LET’S ELIMINATE NUCLEAR WEAPONS – March 25, 2015 (Full Article Here)

Join Kosmos Project Director Dot Maver, Jonathan Granoff and other nuclear nonproliferation luminaries in a panel Webinar.

KOSMOS 2015 SEED GRANT ANNOUNCEMENT – April 7

The Kosmos team has completed its review of more than 1000 grant applications received in response to our 2015 Seed Grants Initiative. The two Seed Grant Recipients will be announced in the April 7 edition of Kosmos Online. Proposals were received from around the world. In addition to the two official Recipients, we will also announce five Projects of Promise. Our community will learn much more about all seven finalists in the months ahead.

EDGE Funders Alliance 2015 Just Giving Conference

April 8-10, 2015
Hyatt Regency Baltimore, MD on the Inner Harbor
300 Light Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Kosmos is thrilled to be an invited participant at this year’s Edge Funders Alliance Conference.

Evidence abounds that human society’s social, ecological and economic crises are interconnected and systemic. Such approaches require bold departures from conventional politics and policy. Yet philanthropy remains more adept at addressing symptoms than root causes. As we assess the current state of our world and consider together the elements that are essential to a ‘just transition’, and ultimately, a just economy, we are called to consider four goals: to decommodify nature, reimagine work, liberate knowledge and democratize wealth. These are interrelated, especially as they demand attention to the notion of enclosures – the private appropriation of resources previously held in common – and to the need for an alternative collaborative economy promoting the common good. We should consider:

– How are nature, work, knowledge and wealth being appropriated for private ends?
– How can such enclosures be resisted, and transcended?
– How are local, translocal and transnational movements engaging in this work?
– How can philanthropy support their efforts?

An emerging alternative economy has roots in notions of cooperative management and collective ownership, in feminist as well as ecological economics, and in the creative and the natural commons. Historical approaches in Africa include Ubuntu and Ujamaa, and in indigenous cultures it is expressed through alternatives to development like Buen Vivir. Such approaches are proliferating through the resurgence of new types of cooperatives, in movements such as Transition Towns, and in campaigns by indigenous peoples to defend their cultures and ethno-botanical landscapes. Elements of the collaborative economy can also be seen in new visions of work, in peer production ranging from open source software to open design and manufacturing, in food commons and community land trusts, and in cultural commons.

Just Giving 2015 will focus a changing economy based on commoning principles and practices being undertaken by already active transnational movements and by thinkers throughout the globe. It will allow us to consider our funding strategies in new ways, so with partners around the world we can find common ground in our ongoing work for deep and meaningful social change.

FUJI DECLARATION LAUNCH IN MAY

Kosmos Co-Founder and Journal Editor, Nancy Roof and Dot Maver, Kosmos Project Director are invited signatories of the Fuji Declaration. They are heading to Kyoto in May to attend a special ceremony and participate in dialogues. Together with the other signatories and people of good will, we pray the Declaration may grow into an effective movement toward peace, solidarity and dignity for all people on Earth.

THE ORACLE INSTITUTE – Building the New World Conference

Dot Maver, Kosmos Project Director, has also been asked to speak at another peacebuilding conference hosted by Radford University in Radford, Virginia May 28th thru May 31st, 2015

THE ORACLE INSTITUTE – Building the New World Conference is based on the Wheel of Co-Creation” designed by Barbara Marx Hubbard, who is opening the conference. BTNW will encourage real action via strategic transformation in each of the following sectors:

• Learning & Education
• Communications & Media
• Art & Culture
• Economics & Business
• Peacebuilding & Relations
• Justice & Governance
• Health & Wellness
• Food, Water & Environment
• Infrastructure & Resources
• Science & Technology
• Spirituality & Religion

 EthicMark® 

Nancy Roof has been a judge of EthicMark®, ‘advertising that lifts the human spirit’,  for 10 years. EthicMark® Awards are open to campaigns representing socially responsible advertising and media communications. These campaigns seek to transform advertising by demonstrating the power of media campaigns to inspire, focus on future potentials and further both public and legitimate private interests. The awards are given in November.

EthicMark®  was founded in 2004 by futurist Hazel Henderson.  Awardees of the EthicMark®:

• Model ethics in well-functioning markets in democratic societies;
• Publicize messaging to simultaneously promote what is good for business, society and the planet;
• Highlight businesses paying attention to the triple bottom line—profits, people and the planet— noting that such businesses prosper more than those narrowly focused only on profit.

Particularly ads and campaigns are favored that are produced by companies:

• Listed in portfolios of socially responsible institutional investors (such as pension and mutual funds, endowments, foundations) aligned with the UN Principles of Responsible Investing;
• Included in sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) and other ethical indices that use environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria for asset valuation (such as Domini, FTSE4Good, Calvert).

NOMINATE HERE