and information. However, she added, to achieve success, ‘it needs your engagement’. She spoke of the power of networks, which not solely deliver individuals collectively (her welcoming remarks have been addressed to 1348 delegates from 48 nations, itself a token of the formidable convening power of AVPN), they convey campaigns together and they bridge divides. However convening is just not enough. We have to catalyse and allow action. We need to cooperate, to behave urgently, whereas not dropping endurance and we have to make change irresistible.

Eileen Rockefeller Growald of the Growald Family Fund (GFF) struck a constructive word: ‘we can and are finding climate solutions together,’ she insisted. GFF is seeding social enterprises and innovators and collaborating with them and with funders to further climate options. The obstacles, nevertheless, remain formidable.  Know-how must be delivered to bear more shortly, stated Dan Choon of Cycle Group. Know-how transfer presently takes too lengthy – historically, 45-60 years to get to 20 per cent market penetration. We have to transfer a lot quicker. In the similar session, Britt Groosman of the Environmental Defense Fund spoke of the difficulties of shifting finance in the direction of measures to combat climate change. The subsequent-best factor, she stated, is to induce sectors who produce large-scale emissions, like aviation and delivery to think about carbon pricing, indeed there are indicators that they are doing so. Geoffrey Seeto of New Forests Asia endorsed this from his personal expertise. A variety of airways, one among which is Indigo in India, have agreed to offset their carbon emissions from 2020 and they see funding forestry from the proceeds of pricing carbon as part of doing that. Nevertheless, while funding carbon sequestration at scale is a confirmed technique of local weather change mitigation, only three per cent of local weather finance presently goes into it.

Ideas for attracting finance for local weather solutions brainstormed amongst all members in the session ranged from coaching grassroots installers of solar panels, debt aid for governments funding clean power and banks cooperating to offer concessionary ESG bonds.

Breaking boundaries Along with what we have to do, there’s the additional question of the place we’ll get the assets to do it. AVPN COO, Kevin Teo reminded the viewers that, if the SDGs are to be achieved, an estimated $2.5 trillion per yr will probably be needed (he was not the just one to cite this figure over the coming days). Giant buyers, subsequently, will need to make giant investments with proportionally huge influence and the convention title, Breaking Boundaries, signalled the need to attract those buyers – public and personal – into the social and environmental sphere. How to do this shaped one other strand linking convention proceedings. For its half. AVPN has been actively working with buyers in each these sectors, making an attempt to hyperlink personal influence or would-be impression buyers with social businesses on the one aspect and continuing to press forward with the APx coverage discussion board on the different.

Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own needs quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have?

James Chen, Founder of Clearly.

In his quest to ‘privatise failure and socialise success’ James Chen referred to as on philanthropists to train their much-touted capability for danger. ‘If you are serious about impact,’ he stated, ‘high risk is where the real returns occur.’ He provided Gates Basis’s work with malaria as a mannequin of catalytic philanthropy and an example of how ‘perseverance and domain expertise’ might have great influence. His personal organisation, Clearly, which aims to deliver low-cost imaginative and prescient correction to poor communities round the world, had overcome initial objections from funders, amongst them the World Financial institution, that there was no proof for the impact of imaginative and prescient correction programmes and no model of the intervention in low-income nations, by providing each in the form of Vision for a Nation, a programme run collectively with the authorities of Rwanda, and a serious research in the Lancet. Each, he stated, had helped to de-risk investment in sight correction.

Suitability and sustainability How are you going to construct a philanthropic culture when the word ‘philanthropy’ is barely understood, or has connotations of charity and patronage because it does in both Myanmar and Indonesia? The questions have been asked in a breakout session on unlocking native philanthropic funding in South-East Asia. In a spot like Myanmar the place investment and philanthropy are both discovering their ft, individuals have to build good companies, not just give away cash from successful ones, argued Aung Htun of Myanmar Investments. Ruel Maranan of the Ayala Foundation (Philippines) agreed, noting that the younger era is extra aware of the concept of social impression, so change is on the method. A more direct means of encouraging giving, believes Victor Hartono of the Djarum Basis in Indonesia, is for governments to offer tax incentives, a problem to which Veronica Colondam of YCAB Foundation in Indonesia would return later in the conference. The restrictive surroundings for philanthropy in that nation has meant, amongst different things, that YCAB took longer to find a suitable technique and type for its operation, since there are not any endowments.

Ertharin Cousin, Energy of Vitamin.

Inevitably, there was a lot speak of sustainability over the three and half days of the convention. It was Ruel Maranan who matched it with the notion of suitability. Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own wants quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have? It makes for larger engagement: ‘they [communities] are already involved and open,’ and if all stakeholders are concerned, all of them win, he argued. The theme of suitability also arose in discussion of the question of influence. Victor Hartono urged donors to assume ‘what’s applicable for you’ as well as for beneficiaries. Djarum, which has pioneered a form of vocational faculty that the authorities is now copying, crops timber as part of its local weather change mitigation efforts. It’s inside reach whereas funding in a more refined carbon seize know-how will not be.

The themes of collaboration and ‘feet on the ground’ have been additionally in proof in the session. Hartono spoke of the importance of ‘staying local. You are there, your people are there.’

The malnourished and the hungry 81.7 million youngsters in Asia endure from stunting because of malnutrition, stated Ertharin Cousin, previously of the World Food Programme and now a board member of the Energy of Vitamin. Opening a discussion on investing for higher vitamin, she introduced that the international value of malnutrition is now a staggering $three.5 trillion per yr, leaving apart the value in distress and suffering. We have to reform the international meals system, she stated, and we will’t do it without personal sector funding and involvement. To get it, we’d like agreed metrics outlined based on business rules. One other method, instructed both Martin Brief, CEO of the Energy of Vitamin and Rebecca Boustead of Kellogg, may be appealing to buyers’ bottom line, mentioning the economic effects of the drawback. Ertharin Cousin also sees nothing incorrect in corporations taking advantage of social investments, as long as they work and social benefits accrue.

If self-interest was a approach into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra of their malnourished communities?

For Rebecca Boustead, there are two questions. How can we make meals which is both nutritious and appealing, and how can we get it to small village markets? She spoke of partnerships which Kellogg had with the Breakfast Revolution and with the Sesame Workshop. In the former case, meals was attending to the hard-to-reach and in the second, the message of the significance of vitamin was being conveyed.

If self-interest was a means into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra in their malnourished communities? ‘Engage, engage, engage – with hard data’, was Ertharin Cousin’s recipe. Give them sensible solutions that help them get monetary savings, instructed Rebecca Boustead, a prescription not up to now faraway from that advocated by individuals for use with the personal sector.

Impression investing: time, transparency and demonstration These three issues are wanted to ramp up influence funding throughout all sectors. Whereas it is perhaps true to say, as Richard Ditzio of the Milken Institute, who chaired the subsequent panel discussion, did, that there is spare capital and it needs to spend money on sustainability, there are still obstacles. Didier von Daeniken, additionally of Normal Chartered questioned how banks and monetary institutions might help shoppers translate words like sustainability, influence investing and philanthropy into language they might perceive. Measurement continues to be a sticking level, he noted, as is the lack of knowledge about funding alternatives. Angela Bai of China Alliance of Social Worth Funding (CASVI) and Roy Swan of the Ford Foundation each endorsed this in a later session. Bai added a 3rd challenge: the problem of creating investments scalable.

Doug Lee of D3Jubilee Partners, an impression enterprise fund in South Korea famous a Catch-22 state of affairs arising. First-time funds have the lowest price of return, so buyers draw back, but if funds can’t appeal to buyers, how are they to succeed? Foundations have the added problem of persuading the trustees. Roy Swan associated that it took two years to induce Ford’s trustees to release eight per cent of the foundation’s endowment to dedicate to influence investing! Frank Niederlander of BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt agreed that endurance is needed and caution. The pioneer buyers, he stated, have to be apostles. They will’t afford to fail.

Many banks in Asia (native and worldwide) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable funding.

Rashesh Shah (proper) CEO of Edelweiss.

All that stated, there is progress. Rashesh Shah of Edelweiss (India) famous that particular person buyers are asking extra of their banks. Banks themselves, represented by Jose Vinals of Normal Chartered, can earn a living and assist save the world at the similar time, he stated. From doing no harm, Commonplace Chartered is now shifting in the direction of being a pressure for good. He referred to as for benchmarks on inexperienced bonds, tips for company disclosure and higher sustainability built into the financial system.  This remark itself is progress, says Annie Chen (RS Group, Hong Kong). She noted that she could not have imagined listening to a financial institution saying it ought to do good 10 years ago. The Sustainable Finance Initiative in Hong Kong which RS launched a yr earlier helps to spread the word on influence investing amongst household workplaces there and to foment a strong impression investment group. She famous, nevertheless, that many banks in Asia (local and international) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable investment. Didier von Daeniken agreed. Communication is their largest drawback. Normal Chartered’s research among its Asian shoppers, nevertheless, means that 20 per cent of respondents at the moment are allocating some investment in the direction of the SDGs and that there’s higher understanding of impression investing.

There are different grounds for optimism. Each Annie Chen and Eliza Foo of Temasek International (Singapore) see hope in the evident want for change, particularly among the younger, and in the tempo of change. And there’s a lot at stake. If influence investing actually takes maintain, stated Amit Bouri of the International Influence Investing Community (GIIN), we’d change the means the financial markets work.

Measurement The challenge the convention returned to most frequently, although, was measurement of impression. Eric Rice of Wellington Management Singapore noted little progress on this, but influence is ‘what distinguishes this segment. We won’t get mainstream capital if we don’t determine it out, he warned. Moreover, new era donors are notably eager on impression, stated Giovanni Zenteno from LGT Enterprise Philanthropy. On the plus aspect, should you can present it, money is extra more likely to come your means.

Adam McCarty of Mekong Economics, whom I had marked down as a hard-shell pragmatist from previous periods, has a barely totally different take. We do influence measurement, he stated, because that’s the deal of influence investing. If you would like free or low cost cash, it’s a must to answer for the good you’re doing. Most influence measurement at the second is rudimentary, he advised and extra refined means gained’t emerge until donors demand it. Usually, panellists agreed, influence measurement is donor-driven, though Ronald Abraham of iDinsight in India feels that each side have to take it critically. He sees three essential challenges: first, impression evaluation is sluggish. It may take between one and three years, by which era the programme has changed. Second, the quality of the knowledge is usually poor. Third, it’s costly, though it could actually repay expenditure by the NPO, even if it doesn’t lead to extra funding. Idinsight had labored with Educate Women on a machine-learning venture which has enabled them to work with more youngsters on their price range, regardless of the initial value of the train.

Collaborative philanthropy For those who ask donors whether or not they practise collaboration, all of them say ‘yes’, stated Nadia Roumani of the Institute of Design at Stanford, though a show of arms in a breakout session on the matter revealed that only half a dozen or so out of an viewers of 50-60 are actually pooling assets. Why so few when it’s clear that more may be completed by working with others? The chief purpose given in the session was lack of management. Smaller contributors worry being swamped by larger ones, moreover, it is troublesome to reconcile giving unrestricted grants from the pool with the specific needs of particular person donors? Co-Influence tries to bypass this by allowing smaller contributors to vote on where they want their funds to go within the framework of the programme, stated Anne-Marie Harling of Co-Influence. Individuals also want a specific amount of humility. Erin Hulme of the Gates Basis stated that in the collaboration on polio involving Gates, WHO and UNICEF, the foundation had been prepared to ‘go where the expertise lies’ and did not want to steer. Boon Heong Ng of Temasek Worldwide agreed. Temasek was originally the sole donor of Challenge Silver Display in Singapore which works to fight listening to deficiencies amongst the elderly. Silver Display now includes other corporations, the Ministry of Well being and individuals’s associations, all of whom deliver totally different sorts of expertise.

Regardless of apparent advantages, collaboration remains troublesome, especially amongst establishments.

It’s not just massive funders who can benefit from collaboration. Ludwig Forrest of the King Baudouin Basis (KBF) explained the concept of umbrella foundations. These permit modest donors to pool assets beneath the aegis of a bigger entity like KBF and to provide to causes they have in widespread. It’s a approach of democratising philanthropy, he stated. KBF presently has 750 smaller foundations sheltering underneath its umbrella.

Regardless of obvious advantages, collaboration stays troublesome, especially amongst establishments. Establishing collaborations requires giving a number of thought to the construction, which must be clear, yet flexible sufficient to adapt, stated Nadia Roumani.

Larry Kramer, President of the Hewlett Foundation.

What’s efficient philanthropy? For these – and there have been many – who had been urging the non-profit to be more like the for-profit sector, Larry Kramer of the Hewlett Basis, had some words of warning. ‘It’s an enormous mistake,’ he stated. ‘We all want to be efficient but that’s not enterprise, it’s good organisational considering.’ Non- and for-profit organisations have totally different strategies, totally different areas of work and, most essential, totally different technique of measuring. Enterprise has one easy metric Philanthropy can’t have, however that doesn’t imply it could actually’t be effective. There are three parts to effective philanthropy: have a aim, have a story about the way to obtain it and have a approach to measure progress. The criterion for the last, he argued, is ‘reasonableness under the circumstances.’ Don’t mislead yourselves and don’t drive it. Settle for that there can be some fuzziness. He urged the viewers to assume when it comes to learning, not of success or failure.

Prizes If the ethos of the non-profit sector is – or should be – collaboration, the MacArthur Foundation has discovered competition can typically be helpful. Its 100 and Change prize gives $100 million for any answer to any drawback, defined Celia Conrad. The primary winner in 2017 was the Sesame Workshop. Along with sparking innovation, the applicants, even the unsuccessful ones, can generate invaluable concepts which could possibly be shared. For the winners themselves, the prize money will help deliver in more funds, as has happened for Sesame Workshop. Lisa George from the MacQuarie Group Basis in Australia had launched an identical, though more modest ($10 million) prize to mark its 50th anniversary. Like MacArthur, that they had been stunned by the high quality and breadth of the purposes. The shortlist of finalists had included initiatives as numerous as the Ocean Cleanup, Human Rights Watch and Woman Impact.

It’s a high-stakes recreation although, cautioned Safeena Hussain of Educate Women, a profitable applicant to the Audacious Challenge run by TED for its efforts to deliver 1.5 million women back into the faculty system in India. Whereas the software process may also help NGOs assume by way of what they do, additionally it is time-consuming. ‘If we hadn’t gained, we might have struggled,’ she stated, ‘because we had invested so much in the process for over a year.’ She urged funders to think about the value of the acquisition of their money.

Previous power, new energy The nature of power is changing and donors and buyers want to adjust to cope with the shift, says Jeremy Heimans of Function. Previous power is formal, specialist, non-participatory. It’s what he termed energy as foreign money. Harvey Weinstein is previous power (an unsympathetic instance in case you have been wondering which aspect you should be on). New power is transparent, casual, fluid, participatory, or energy as present, as he put it. Examples embrace #MeToo, Occupy and Airbnb. The longer term might be a battle for mobilisation, he predicted and the drawback philanthropists want to unravel is find out how to work with new power.

Workshops The final day of the convention offered the probability to work in more element in a collection of workshop throughout the morning and afternoon. As with the breakout and plenary periods, these coated a variety of subjects, among them, options journalism and the influence of storytelling, methods to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic follow, utilizing finance as a software to deal with gender-based violence, and figuring out impression funding opportunities in Asia. Each of the ones I attended proved fascinating and involving. In a single, Eric Nee, editor of Stanford Social Innovation Evaluate (SSIR) and Fan Li, his counterpart on the Chinese language version of SSIR, introduced the concept of options journalism. Moderately than providing exposés of issues, as traditional journalism tended to do, Nee defined, options journalism – nicely, the clue is in the identify – focuses on the response to the drawback, goes into element on how the response works and supplies lessons and frameworks, not just inspiration. He and Fan Li also outlined ways on presenting concepts in order that they might persist with the audience, telling tales that have been credible, concrete, simple and arresting.

‘Make expectations clear at the outset, listen more than you talk and be clear and consistent in your dealings with the grantee.’

The workshop on the effectiveness of philanthropy, introduced by Lindsay Louie of the Hewlett Basis, looked at 4 parts of Hewlett’s follow, values, strategy, measurement and grant apply. Louie underlined the importance that Hewlett attaches to analysis, spending two per cent of its finances on the difficulty. Moreover, Hewlett periodically evaluates its own evaluations. Evaluations need to watch three criteria, she steered: utility, acceptability and suitability. In different phrases, assessment needs to fit the intervention in question, it has to make respondents really feel part of the venture and it must be tied to implementation. When it comes to how one can be a great grantmaker, she provided the following: be responsive, show curiosity about the grantee organisation, not just the programme, make expectations clear at the outset, pay attention more than you speak and be clear and constant in your dealings with the grantee.

Consuming the conference As regular, AVPN offered an array of periods and subjects that have been virtually overwhelming in quantity and selection. When you’re catering for as giant and numerous an viewers as the conference attracts, it’s a must to put on an enormous menu.

It was thoughtfully set out, although. The subjects, although assorted, by no means strayed removed from the major themes of the convention. It appeared to me, too, that this yr, it was higher paced, with fewer, but longer periods which allowed larger discussion and there was an urgency and a conviction about proceedings which was putting. There were additionally more – and welcome – modifications of tempo, with a larger number of participatory periods. The standard of the periods, as all the time, depends on the presenters. Everyone could have their very own highlights, in response to taste. For me, James Chen’s and Larry Kramer’s keynotes, the workshops, and the local weather finance and the listening to the voices of grantees breakout periods stood out.

‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In the event you’re expecting inventory market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’

One panellist remarked that you would put all of the individuals into three bins – those that want money, those that have it to provide and those who mediate in numerous capacities between them. He could also be proper, however those are very huge bins, accommodating many differing kinds and sizes of organisation – funders, non-profits, investment managers of different stripes, researchers, CSR officers and consultants and native and regional social enterprises who have been pitching to the ‘deal share’platform all added to the combine. A trademark of the AVPN conference remains its power and its curiosity. There’s a willingness to satisfy and to strike up conversations that isn’t all the time apparent at different gatherings. Little question individuals convey this with them, however AVPN deserves some credit score for offering the setting and the environment to allow them to do so.

One factor extra: Quite a few audio system appealed to an financial, fairly than a normative, rationale for addressing the points discussed which – for me – felt jarring. True, there were a lot of people in the room accustomed to considering in monetary phrases and each mode of life has its own conceptual body and its personal vocabulary. Perhaps, too, they thought the message of the social sector can be heard more readily by mainstream capital if it have been couched in phrases it might readily grasp. In any respect events, it felt at occasions like listeners have been being urged to take on social issues for the sake of worldwide GDP, slightly than for causes extra primarily human.

Clearly, it is going to take more than two or three days to break the boundaries between the social and mainstream investment worlds. Even those already on the social and impression funding bus – so to speak – weren’t all the time clear about the place to take a seat, who to take a seat with, or even what route the bus should take to its vacation spot. One participant I spoke to had a easy rule of thumb: ‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In case you’re anticipating stock market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’ But if members are typically hazy about their very own roles and nomenclature and the difficulties of bringing others who are presently outdoors the ambit of social investment (nevertheless outlined) remain unresolved, certainly one of the things the convention made clear is that working in widespread takes time and plenty of conversations. You must start someplace. AVPN’s convention was a firm and essential first step.

The post Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda appeared first on Android Smart Gears.

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Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda

20 minute read

This text was initially featured on Alliance Magazine here.

The 2019 AVPN conference in Singapore put its cards firmly on the table from the begin.

The main target can be on massive themes: schooling, gender equality, hunger and malnutrition, and climate change – most of all on climate change. From the first session, speaker after speaker reminded us that we solely have 15 years through which to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions before the effects of local weather change turn out to be irreversible.

Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets

And Asia is at the sharp end. The struggle to combat climate change shall be gained and lost there, stated Maria Athena Ballesteros, of the Growald Household Fund. Amy Khor, Singapore’s Minister for Surroundings and Water Assets, noted that the country had declared 2018 an official yr of climate motion. Rising sea ranges and rising temperatures (the island state is heating up twice as shortly as the rest of the world, she stated) posed a menace to its future. It’s investing in solar power and expanding its public transport community so that eight out of each 10 Singaporeans can be inside strolling distance of a railway station. But, she stated, the authorities could not do it alone. It needed the help of both enterprise and civil society. Fung Wing-ah of BRACE Hong Kong defined that the funding firm had now aligned its whole portfolio on local weather change mitigation and, like Minister Khor, also careworn that the efforts of one sector alone wouldn’t be enough. Enter another key conference theme: all of the issues beneath discussion will require partnerships that contain not just cash but joint motion.

Later in the conference, Christine Heenan of the Rockefeller Foundation additionally touched on both of those in a keynote speech. The challenge is not to find options to local weather change, she argued. These exist already. The problem is to deliver them to scale. That’s the place partnerships come into play, partnerships based on mutual respect, complementary strengths and synergy.

Words to deeds The convention also marked the launch of AVPN’s local weather motion platform. Naina Batra, AVPN chair and CEO, signalled the want for a deeper and extra lively dedication which was evident all by means of proceedings. The platform, she stated, will probably be greater than a bit of symbolism, a board which all members have been invited to signal as an earnest of their solidarity, it should attempt to attach all the sectors, offering funding opportunities and information. However, she added, to achieve success, ‘it needs your engagement’. She spoke of the power of networks, which not solely deliver individuals collectively (her welcoming remarks have been addressed to 1348 delegates from 48 nations, itself a token of the formidable convening power of AVPN), they convey campaigns together and they bridge divides. However convening is just not enough. We have to catalyse and allow action. We need to cooperate, to behave urgently, whereas not dropping endurance and we have to make change irresistible.

Eileen Rockefeller Growald of the Growald Family Fund (GFF) struck a constructive word: ‘we can and are finding climate solutions together,’ she insisted. GFF is seeding social enterprises and innovators and collaborating with them and with funders to further climate options. The obstacles, nevertheless, remain formidable.  Know-how must be delivered to bear more shortly, stated Dan Choon of Cycle Group. Know-how transfer presently takes too lengthy – historically, 45-60 years to get to 20 per cent market penetration. We have to transfer a lot quicker. In the similar session, Britt Groosman of the Environmental Defense Fund spoke of the difficulties of shifting finance in the direction of measures to combat climate change. The subsequent-best factor, she stated, is to induce sectors who produce large-scale emissions, like aviation and delivery to think about carbon pricing, indeed there are indicators that they are doing so. Geoffrey Seeto of New Forests Asia endorsed this from his personal expertise. A variety of airways, one among which is Indigo in India, have agreed to offset their carbon emissions from 2020 and they see funding forestry from the proceeds of pricing carbon as part of doing that. Nevertheless, while funding carbon sequestration at scale is a confirmed technique of local weather change mitigation, only three per cent of local weather finance presently goes into it.

Ideas for attracting finance for local weather solutions brainstormed amongst all members in the session ranged from coaching grassroots installers of solar panels, debt aid for governments funding clean power and banks cooperating to offer concessionary ESG bonds.

Breaking boundaries Along with what we have to do, there’s the additional question of the place we’ll get the assets to do it. AVPN COO, Kevin Teo reminded the viewers that, if the SDGs are to be achieved, an estimated $2.5 trillion per yr will probably be needed (he was not the just one to cite this figure over the coming days). Giant buyers, subsequently, will need to make giant investments with proportionally huge influence and the convention title, Breaking Boundaries, signalled the need to attract those buyers – public and personal – into the social and environmental sphere. How to do this shaped one other strand linking convention proceedings. For its half. AVPN has been actively working with buyers in each these sectors, making an attempt to hyperlink personal influence or would-be impression buyers with social businesses on the one aspect and continuing to press forward with the APx coverage discussion board on the different.

Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own needs quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have?

James Chen, Founder of Clearly.

In his quest to ‘privatise failure and socialise success’ James Chen referred to as on philanthropists to train their much-touted capability for danger. ‘If you are serious about impact,’ he stated, ‘high risk is where the real returns occur.’ He provided Gates Basis’s work with malaria as a mannequin of catalytic philanthropy and an example of how ‘perseverance and domain expertise’ might have great influence. His personal organisation, Clearly, which aims to deliver low-cost imaginative and prescient correction to poor communities round the world, had overcome initial objections from funders, amongst them the World Financial institution, that there was no proof for the impact of imaginative and prescient correction programmes and no model of the intervention in low-income nations, by providing each in the form of Vision for a Nation, a programme run collectively with the authorities of Rwanda, and a serious research in the Lancet. Each, he stated, had helped to de-risk investment in sight correction.

Suitability and sustainability How are you going to construct a philanthropic culture when the word ‘philanthropy’ is barely understood, or has connotations of charity and patronage because it does in both Myanmar and Indonesia? The questions have been asked in a breakout session on unlocking native philanthropic funding in South-East Asia. In a spot like Myanmar the place investment and philanthropy are both discovering their ft, individuals have to build good companies, not just give away cash from successful ones, argued Aung Htun of Myanmar Investments. Ruel Maranan of the Ayala Foundation (Philippines) agreed, noting that the younger era is extra aware of the concept of social impression, so change is on the method. A more direct means of encouraging giving, believes Victor Hartono of the Djarum Basis in Indonesia, is for governments to offer tax incentives, a problem to which Veronica Colondam of YCAB Foundation in Indonesia would return later in the conference. The restrictive surroundings for philanthropy in that nation has meant, amongst different things, that YCAB took longer to find a suitable technique and type for its operation, since there are not any endowments.

Ertharin Cousin, Energy of Vitamin.

Inevitably, there was a lot speak of sustainability over the three and half days of the convention. It was Ruel Maranan who matched it with the notion of suitability. Why don’t donors, especially corporate donors, let communities define their own wants quite than simply giving them what they, the donors, have? It makes for larger engagement: ‘they [communities] are already involved and open,’ and if all stakeholders are concerned, all of them win, he argued. The theme of suitability also arose in discussion of the question of influence. Victor Hartono urged donors to assume ‘what’s applicable for you’ as well as for beneficiaries. Djarum, which has pioneered a form of vocational faculty that the authorities is now copying, crops timber as part of its local weather change mitigation efforts. It’s inside reach whereas funding in a more refined carbon seize know-how will not be.

The themes of collaboration and ‘feet on the ground’ have been additionally in proof in the session. Hartono spoke of the importance of ‘staying local. You are there, your people are there.’

The malnourished and the hungry 81.7 million youngsters in Asia endure from stunting because of malnutrition, stated Ertharin Cousin, previously of the World Food Programme and now a board member of the Energy of Vitamin. Opening a discussion on investing for higher vitamin, she introduced that the international value of malnutrition is now a staggering $three.5 trillion per yr, leaving apart the value in distress and suffering. We have to reform the international meals system, she stated, and we will’t do it without personal sector funding and involvement. To get it, we’d like agreed metrics outlined based on business rules. One other method, instructed both Martin Brief, CEO of the Energy of Vitamin and Rebecca Boustead of Kellogg, may be appealing to buyers’ bottom line, mentioning the economic effects of the drawback. Ertharin Cousin also sees nothing incorrect in corporations taking advantage of social investments, as long as they work and social benefits accrue.

If self-interest was a approach into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra of their malnourished communities?

For Rebecca Boustead, there are two questions. How can we make meals which is both nutritious and appealing, and how can we get it to small village markets? She spoke of partnerships which Kellogg had with the Breakfast Revolution and with the Sesame Workshop. In the former case, meals was attending to the hard-to-reach and in the second, the message of the significance of vitamin was being conveyed.

If self-interest was a means into the pockets of the personal sector, how might we get governments to take a position extra in their malnourished communities? ‘Engage, engage, engage – with hard data’, was Ertharin Cousin’s recipe. Give them sensible solutions that help them get monetary savings, instructed Rebecca Boustead, a prescription not up to now faraway from that advocated by individuals for use with the personal sector.

Impression investing: time, transparency and demonstration These three issues are wanted to ramp up influence funding throughout all sectors. Whereas it is perhaps true to say, as Richard Ditzio of the Milken Institute, who chaired the subsequent panel discussion, did, that there is spare capital and it needs to spend money on sustainability, there are still obstacles. Didier von Daeniken, additionally of Normal Chartered questioned how banks and monetary institutions might help shoppers translate words like sustainability, influence investing and philanthropy into language they might perceive. Measurement continues to be a sticking level, he noted, as is the lack of knowledge about funding alternatives. Angela Bai of China Alliance of Social Worth Funding (CASVI) and Roy Swan of the Ford Foundation each endorsed this in a later session. Bai added a 3rd challenge: the problem of creating investments scalable.

Doug Lee of D3Jubilee Partners, an impression enterprise fund in South Korea famous a Catch-22 state of affairs arising. First-time funds have the lowest price of return, so buyers draw back, but if funds can’t appeal to buyers, how are they to succeed? Foundations have the added problem of persuading the trustees. Roy Swan associated that it took two years to induce Ford’s trustees to release eight per cent of the foundation’s endowment to dedicate to influence investing! Frank Niederlander of BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt agreed that endurance is needed and caution. The pioneer buyers, he stated, have to be apostles. They will’t afford to fail.

Many banks in Asia (native and worldwide) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable funding.

Rashesh Shah (proper) CEO of Edelweiss.

All that stated, there is progress. Rashesh Shah of Edelweiss (India) famous that particular person buyers are asking extra of their banks. Banks themselves, represented by Jose Vinals of Normal Chartered, can earn a living and assist save the world at the similar time, he stated. From doing no harm, Commonplace Chartered is now shifting in the direction of being a pressure for good. He referred to as for benchmarks on inexperienced bonds, tips for company disclosure and higher sustainability built into the financial system.  This remark itself is progress, says Annie Chen (RS Group, Hong Kong). She noted that she could not have imagined listening to a financial institution saying it ought to do good 10 years ago. The Sustainable Finance Initiative in Hong Kong which RS launched a yr earlier helps to spread the word on influence investing amongst household workplaces there and to foment a strong impression investment group. She famous, nevertheless, that many banks in Asia (local and international) nonetheless didn’t have a clear grasp of sustainable investment. Didier von Daeniken agreed. Communication is their largest drawback. Normal Chartered’s research among its Asian shoppers, nevertheless, means that 20 per cent of respondents at the moment are allocating some investment in the direction of the SDGs and that there’s higher understanding of impression investing.

There are different grounds for optimism. Each Annie Chen and Eliza Foo of Temasek International (Singapore) see hope in the evident want for change, particularly among the younger, and in the tempo of change. And there’s a lot at stake. If influence investing actually takes maintain, stated Amit Bouri of the International Influence Investing Community (GIIN), we’d change the means the financial markets work.

Measurement The challenge the convention returned to most frequently, although, was measurement of impression. Eric Rice of Wellington Management Singapore noted little progress on this, but influence is ‘what distinguishes this segment. We won’t get mainstream capital if we don’t determine it out, he warned. Moreover, new era donors are notably eager on impression, stated Giovanni Zenteno from LGT Enterprise Philanthropy. On the plus aspect, should you can present it, money is extra more likely to come your means.

Adam McCarty of Mekong Economics, whom I had marked down as a hard-shell pragmatist from previous periods, has a barely totally different take. We do influence measurement, he stated, because that’s the deal of influence investing. If you would like free or low cost cash, it’s a must to answer for the good you’re doing. Most influence measurement at the second is rudimentary, he advised and extra refined means gained’t emerge until donors demand it. Usually, panellists agreed, influence measurement is donor-driven, though Ronald Abraham of iDinsight in India feels that each side have to take it critically. He sees three essential challenges: first, impression evaluation is sluggish. It may take between one and three years, by which era the programme has changed. Second, the quality of the knowledge is usually poor. Third, it’s costly, though it could actually repay expenditure by the NPO, even if it doesn’t lead to extra funding. Idinsight had labored with Educate Women on a machine-learning venture which has enabled them to work with more youngsters on their price range, regardless of the initial value of the train.

Collaborative philanthropy For those who ask donors whether or not they practise collaboration, all of them say ‘yes’, stated Nadia Roumani of the Institute of Design at Stanford, though a show of arms in a breakout session on the matter revealed that only half a dozen or so out of an viewers of 50-60 are actually pooling assets. Why so few when it’s clear that more may be completed by working with others? The chief purpose given in the session was lack of management. Smaller contributors worry being swamped by larger ones, moreover, it is troublesome to reconcile giving unrestricted grants from the pool with the specific needs of particular person donors? Co-Influence tries to bypass this by allowing smaller contributors to vote on where they want their funds to go within the framework of the programme, stated Anne-Marie Harling of Co-Influence. Individuals also want a specific amount of humility. Erin Hulme of the Gates Basis stated that in the collaboration on polio involving Gates, WHO and UNICEF, the foundation had been prepared to ‘go where the expertise lies’ and did not want to steer. Boon Heong Ng of Temasek Worldwide agreed. Temasek was originally the sole donor of Challenge Silver Display in Singapore which works to fight listening to deficiencies amongst the elderly. Silver Display now includes other corporations, the Ministry of Well being and individuals’s associations, all of whom deliver totally different sorts of expertise.

Regardless of apparent advantages, collaboration remains troublesome, especially amongst establishments.

It’s not just massive funders who can benefit from collaboration. Ludwig Forrest of the King Baudouin Basis (KBF) explained the concept of umbrella foundations. These permit modest donors to pool assets beneath the aegis of a bigger entity like KBF and to provide to causes they have in widespread. It’s a approach of democratising philanthropy, he stated. KBF presently has 750 smaller foundations sheltering underneath its umbrella.

Regardless of obvious advantages, collaboration stays troublesome, especially amongst establishments. Establishing collaborations requires giving a number of thought to the construction, which must be clear, yet flexible sufficient to adapt, stated Nadia Roumani.

Larry Kramer, President of the Hewlett Foundation.

What’s efficient philanthropy? For these – and there have been many – who had been urging the non-profit to be more like the for-profit sector, Larry Kramer of the Hewlett Basis, had some words of warning. ‘It’s an enormous mistake,’ he stated. ‘We all want to be efficient but that’s not enterprise, it’s good organisational considering.’ Non- and for-profit organisations have totally different strategies, totally different areas of work and, most essential, totally different technique of measuring. Enterprise has one easy metric Philanthropy can’t have, however that doesn’t imply it could actually’t be effective. There are three parts to effective philanthropy: have a aim, have a story about the way to obtain it and have a approach to measure progress. The criterion for the last, he argued, is ‘reasonableness under the circumstances.’ Don’t mislead yourselves and don’t drive it. Settle for that there can be some fuzziness. He urged the viewers to assume when it comes to learning, not of success or failure.

Prizes If the ethos of the non-profit sector is – or should be – collaboration, the MacArthur Foundation has discovered competition can typically be helpful. Its 100 and Change prize gives $100 million for any answer to any drawback, defined Celia Conrad. The primary winner in 2017 was the Sesame Workshop. Along with sparking innovation, the applicants, even the unsuccessful ones, can generate invaluable concepts which could possibly be shared. For the winners themselves, the prize money will help deliver in more funds, as has happened for Sesame Workshop. Lisa George from the MacQuarie Group Basis in Australia had launched an identical, though more modest ($10 million) prize to mark its 50th anniversary. Like MacArthur, that they had been stunned by the high quality and breadth of the purposes. The shortlist of finalists had included initiatives as numerous as the Ocean Cleanup, Human Rights Watch and Woman Impact.

It’s a high-stakes recreation although, cautioned Safeena Hussain of Educate Women, a profitable applicant to the Audacious Challenge run by TED for its efforts to deliver 1.5 million women back into the faculty system in India. Whereas the software process may also help NGOs assume by way of what they do, additionally it is time-consuming. ‘If we hadn’t gained, we might have struggled,’ she stated, ‘because we had invested so much in the process for over a year.’ She urged funders to think about the value of the acquisition of their money.

Previous power, new energy The nature of power is changing and donors and buyers want to adjust to cope with the shift, says Jeremy Heimans of Function. Previous power is formal, specialist, non-participatory. It’s what he termed energy as foreign money. Harvey Weinstein is previous power (an unsympathetic instance in case you have been wondering which aspect you should be on). New power is transparent, casual, fluid, participatory, or energy as present, as he put it. Examples embrace #MeToo, Occupy and Airbnb. The longer term might be a battle for mobilisation, he predicted and the drawback philanthropists want to unravel is find out how to work with new power.

Workshops The final day of the convention offered the probability to work in more element in a collection of workshop throughout the morning and afternoon. As with the breakout and plenary periods, these coated a variety of subjects, among them, options journalism and the influence of storytelling, methods to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic follow, utilizing finance as a software to deal with gender-based violence, and figuring out impression funding opportunities in Asia. Each of the ones I attended proved fascinating and involving. In a single, Eric Nee, editor of Stanford Social Innovation Evaluate (SSIR) and Fan Li, his counterpart on the Chinese language version of SSIR, introduced the concept of options journalism. Moderately than providing exposés of issues, as traditional journalism tended to do, Nee defined, options journalism – nicely, the clue is in the identify – focuses on the response to the drawback, goes into element on how the response works and supplies lessons and frameworks, not just inspiration. He and Fan Li also outlined ways on presenting concepts in order that they might persist with the audience, telling tales that have been credible, concrete, simple and arresting.

‘Make expectations clear at the outset, listen more than you talk and be clear and consistent in your dealings with the grantee.’

The workshop on the effectiveness of philanthropy, introduced by Lindsay Louie of the Hewlett Basis, looked at 4 parts of Hewlett’s follow, values, strategy, measurement and grant apply. Louie underlined the importance that Hewlett attaches to analysis, spending two per cent of its finances on the difficulty. Moreover, Hewlett periodically evaluates its own evaluations. Evaluations need to watch three criteria, she steered: utility, acceptability and suitability. In different phrases, assessment needs to fit the intervention in question, it has to make respondents really feel part of the venture and it must be tied to implementation. When it comes to how one can be a great grantmaker, she provided the following: be responsive, show curiosity about the grantee organisation, not just the programme, make expectations clear at the outset, pay attention more than you speak and be clear and constant in your dealings with the grantee.

Consuming the conference As regular, AVPN offered an array of periods and subjects that have been virtually overwhelming in quantity and selection. When you’re catering for as giant and numerous an viewers as the conference attracts, it’s a must to put on an enormous menu.

It was thoughtfully set out, although. The subjects, although assorted, by no means strayed removed from the major themes of the convention. It appeared to me, too, that this yr, it was higher paced, with fewer, but longer periods which allowed larger discussion and there was an urgency and a conviction about proceedings which was putting. There were additionally more – and welcome – modifications of tempo, with a larger number of participatory periods. The standard of the periods, as all the time, depends on the presenters. Everyone could have their very own highlights, in response to taste. For me, James Chen’s and Larry Kramer’s keynotes, the workshops, and the local weather finance and the listening to the voices of grantees breakout periods stood out.

‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In the event you’re expecting inventory market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’

One panellist remarked that you would put all of the individuals into three bins – those that want money, those that have it to provide and those who mediate in numerous capacities between them. He could also be proper, however those are very huge bins, accommodating many differing kinds and sizes of organisation – funders, non-profits, investment managers of different stripes, researchers, CSR officers and consultants and native and regional social enterprises who have been pitching to the ‘deal share’platform all added to the combine. A trademark of the AVPN conference remains its power and its curiosity. There’s a willingness to satisfy and to strike up conversations that isn’t all the time apparent at different gatherings. Little question individuals convey this with them, however AVPN deserves some credit score for offering the setting and the environment to allow them to do so.

One factor extra: Quite a few audio system appealed to an financial, fairly than a normative, rationale for addressing the points discussed which – for me – felt jarring. True, there were a lot of people in the room accustomed to considering in monetary phrases and each mode of life has its own conceptual body and its personal vocabulary. Perhaps, too, they thought the message of the social sector can be heard more readily by mainstream capital if it have been couched in phrases it might readily grasp. In any respect events, it felt at occasions like listeners have been being urged to take on social issues for the sake of worldwide GDP, slightly than for causes extra primarily human.

Clearly, it is going to take more than two or three days to break the boundaries between the social and mainstream investment worlds. Even those already on the social and impression funding bus – so to speak – weren’t all the time clear about the place to take a seat, who to take a seat with, or even what route the bus should take to its vacation spot. One participant I spoke to had a easy rule of thumb: ‘If you are giving money away, you’re a philanthropist. In case you’re anticipating stock market returns, you’re not a philanthropist.’ But if members are typically hazy about their very own roles and nomenclature and the difficulties of bringing others who are presently outdoors the ambit of social investment (nevertheless outlined) remain unresolved, certainly one of the things the convention made clear is that working in widespread takes time and plenty of conversations. You must start someplace. AVPN’s convention was a firm and essential first step.

The post Energy, curiosity and urgent questions on the AVPN agenda appeared first on Android Smart Gears.

[ardett]

What’s Promised

Description: Matt finds his way as time ticks down to his acceptance to the Garrison. 

OR a series of vignettes full of promises made and promises kept.

Author’s Note: Written for the @vldmattzine! 

I'm decently pleased with this fic and I was honored to be a part of this zine! The finished product was really beautiful and if you didn't get to grab a copy, please enjoy this!

As always, feel free to check it out on Ao3!

5.

Matt is five when Katie is born.

He’s small, his handprints miniature compared to his dad’s, and the kitchen counter still towers above him, but Katie is even smaller. And chubbier. He pokes her cheek a couple of times in the cradle before his mother gently reprimands him. She says he looked like this when he was born too, soft and round. He doesn’t know if he believes her.

“Ka-tie… Katie.” He tries her name out loud. She doesn’t look like a Katie. She just looks… pudgy. “Pi- Pudgy,” he pouts. His mother ruffles his hair and he squeaks, ducking away.

“Come on, Matthew, let Katie get some sleep.” She guides him towards the door.

“When are we going to be able to play together?” Matt glances back at the cradle where a contented gurgle sounds. He thought for sure he would at least get a playmate out of this, but she’s too tiny to do anything fun. She can’t even talk yet. All he’s heard so far is blubbery giggles and the occasional whine.

His mother laughs. “Not for a while, baby. Don’t hold your breath.”

The first time Matt holds Katie, he’s struck by how warm she is. She radiates her own bubble of heat. Their mother reminds him to support the head and he does as she nuzzles against him. Her tiny, pudgy fingers grasp at his clothes. There’s so much life in her, even as small as she is. Her eyes are big and blinking, her breaths a bit weezy, and ever so gently against his chest, he feels her heartbeat.

He smiles and thinks that even though he wanted a brother, a baby sister might be even better.

4.

Matt can recite his four times tables forwards and backwards.

He’s working on his times tables up to ten forwards and backwards now but he doesn’t have anyone to practice with. He tries to practice with a classmate during recess but the other boy just looks at him strangely. He says they’ve only learned up to three.

Matt asks his teacher about it later, while everyone is grabbing their coats from their cubbies.

“I want to make sure you’re being challenged, Matthew,” she says. “You should be learning new things in school. If you already know it, there’s no need to keep quizzing you on it.”

“But…” His brow scrunches. “But other people aren’t taking the same quiz I am?”

“There are a few kids in other classes taking the same quizzes as you. But it’s true, most of your peers aren’t.”

“But their quiz is easier. That’s not fair!” He pouts and wrinkles up his nose.

“It’s not easier for them. Multiplication is as hard for them as division is for you. Does that make sense, Matthew?”

“No,” he frowns.

“Hmm, tell you what.” His teacher jots something down on a piece of paper. “I’ll call your family later, okay? They’ll be able to explain it to you a little better than I can.”

“What?” Matt’s hands grips the edge of the desk. “But I didn’t do anything wrong! Why do you have to call my parents?”

The bell rings a second time and his teacher gets up from her desk to bring them out to their buses. “You’re not in trouble,” she says as she shoos him towards his coat. “I’m just going to discuss some things with your parents to make sure we’re all on the same page. Okay?”

Matt nods, even though he doesn’t really get it, and works on his division tables on the bus ride home to distract himself.

They do talk about it when Matt gets home.

“So your teacher called today, Matt,” his dad says, glancing up from where he cuts another piece of chicken.

Matt almost bursts into frustrated tears right there. Instead, he only stabs at his food and mutters, “I didn’t do anything.”

“Hey, buddy. We know you didn’t do anything.” His dad leans down to meet Matt’s downcast eyes and sticks out his tongue once they make eye contact. Matt laughs despite himself. “That’s not what this is about. So you wanted to know why you’ve been taking different tests than the other kids in your class, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Your brain just works a little bit differently than your classmates. Some things, like maybe math, come easier to you than other people.”

“Now,” his mom interjects. “That doesn’t mean anyone is less than you are. Everyone’s good at different things. Some kids might be really good at sports. Some kids are good at art. Being smart certainly isn’t anything to be ashamed of but remember that being kind is the most important thing you can be.”

“I know, mom,” Matt grumbles.

At the end of the year, the school asks Matt and his family if they want to accelerate him but, in all her kindergarten prowess, Katie protests, “No! I’m going to catch up! It’s not fair if Matt gets even more ahead.”

Matt agrees and Katie gives him a huge smile.

3.

Matt hasn’t slept in three days.

His computer is mocking him, cursor just blinking and blinking until the screen dims and he moves his mouse to wake it again. He’s only typed three new words. He has to write at least another paragraph tonight.

Why do you want to attend the Galaxy Garrison? the application reads.

He holds back a groan and leans back in his chair, rubbing at his burning eyes. He almost wants to write, my dad works here, you have to accept me, but he can’t be that obnoxious and pretentious. He really does want to attend the Garrison but putting it down in words is like prying out his ribs one by one. Awful.

Finally, he turns to his still unfinished math homework. At least that should come easy to him.

It doesn’t. He can’t even do math correctly. How could he ever think he had a chance at the Garrison? Even if he gets in, they’ll crush him.

The lead of his pencil snaps.

Matt growls through his teeth and clicks the top for more lead for almost a minute before realizing the mechanical pencil must have run out of graphite. He roots through his bag (too aggressively) and throws the case of extra lead on his desk. He rips off the cap (too violently) and sticks of lead scatter across the table’s surface and spill onto the floor.

This time, he actually does scream. He slams his head into the desk. There are footsteps in the hall and the creak of his door opening. He doesn’t look up.

“Matt? Are you doing alright, honey?” He screws his eyes shut as he feels his face heating up. “Matthew?”

“I’m fine,” he chokes out, and there is it, the first tear. When it becomes clear his mom isn’t going to leave, he lifts his head. He swipes at his eyes and mutters again, “I’m fine. You don’t have to stay.”

His mom walks closer. “Why don’t you take a break? You’ve been working on this for weeks now.”

“And it’s still not done, mom! I need to…” A frustrated snarl escapes him as more tears drip down his face. “I just need to finish this.”

He doesn’t resist as his mom leans down to hug him. It makes the tears come even faster until his throat starts to burn and ache. “Dad’s going to think I’m so stupid,” he whispers into her shirt.

“Neither of us thinks you’re stupid.” She kisses the top of his head.

“But what if I don’t get in?”

“Then you don’t get in. You’ll go somewhere else and you’ll have a wonderful life and you’ll do great things. And we’ll still be proud of you.”

Matt smiles, still a small and fragile thing, and pulls away. He rubs at his cheeks with his sleeve. “I just… I want to go there so bad,” he confesses.

“I know, baby. But for tonight, why don’t you try and get some sleep? You can try again tomorrow, okay?” She taps on his desk.

“Okay,” Matt agrees.

The funny thing is he can’t fall asleep. He’s trying. He’s been trying for two hours. And all he’s really been doing is laying down on his bed, staring at those stupid, completely inaccurate glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, and thinking about how much he wants to fly among them.

For years and years, he’s heard his dad recount his adventures. Missions to the moon and watching the world from so far above and glimpsing solar flares lick panes of reinforced glass. He wants desperately to be a part of something greater, something bigger than the world itself, and he knows he has to leave the bounds of this planet to do it.

As his eyes drift closed, the glowing stars wink at him. Maybe they’re making a promise.

2.

The two of them have spent their lives together. The Holt siblings: the menaces, the geniuses, the inseparable.

Matt never minded when Katie hung out with him and his friends. She’s as witty and funny as the best of them. It never felt like the babysitting it started out as. Once Katie gets older though, his friends start to question it.

Isn’t she old enough to stay home alone? Does your little sister have to sleep over too? It’s not that we don’t like her, man, she’s great, but doesn’t she have her own friends?

The last comment makes Matt pause. Of course she has friends. He can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t want to be friends with Katie. But… she never has any friends over. She never talks about her friends. He’s never even seen her with other kids from her school.

Matt bites his lip. That can’t be right. There’s got to be something he’s missing.

His friends invite him over to watch a movie a few days later and when Katie asks if she can come to, Matt inquires as casually as he can, “Maybe you want to go over to one of your friends’ houses. You never seem to hang out with them.”

Only silence answers him. Matt glances up to see Katie’s fingers paused over her keyboard. She swallows and goes back to typing. “Nah, they’re all busy,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“Yep.” Katie doesn’t look up.

“I mean… I’m just asking because I feel like I never see you hanging out with anyone in your grade, you know?”

Katie slams her laptop closed and Matt jumps. “Look, if you don’t want me there, just tell me!”

“W- What?” Matt stammers but Katie is already storming from the room. “Katie! Katie, come on!”

Matt curses under his breath with a groan, running his hands down his face. He really messed up this time, didn’t he? (Did he? He doesn’t even know what set her off.)

He flinches as he hears Katie’s door bang shut and the house rattles along with it. He finally gets to his feet and makes his way to Katie’s room. He knocks first but there’s no answer.

“Katie?” Matt sighs into the silence and leans his head against the door. “Katie, I didn’t mean it like that. I want you there. I really do. I love hanging out with you. You’re, like, the smartest person I know. I just want to make sure you have friends, which I know sounds so stupid, but… You have other friends, right? Other than me and my friends?” Matt waits, before asking again, “Katie?”

“I have friends, Matt! Just go away already!” She sounds a bit more watery than Matt had hoped but he doesn’t know what else to do. So he leaves it.

Matt privately wonders how to fix this while he lays awake in his bed until his door creaks open. He sits up, eyes widening at the sight of Katie. She’s rubbing at her eyes and at first he thinks it’s because of sleepiness but as she comes closer, it’s clear she’s crying.

“Matt?” she whispers. She crawls onto his bed as he sits there, frozen and useless. “I lied.”

A shock of cold spears through his heart. All he can seem to muster is a, “Hm?” but she barrels on.

“I- I don’t have any friends. They all h-hate me and they think I’m such a nerd and the only time they ever want to talk with me is when we have group projects-”

“Katie.”

“-and it’s just cause they want me to do all the work and then when I don’t do it they say that’s why they hate me and now you don’t even want to be around me so it must just be me-”

“Katie!” Matt grabs her shoulders and Katie jolts. “I want to be around you. I love spending time with you.” She looks away. “No, I mean it. No one else gets quantum frequencies like you do, right?” She laughs a little at that and Matt smiles before it turns again to a frown. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Katie curls into herself. “Because you have friends. And it’s just… It’s more complicated than that. I’ve spent my whole life trying to catch up to you, accelerated classes, skipping grades, and it makes all the other kids hate me even more. And I didn’t even catch up! You’re going to leave and then I’m really going to be alone!”

“Well, we don’t know-” Matt tries.

“Come on, you’re getting in. And I want you to. I know it’s your dream. I don’t want you to have to worry about your stupid younger sister.”

“Don’t say that. You’re a lot of things but you’re definitely not stupid.”

“Thanks,” Katie scoffs. “I don’t know. It’s just… hard.”

“It gets easier. When kids are your age, they’re insecure, you know? You make them nervous. I actually used to eat lunch with my guidance counselor instead of in the cafeteria.”

“Really?” Katie sniffles and Matt feels like a failure of an older brother.

“Yeah, really. I didn’t meet my friends until middle school.”

“So I have to wait.”

“I guess. But you’ll be okay.” Matt pulls her in for a hug and she lays on his chest for a few seconds before wrapping her arms around him and returning the embrace. Matt doesn’t know what else to say but as he gently strokes her hair and hugs her a little tighter, he hopes this is enough.

“Alright. Thanks, Matt.” Katie untangles herself and gets up, wiping away the last of her tears. She pauses right before she exits the room. “I just want you to know… I’m going to be okay. If you get in and have to leave. I mean, it’s going to suck for a little bit but I can handle it. And then I’m going to meet you at the Garrison.”

Matt doesn’t need a pinkie promise to believe her.

1.

In the mail, Matt receives one acceptance letter. (And at home, Matt has to say one goodbye.)

Matt doesn’t even read the rest of the letter from the Garrison. He’s starts crying, crying, as he reads the header that says, Congratulations! His mother snatches the paper from him as he buries his head in his hands but it’s tears of relief coursing down his face.

“Oh my god,” he whispers into his palms. His mom honest-to-god squeals and hugs him, knocking him out of his shock. “Mom,” he grumbles but a smile creeps onto his face as it hits him.

He made it in. He’s going to the Galaxy Garrison.

“I knew you could do it.” His mom brushes a hand against his cheek before pulling away. She claps her hands, grabbing her phone from the counter. “We have to tell your dad! He’s going to be so proud.”

He is. He promises to them that even though he won’t be able to make it to Matt’s graduation, he’ll be the first one to greet him when he arrives at the Garrison. “It’ll be good to have another Holt around,” he says.

Katie takes it much better than Matt thought she would. It’s been another bad day at school, he can tell, but as he shares the news, he sees the fire light in her eyes. This only motivates her further.

Summer comes and goes faster than Matt can ever remember. His things are slowly packed into boxes, clothes and photos and books and tangled headphones. Saying goodbye to his home is much more sweet than bitter. He can feel the stars nearly at his fingertips, so close, and he’s ready to reach out and grab his future.

Katie and his mom drive him down to the Garrison. Hugs are exchanged as his dad greets them at the gate. Boxes are moved and furniture is shuffled about. He looks out the window of his new room, the realization that this is his life now hitting him hard.

He breathes deeply and smiles.

Katie lingers after their mom goes to start the car, the goodbye sticking in both of their throats. Her toes draw circles in the dirt and she holds her hands behind her back, gaze fixed on the ground.

“I’m going to miss you,” she finally mumbles.

“I’m gonna miss you too, Pidge.”

She huffs a laugh, muttering, “Don’t call me that.” The smile fades a bit. “Seriously though, I am going to miss you. Don’t forget to email or call or something.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Okay.” Katie finally meets his eyes. “This is only goodbye for now. Not for long. Because I’m going to catch up.” She jabs at his chest to emphasize her point. “Just wait.”

Matt grins and nods. He pulls her in for one last tight hug before she goes to follow their mom.

As they drive away from the Garrison, Matt sees Katie mouth, See you soon.

To the wind, he whispers, “I know.”