Winning Isn’t Everything | Six ‘Films Of Hope’ | America’s Top Charity

Good Vibes: A Historic Season For The World’s Worst National Football Team

Hello and welcome to a new edition of the Upturn, the newsletter born out of the desire to do something that will improve the communities within our reach.

As Nelly Furtado sang in 2009, “all good things come to an end.” So is the fate of this newsletter. This is, dear readers, the last issue you’ll be receiving in your inbox. Thank you for supporting this experiment in the past seven months.

I am not someone who is an optimist by nature, but this weekly exercise provided me with a much-needed dose of inspiration, faith in the future, and heart-warmingness. I hope to have passed some of those feelings onto you readers, too.

You can still find me in your inbox every weekday by subscribing to the Daily Dozen newsletter, if you haven’t already. But to end the Upturn on a characteristically high note, find reasons to be cheerful below.

In the Upside, one NY-based entrepreneur helped a Thai tailor find new business during the pandemic, and the world’s worst national soccer team delivers a heartwarming lesson in appreciating success in all its forms.

In Up-And-Coming, new rules on blood donations in the U.K. will stop discriminating against gay and bisexual men, and conflict-ravaged areas of Colombia could find a new life thanks to orchid cultivation.

In Uplifting, a former U.S. soldier is reunited with children he met on the frontline 76 years ago, and a photography competition is looking for your help in choosing winners.

Finally, in the Wrap-Up, the numbers making a difference are 6, 1,300, and 500,000. 

The Upside

Up-And-Coming

Uplifting

The Wrap-up

6 - “Films of Hope” selected by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and author Neil Gaiman who have teamed up to raise support for some of the most vulnerable communities affected by the pandemic.

1,300 - local nonprofits part of the network of United Way, the organization topping Forbes’ list of America’s top charities.

500,000 - donors contributing to GoFundMe’s most successful single fundraiser to date, the Official George Floyd Memorial Fund.

"I think that there is a lot of inner strength in all of you and in each and every one of us in order to just carry on and and wherever we are, push, push, push."

CHRISTINE LAGARDE

PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK