Friday 5 - 30th June 2017

Each week we publish five interesting ideas to take you into the weekend in our Friday 5. This week's edition is below, but if you want to subscribe and receive them direct to your inbox every Friday, you can do so here.

(1) The Tug of Hope

We are a nation of givers. In fact 61% of us donated to charity in the last year, giving over ï¿¡9.6bn in total to good causes. But when it comes to one of the biggest crises of our time, Syria, this isn’t the case. GlobalGiving found that people were three times as likely to donate to victims of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal than to those fleeing the war in Syria. And other refugee causes fare even worse. Why? Blame bad marketing. Researchers have found that, contrary to popular belief, ads that tug on your heartstrings - the ones with the crying children or people with flies in their eyes - don’t work. But triggering a sense of hope does. Businesses, of course, know this already: sportswear companies don’t threaten us with obesity and cardiac failure to get us to buy their shoes, but tell us stories of amputees running marathons, or people succeeding against the odds, to make us believe we can transform our lives too with the right trainers. To see whether this same insight could be applied to non-profits, the researchers created two ads for a charity in Bangladesh: the first showed an image of a sick and malnourished child with slogans like “Please donate before it’s too late”; the second showed a smiling child holding a sign “Future Doctor” and asked for donations to educate the next generation. The second ad was a huge success, raising far more money than the first. For us, the key insight here is the importance of starting with the person not the issue. By getting inside their world, and understanding people’s hopes and values, you can find a more effective way of engaging them, increasing the chance of affecting the desired positive social change.

(2) These Wheels Were Made for Moving

If you see a cyclist riding in a pedestrianised area, you may well quietly tut-tut at the culprit in a typically British fashion as they roll on by. But did you ever stop to think that the cyclist may actually be a disabled person, using their cycle as a mobility aid? In fact, the majority of disabled cyclists - 69% of those surveyed by charity Wheels for Wellbeing - find cycling easier than walking and 52% of disabled cyclists get about on a two-wheeled cycle. However, as a result of a legislative anomaly - unlike wheelchairs or mobility scooters, cycles are not legally recognised as a mobility aid - disabled cyclists regularly encounter difficulties; one in three have been asked to dismount on footways or in pedestrianised areas, even though they are using their cycle as a mobility aid. They also face similar problems when using public transport where cycles are banned but mobility scooters are not. Disabled cyclists face a host of other challenges such as infrastructure issues in the form of narrow cycle lanes and the high cost of non-standard cycles which aren’t subject to the same range of subsidies standard two-wheelers get. The benefits of cycling are huge and, working in an office where cyclists are in the majority, we believe strongly that everyone should have the right to enjoy the feeling of the wind in their hair. So if you or someone you know would be interested in getting involved in lobbying for change, here’s some more information on how you can with Wheels for Wellbeing. And for the able-bodied but nervous cyclists among you here are a few tips to get you on your bike. It’s also worth checking if your local authority offers free cycle confidence courses as many of them do.

(3) Chatbots for Good

Many of us groaned on learning that we would have to download a standalone app to use Facebook’s messaging function in 2014. Launching to thousands of one-star reviews, the Messenger app seemed an unnecessary waste of space and a more complicated way of doing something that had previously been fairly simple. But in a wonderful example of technology being used as a driver for social change, Messenger is evolving to integrate chatbots - a computer program that simulates human conversation through voice commands, text chats or both - that are making a real difference. At their most basic, some bots feel like a digital update of phone menu systems: “press 1 for customer service, press 2 for sales…” while more advanced ones like Microsoft’s Xiaoice (which translates as ‘Little Bing’, after the search engine) bring Spike Jonze’s Her closer to reality than science fiction. Somewhere in the middle, developers are using bots as an important tool for bridging gaps in society for social good. Tarjimly connects refugees with critical services like translators, medical staff and lawyers; WeBot helps activists find local protests; CindyBot coaches women through pay raise negotiations in Cindy Gallop’s confident and outspoken conversation style; and WoeBot offers chats about mental health at a fraction of the cost of a traditional therapist. Messenger’s in-built communication infrastructure and an audience of over one billion users worldwide makes it a significant tool that humanitarians and activists can leverage to create real impact. Added to this is the Messenger team’s support for the bot ecosystem and its desire to create a product for social good. Since opening up the platform to developers last year, over 100,000 unique bots have been created and the phenomenon is also seeing the emergence of new platforms that help people create their own bots for Messenger, a real indicator of the feature’s promise. If you are new to the world of bots, here is a gentle introduction that’s a different kind of social - Mica the Hipster Cat will help you find cool local cafes where you can connect with people IRL.

(4) Get Outside

Big firms such as Facebook and Google are renowned for having everything their employees could ever need in one place, minimising the need to leave the office - free nap pods, hairdressers, onsite gyms and running tracks, free cooking lessons in the evenings and, of course, and free food. However, the city’s newest resident, Bloomberg, will be bucking that trend. Bloomberg’s new ï¿¡1bn offices in the City of London will offer refreshments and breakfast food in a pantry area but there will be no lunchtime canteen. Instead, staff will be encouraged to get outside to get their lunch. The founder of the firm, Mike Bloomberg, said that as a guest in the city he wanted to do good, not harm and so he believes that people should get out and enjoy the local economy. Based in Soho, we are spoiled for choice when it comes to lunch options on our doorstep and supporting the local economy is part of our everyday so we welcome Bloomberg’s decision to be a part of his community. A city lives and breathes through its local economy. Navigating bustling street markets to sniff out the best stand and the guy at the local sandwich shop who always remembers how you like your ciabatta buttered are part and parcel of what makes London, London. If you find yourself in Soho, step by the office and we’ll be delighted to introduce you to some of our favourite places.

(5) Good Days and Good Food

At Good Business, one of the many benefits the whole team gets are two ‘Good Days’ each per year. Although almost everyday is a good day at Good Business, these extra Good Days are really ‘good’ days. The team can use these days to do ‘good’ - whatever that might mean to them. Here is an excerpt from David’s recent blog post on how he spent his Good Day last week.

On Friday, I headed out with City Harvest to collect surplus food and deliver it to organisations that provide meals to vulnerable people including homeless shelters, soup kitchens, after school programmes, centres for veterans, and organisations that assist people with alcohol or drug addictions. It was a great day with Debs and the team (thank you all) and it got me thinking what the day had taught me and what I could usefully share with others. There were five big ones for me; three of which are here, while the other two can be found in my blog post.

Food waste is a huge issue: what surprised me most was the scale of the issue. Despite working in sustainability and talking about food waste pretty regularly, it is only when you see it first-hand that it really sinks in. At one supermarket we were greeted with more food than we could fit into the van. Add to this the amount of perfectly good-to-eat food thrown out because it had just passed its use by date. What we can do: Support and lobby for changes in the way we label food. Here’s a good place to start.

Business needs to value charities: Too often the work delivered by charities is undervalued by business. A story recounted to me during my day involved a major supermarket chain making a big song and dance about its commitment to being a ‘good’ business one day and then making the City Harvest team dig through discarded bin bags of ‘food’ to identify anything that could be saved on their behalf. What we can do: If your company is committed to change make sure you value all the partners that will help you get there – just because they are a charity doesn’t mean they should be doing things for free.

There is so much human kindness: This country is built on a strong backbone of volunteers and people who do so much for others often without even thinking about what they are doing- something that was brought into sharp focus following the Grenfell Tower tragedy. The places we visited, from community centres and hostels to missionaries and children’s homes, all had inspirational people doing their best to help others live better lives. During these times of austerity, budget cuts and general uncertainty let us not forget what we can do for others. What we can do: See if you can carve out some time, it doesn’t have to be much, to do some volunteering in your local community (perhaps even for City Harvest) – it will be time you will not regret.