Charity Book Club
Creating a safe, trusting space to learn with Charity Book Club
Exploring important topics to help people grow their own perspectives.
Impact measured against UN Sustainable Development Goals
Intention
Learning shouldn’t stop once you leave school or university. However there is often a lack of safe spaces for people to come together to discuss their thoughts and views on topics, especially those which are more emotional or seen as political.
The Charity Book Club was started to provide a trusting space to discuss topics that are relevant to the organisations we work with.
The aim is to get people thinking big and thinking differently. This allows people to be inspired by others and develop their own thinking, often to put into practice in the charities in which they work.
Results
This year the group has read and discussed these books with dozens of people:
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
- Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas by Adam Kay
- Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
- Intimations by Zadie Smith
- The Art of Disruption by Magid Magid
- The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
- How to Listen by Katie Colombus
- Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
269
members
141
registered to attend events
2
guest authors
Thank you so much to @Katiecolombus for joining @CharityBookClub tonight for Q&A on ‘How to Listen’. Our discussions were practical, empowering and profound. Katie’s advice and tools resonated with us all. Now, to spread an epidemic of kindness!
Charity Book Club
I love being part of @charitybookclub and connecting with this fabulous group for thoughtful discussion on some really diverse books
Laura McCormack
What’s next?
More diverse book choices
We have been committed to diverse themes and so far have touched on race, identity, migration, feminism, mental health and poverty. We want to push this even more and have got plans for books on climate, community mobilisation, gender and more!
We will also continue to engage our community in what they want to read too to ensure that we’re user-driven in all we do.
We will also continue to engage our community in what they want to read too to ensure that we’re user-driven in all we do.
Awesome events
We will continue to hold space for meaningful conversations in our events; enabling people to share their thoughts and be curious about others’ experiences too.
We held two successful author Q&As in 2021 - Magid Magid and Katie Colombus - and want to do more in 2022.
We want to invite speakers to our events who are related to a book choice to bring our members closer to the topic and encourage more in-depth discussion.
Community growth and engagement
We want to spread the word of Charity Book Club to reach more people who work with/for charities
We want to explore getting our members to be more active in events - for example taking in turns to host the events, particularly if their charity is active in the focus area of the book.
Charity support
We have been so proud that William Joseph have been making donations to charities for each of our events. We want to build on this through more forward planning with the selected charities and inviting them to share more about the charity with our members.