The Editor’s Post: Highlighting our expert impact voices

It’s a journalist’s job to become an expert in whatever they are writing about and (with their combined experience of several decades of experience in the impact space) our team of journalists at Pioneers Post are a highly knowledgeable bunch.

But when it comes to the more specialist aspects of impact – the economics of social and environmental change, the accounting standards by which companies and investors are (or at least should be) held to account, the flows of private capital into the areas that need it most around the world, or what the key challenges and opportunities are in specific countries or regions – it’s important to call on those who have deeply researched and thought through the complexities of policy and practice, as well as the entrepreneurs who are delivering positive change ‘at the coalface’.

Pioneers Post is privileged to have a wonderful contact book of expert writers who want to share their learning through our channels. And it’s the work done by these people – like ‘renegade economist’ Kate Raworth and her colleague Erinch Sahan from Doughnut Economics Action Lab, or by Jeremy Nicholls, who leads part of the impact standards work for the United Nations Development Programme’s Sustainable Development Goals – that provides the robust research, thinking and argument that is required to change minds and shift decision-making among those leading policy or investment in governments and at big corporations.

I try to make time to re-read at least one expert article from our archive each week. Not only is it good brain exercise but I also discover something new each time – a lightbulb switches on in my head and I’m inspired to find out more, or I find a new way to explain why taking a proactive approach to impact makes sense, makes money and makes a difference.

We’ve selected just a few of the articles from our fantastic archive of expert impact writers for this last of our special Summer Newsletters. I hope that they make your synapses flicker with enlightenment!

[PS: Oh - and speaking of experts - if you want to learn how to be brilliant at reporting on your impact, then do sign up to our next Social Business Coffee Break webinar on 18 September!]

Top reads: learn from the experts

Externalities are a choice: why society should expect company directors to take impact responsibility – by Jeremy Nicholls

Doughnut Economics for business: how to start redesigning your enterprise – by Erinch Sahan

Decent work and sustainable livelihoods: Why street vendors need to create co-operatives – by Alberto Santana

Opinion: Too high-risk, too low-return? Why impact investors should rethink their attitudes to Africa – by Joanne Manda

A voice from... Guest contributors reveal what's happening in impact in their part of the world

How Brazil is putting impact on the table at this year’s G20

Can social entrepreneurs help pave the way to peace in Yemen?

Top impage: Freepik.

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