Letter from the Executive Director

Dear Friends,

Reporting on Karen Armstrong’s 2009 TED prize award, the Washington Post remarked that her idea was going to be the start of a new theology of power which was based on the Golden Rule. When Amin Hashwani, a business executive and activist in Pakistan, and now a Charter for Compassion Board of Trustee, heard Karen Armstrong’s TED Talk, it stopped him in his tracks. In her talk, Armstrong describes how compassion is more than a nice idea — it is a trait that enables humanity to flourish. This deeply resonated with him. In 2011, Hashwani founded the Compassionate School Network, a program to train schools and educators to build student skills in compassion. The network is expected to reach one million students in the next decade. fostering a new generation of leaders with empathy.

There are a thousand more stories speaking to compassion in action that are the result of Karen Armstrong's TED talk. In fact, some of these stories are highlighted in our new Grassroots Wisdom Book referred to in this report. While I’m not certain precisely what the Washington Post meant when it spoke to a new theology of power, or whether Karen Armstrong anticipated what would evolve from her wish to launch a Charter for Compassion, I do know that as an organization we have embraced our capacity to influence a transition in the world. Part of the power of the Charter for Compassion is the document itself that speaks to how we must seek a deeper meaning in life and that challenges us all to build a better world. The other part of that power is our commitment to get our hands dirty and rebuild, invent solutions, and address the needs in our community initiatives around the world.

In a little over a decade since the Charter for Compassion's initial launch we have become visible to many people on the world’s stage. However, in a world of about eight billion we have our work cut out for us and we realize that it is an immense task. Our work is to bring people together on a local level to help respond to obvious issues that must be addressed. It is to build coalitions among people in a community to such an extent that listening to each other and acting together collaboratively becomes common. It is to reach every child and adult through education programs that recognize the importance of social emotional learning and compassion. It is to recognize culture and tradition alongside scientific advancement, especially in neuroscience. Lastly, but most importantly is to create a culture of ambassadors in diplomatic service to the world. Our goals are ambitious and thoroughly necessary, practical and down-to-earth and require each of us to think not only of self, but of others and to be in awe of and of service to the planet on which we live.

We are so thankful to each person and organization that gave of their time and finances, enabling us to keep us moving forward in our mission. You hear it so often, “We couldn’t have done it without you.” We are honored to say, “We are doing it because of you.”

With much gratitude, Marilyn

Turkovich, E.D. Charter for Compassion

Practice

2022 Goals

1. Continue to grow Compassionate initiatives and support existing compassionate cities through the creation of resources and facilitation to support grassroots teams.

2. Design a Map of Co-Creators in which the entire Charter for Compassion community can become visible and able to interact with one another to engage and strengthen communications.

3. Coordinate a new education strategy and launch a global project to engage youth in compassionate action projects.

4. Collaborate with Pro Social World and Pro Social Spirituality to increase educational opportunities for the Charter membership.

5. Design a vehicle, The Grassroots Wisdom Book, to capture stories of success that can be replicated throughout the Charter for Compassion Community.

6. Continue to offer the Global Read and Film series monthly.

7. Design and implement special projects: 40 Days of Peace, 22 Days of Compassion, Golden Rule Day and the Global Gala and Humanitarian Awards ceremony along with course offerings from the Charter Education Institute.

Goal 1: Continue to grow Compassionate initiatives and support existing compassionate cities through the creation of resources and facilitation to support grassroots teams.

In 2022, we began regular CHATS with global communities. Monthly meetings were held with Compassionate California, USA, Australia, Canada, and the UK, and bi-monthly meetings with members in New Zealand and with individual US states. We also started regular meeting with countries in Africa.

The intent of the CHATS, which are being continued and expanded in 2023 is to keep members up-to-date on projects being promoted by the Charter, to introduce participants to the possibility of engaging in further conversations which may lead to Circles of Trust and to expand the communities and partners base of the Charter.

Goal 2: Design a Map of Co-Creators in which the entire Charter for Compassion community can become visible and able to interact with one another to engage and strengthen communications.

In the Charter for Compassion’s role of being “a connector,” the Charter launched the Map of Co-Creators mid-year 2022. In addition to offering the use of the map to our members and partners, the map is being shared with other like minded organizations to offer in turn to their followers to become visible to one another. The map is designed by using the 12 sectors of the Charter as a point of primary and secondary interests and based on the idea that exponentially we all have the potential of having more impact by working together on areas of interest, expertise and passion.

In using the map an individual can filter and match their area of interest with others who appear on the map, and thus become mutual cocreators.

A co-creator is humble and open-minded, curious to understand and integrate others’ perspectives, and is motivated by a higher purpose, i.e., :

• Knows and feels that all of life is one interconnected whole

• Has inner peace and harmony and has overcome the ego-based needs for personal recognition

• Can join others in heart resonance, and doesn’t work against anyone

• Is dedicated to his/her higher life purpose, serving principles such as love, heartfelt truth, peace, unity and beauty.

Goal: 3 Coordinate a new education strategy and launch a global project to engage youth in compassionate action project.

Throughout 2022, a good amount of work was given to a number of actions regarding expanding and strengthening the Education Sector of the Charter for Compassion. These included:

1. Design and conduct a program for young people working in conjunction with one of our strategic partners, the Foundation for Peace and Leadership to provide a platform for youth. Two Open Space Technology conferences were offered in 2022 reaching over 400 young people from five countries. These engagements have resulted in creating a Charter Youth Advisory group who are assisting in designing additional upcoming events.

2. Hire a full time Education Coordinator for the Charter whose primary responsibilities included promoting the ethic of GoldenRuleism within the context of formal and informal education.

3. Expand the Education Sector Team to include expertise in early childhood education, alternative learning strategies, technological education and social emotional learning.

4. Offer a monthly Education Network Forum event (EdNet Forum). The EdForum is way to experience new philosophies, pedagogies, and methodologies of education as they are in practice today. It is also an opportunity to explore the neuroscience of the brain and its relationship to education. At the same time, it is our way of opening the door to seeing how social-emotional learning, the acquisition of spiritual growth, compassion, and kindness can be modeled and taught as a skill.

5. Encourage, assist and publish materials produced on compassion, kindness and education. Four such publications appear on the Charter’s website as PDF documents so they can be shared by others.

Goal 4: Collaborate with Pro Social World and Pro Social Spirituality to increase educational opportunities for the Charter membership.

San Antonio, TX, USA

During 2022, ProSocial World and the Charter for Compassion developed a memorandum of understanding by which the two organizations agreed to share an employee primarily to assist in a pilot program that would instill ProSocial skills into the work of selected compassionate initiatives. Las Vegas, Nevada and San Antonio, Texas were selected to become part of the pilot.

ProSocial World is a process of inquiry and practical application of both inner and outer work that helps foster collaboration within and between groups. ProSocial is a science-based process that integrates previously isolated academic disciples that can be applied to different topic areas (i.e., health, education, business, etc.) and all scales from small groups to large networks and organizations, to the whole planet.

Goal 5: Design a vehicle, The Grassroots Wisdom Book, to capture stories of success that can be replicated throughout the Charter of Compassion Community.

Another project that the Charter launched in 2022 was the Grassroots Wisdom Book. Hopefully, this is a book for Charter members to give to and to take from. Ideally hundreds of people will eventually contribute their stories. The intent of the Grassroots Wisdom Book is to create a written record, and to collect and save individual and group responses to the needs that we see in right front of us.

There are fourteen chapters in the Grassroots Wisdom Book, and each chapter reflects the work of our sectors. However, not all stories come directly from compassionate initiatives or from our members and partners. We want to capture the good news that is happening all around us. We want to break the bubble of silence about good accomplishments and responses to challenges and highlight radical solutions to problems that too often escape the media.

Goal 6: Continue to offer the Global Read and Film series monthly.

Goal 7: Design and implement special projects: 40 Days of Peace, 22 Days of Compassion, Golden Rule Day and the Global Gala and Humanitarian Awards ceremony along with course offerings from the Charter Education Institute.

Activities associated with Global Reads, offerings by the Charter Education Institute and special programs, including the Charter’s on-line Global Gala and Humanitarian Award Program that are presented on pages 18-19 of this report.