Fenton’s Monthly Reads: December 2019
As we break for the holidays, these reads will keep you in the know on the latest in social impact. Curated by our experts, Fenton’s Monthly Reads is your guide to the biggest ideas in social change. Spanning our five core issue areas – Environment & Sustainability, Foundations, Public Health, Advocacy, Corporate Social Action – the following articles are the best of the best this month and are approved for thought-provoking holiday discussion with family and friends!
- Africa’s shrinking lake shows the impact of climate change on women and indigenous people. Climate change, rising populations and agriculture mean one of Africa’s largest water sources is now a tenth of the size it was in the 1960s.
By Charlotte Edmond, World Economic Forum
[3-minute read] - How To Reduce Food Waste. Food waste is a huge problem in the United States. The good news: Each of us can help solve it.
By Allison Aubrey, NPR
[5-minute read] - Philanthropists Bench Women of Color, the M.V.Ps of Social Change. And we all lose out.
By Vanessa Daniel, Groundswell, New York Times
[9-minute read] - The Jungle Prince of Delhi. For 40 years, journalists chronicled the eccentric royal family of Oudh, deposed aristocrats who lived in a ruined palace in the Indian capital. It was a tragic, astonishing story. But was it true?
By Ellen Barry, New York Times
[20-minute read] - Hong Kong: A City Divided. These are the faces of the unrest.
By Tiffany May, Adrienne Carter, Russell Goldman and Lam Yik Fei, New York Times
[15-minute read] - Deradicalization in the Deep South. How a former neo-Nazi makes amends.
By DJ Cashmere, Yes! Magazine
[14-minute read] - Our Brains Are No Match for Technology. In July, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it would fine Facebook $5 billion, the largest penalty ever levied by the agency for consumer privacy violations.
Tristan Harris, Center for Humane Technology, New York Times
[5-minute read] - Study Examines Why Black Americans Remain Scarce in Executive Suites. A new report, “Being Black in Corporate America,” outlines why diversity and inclusion efforts are falling short for African-American professionals.
By Lauretta Charlton, New York Times
[5-minute read] -
Darren Walker on Justice-Based Philanthropy. In the summer of 1965, a government worker walked up a dirt road and onto the yard of a shotgun house in rural East Texas and told a young Darren Walker’s mother about a new early childhood education program called Head Start intended to break the cycle of poverty.
By Darren Walker, Ford Foundation, Skoll Foundation
[5-minte read] - The Class of 2000 ‘Could Have Been Anything’. The high school yearbook is a staple of teenage life. But for some, it reflects the devastating toll of the opioid crisis.
By Dan Levin, New York Times
[11-minute read]
Want more? Check out November’s list here!