What's Going Right?

Perhaps more than you think

Apr 28, 2025

At the end of my last post, I confidently shared that I am “all-in” on optimism, and it’s true. That said, the never-ending barrage of negative news makes it easy to be disheartened, which is why it was so important to ask where participants in my project saw reasons for optimism and points of light where we could double down for our collective benefit. They did not disappoint. Of course, these answers came before the current political maelstrom in the United States and beyond, but that doesn’t make them any less true, just perhaps harder to see. So read on for some much needed good news to start your week.

Seeing the Butterfly

A lot of times good news happens slowly and bad news happens all at once. And so we tend to focus on the bad news that’s crashing over us in waves, and not on the slow long-term work that people are doing together to try to make a better world for us to share.
- John Green, American author, in conversation with Steve Levitt on People I (Mostly) Admire

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours.
- Noam Chomsky, American professor known as the “father of modern linguistics”

We are in the midst of an epic period of societal transformation, like the caterpillar in the chrysalis, no longer able to hold its original form but still unsure of what is to come. As artist and filmmaker Lynette Wallworth reminds us, where caterpillars have imaginal discs that hold their DNA and guide the development of the butterfly, our imaginal cells lie in our collective wisdom and moral imagination to move forward toward the world we want. Evidence of what is possible is emerging all around us but if we only see a piece here and a piece there, it is difficult to hold the whole. The following observations offer a jumping off point for a longer conversation about what is working and what is possible, with the goal of kickstarting our imagination and our collective vision for the future.

First, countries and communities around the world from Iceland to New Zealand are piloting new approaches to managing their economies, seeking to provide a baseline of wellbeing for all people while operating within planetary boundaries. These moves toward a “wellbeing economy” allow for creative and entrepreneurial growth but do so with guardrails that ensure the enduring ability of individuals and the planet to flourish. Once broadly adopted, these approaches could reduce pressure on planetary ecosystems, provide meaningful safety nets for those in need, ensure basic human rights, and thereby reduce anxiety and fear. Fine-tuning and expanding these models need to be at the core of our collective vision for the future, and has the potential to reverse the negative cycles of unfettered consumption and growth that are driving human and environmental instability, while still retaining the entrepreneurial engine that drives human progress. More information about efforts in this direction can be found at the Doughnut Economics Action Lab, the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, the Global Fund for a New Economy, and the Hewlett Foundation’s Economy and Society program.^[1]

Happily, progress is already underway with climate solutions taking hold at speed and at scale. This is especially true with respect to clean energy, where solar and wind power are now cheaper than fossil fuels. In some places, solar is producing more energy than can be used, increasing demand for better storage and transmission capability. In Australia, where climate change has not been politicized and is accepted science, strides are already being made with the goal of establishing a 100 percent clean energy economy. Implementation is proving difficult but “just” logistical, laying the groundwork for others to follow once they have worked out the challenges. Regenerative agriculture practices have already demonstrated their ability to improve soil health, sequester carbon, and provide food that is more nutrient dense and nourishing. As these evolutions take hold, they have the potential to kickstart a virtuous cycle of innovation and possibility within planetary limits.

Concurrently, we have the opportunity to make technology a power for good, creating “humanity’s moment.” AI has the potential for significant scientific breakthroughs that could cure diseases and provide insights on the nature of consciousness and the universe, with the potential to spill over into solving energy and climate issues. Advances are already happening in climate tech and health, particularly with genomics and proteomics, resulting in more efficient treatments and cures for diseases like melanoma. Technology is also enabling scientists to fold proteins in new ways that could further improve human health and allowing people to harness data science and machine learning to understand the root cause of problems, double-down on what is working, and invest in new interventions.

AI is also radically changing how people can be most effective in their lives, from writers who partner with AI to deepen their character development to programmers who use AI to produce code more efficiently or debug existing programming. Writing proposals, reports, and summaries now takes a fraction of the time, and AI is only more accessible with new tools and platforms emerging almost daily. On the personal side, several people have found AI to be a valuable source of advice on difficult family or work situations, where time is of the essence and speaking with friends or a therapist feels complicated. And the better the AI gets to know them, the better the advice becomes, which of course reinforces the need for data privacy as discussed previously.

Concurrently, we are in the middle of the largest generational wealth transfer in human history, with $84 trillion expected to pass between generations globally by 2045, primarily to Generation X. In particular, money equals power, which has been lagging for women, and studies have shown that, on average, women have a different relationship to money than men do. While philanthropy has not kept pace with wealth creation, women tend to be the drivers of giving, and philanthropy and media expert Alex Jakana points out that, according to a McKinsey report, women are expected to shift from controlling $10 trillion of total US household financial assets in 2020 to controlling much of the total $30 trillion in investable assets owned by US baby boomers by 2030.^[2] These changes portend significant shifts in how money is managed and deployed at every level of society.

At the grassroots level, more money in the hands of women translates to better child nutrition, health, and educational attainment.^[3] As philanthropists, women are more likely to prioritize giving to family, education, and healthcare, while men tend to focus on broader societal issues. In addition, women tend to be more collaborative and inclusive in their decision-making, involving family and community in their giving. Women are also more likely to support local, grassroots organizations that foster community and to prioritize sustainable solutions over short-term gains. And as Mackenzie Scott, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Melinda Gates have demonstrated, they are much more comfortable giving at scale and without the same strings attached.

At the same time, there is an explosion of talent in emerging economies, especially in African countries experiencing skyrocketing population growth and investment in job development and education. While the birth rates are dropping in richer countries, the population of Africa is projected to double to 2.5 billion over the next 25 years, such that one in four people on the planet will be African and more than a third of the world’s young people will live in Africa by 2050.^[4] With more than 230 million people and highly competitive universities, Nigeria already has the talent to address almost any issue, and their level of sophistication and specificity is high. As a result, Africa is attracting significant investment for its market potential and not just for its natural resources. These demographic changes are shifting the locus of power and decision-making, putting it more in the hands of the people on the continent. High taxation, wealth inequality, and unemployment remain stubborn issues, but the emerging potential for an Africa-powered global market engine is high.

And just as Africa is experiencing a “youth-quake,” many also pointed to the myriad qualities they see in the next generation broadly as a source of optimism, describing the young people with whom they work and socialize as motivated, skeptical, engaged, smart, inclusive, and idealistic. They see young leaders who are less willing to accept conventional wisdom about how the world works and are redesigning organizations for longevity, prioritizing rest, joy, music, and art, and intentionally making work a joy, not a grind. Their values are different, especially in philanthropy, and there is an opportunity to move society in a different way. In the words of philanthropy executive Crystal Hayling, they are “making the beloved community right now.”

In fact, there are myriad points of light where people saw meaningful progress in key areas where they work. For example, the percentage of people around the globe living in extreme poverty is down by almost two-thirds in the last 20 years, going from 26 percent in 2002 to 9 percent today (albeit up slightly from its 2019 low due to COVID).^[5] Smallholder farmers, who make up 80-90 percent of the world population, now have access to adaptation technology that is affordable and scalable, which together with weather-resistant seeds is dramatically increasing yields, improving incomes and creating improvements in nutrition, health, and education. Coral reefs have proven more resilient than anticipated, with some reefs regrown in just four years, far ahead of scientists’ expectations.^[6]

Within the US, Houston has the lowest rate of homelessness among major US cities with a model that has served more than 80,000 low-income residents, proving highly successful and now being replicated more broadly.^[7] Guaranteed income for foster youth in San Francisco has brought down homelessness in that population from 60 percent twenty years ago to 20-25 percent now, creating hope that this issue can be solved in our lifetime. The overall US prison population has also been decreasing, with a 25 percent drop between 2009 and 2021,^[8] while juvenile incarceration is down an impressive 75 percent from 2000 to 2022.^[9]

Internationally, collectives in Brazil have proven the power of the people to advocate for change, leveraging grassroots activism, social media influence, policy advocacy, and volunteer organizing to elect President Lula da Silva and hold him accountable to his promises. Even the globalization of culture is cited as a source of light, with streaming services offering content from not only the US and UK but also Latin telenovelas, Korean pop culture, and Bollywood blockbusters, showcasing the soft power of normalizing multicultural experiences. And the list goes on.

While much about in world may be difficult right now, humanity thrives in a crisis. Despite everything we typically see and hear, historian and author Rutger Bregman argues people are fundamentally good. In tough circumstances, people consistently work with creativity, optimism and humor. In World War II, civilian bombings were anticipated to break the will of the people and instead psychiatrists found an increase in the quality of mental health. And in the “real” Lord of the Flies, a group of shipwrecked Tongan school boys immediately developed rules to govern conduct and ensure cooperation, and set up a division of labor based on their individual capabilities. As Bregman points out, we are wired for cooperation, generosity and happiness, and giving to others creates joy. Yet we organize our society in a way that assumes the worst about people, which then brings out the worst in our politics and our economics.^[10]

Everything around us right now is conspiring – quite intentionally – to make us feel isolated, anxious, and fearful, but it doesn’t have to be this way. What might be possible if we flip the script and focus on the best of human nature instead, bringing an asset frame to our potential not just as individuals but as a society? Narratives of hope and possibility are their own form of resistance. Progress is rarely linear and nonprofit and philanthropy leader Mallika Dutt reminds us of the cyclical nature of human progress and evolution. Like nature, sometimes we have to fall back in order to re-emerge and flourish, stronger on the other side. The key is not to lose the thread.

Now more than ever, we need artists, journalists, and storytellers to help us see what’s possible, provide a counterpoint to the current negative tidal wave, and sustain those narratives as we make our way to the other side. And we need philanthropy to step into this moment and fund the individuals, organizations, and infrastructure to ensure those stories are embedded in the public consciousness. In the coming posts, we’ll look at how philanthropy has evolved for the better and some of the fundamental ways it needs to change to have the impact it seeks at scale, including investing much more aggressively in media and storytelling.

The Elephant & Butterfly

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