Blog
Contributor Guidelines
Submitting guest blogs is open to Global Washington’s members of the Atlas level and above. We value a diversity of opinions on a broad range of subjects of interest to the global health and development community.
Blog article submissions should be 500-1500 words. Photos, graphs, videos, and other art that supports the main themes are strongly encouraged.
You may not be the best writer, and that’s okay. We can help you shape and edit your contribution. The most important thing is that it furthers an important conversation in your field, and that it is relatively jargon-free. Anyone without a background in global development should still be able to engage with your ideas.
If you include statistics or reference current research, please hyperlink your sources in the text, wherever possible.
Have an idea of what you’d like to write about? Let’s continue the conversation! Email comms@globalWA.org and put “Blog Idea” in the subject line.
Posted on May 19, 2014
By Kelly Gibbs
“You grow people, and people grow the business.”
On May 14, Howard Behar enlightened and inspired a packed room of Seattle-area leaders from the nonprofit, university and business worlds with his candid talk on leadership and the importance of putting people first. Behar, former president of Starbucks North America and former (and founding) president of Starbucks International, said he always knew it wasn’t about the coffee.
“We’re not in the coffee business serving people; we’re in the people business serving coffee.” Behar shared with the group his personal philosophies on managing teams and motivating employees, and talked about how this people-centered approach has been integral at Starbucks from the start. Continue Reading
Posted on May 12, 2014
Bill Clapp, Founder and Chair of Global Washington
Patsy Cline’s country music song “Stop The World and Let Me Off” makes for good lyrics, but not foreign policy.
A recent poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC found the majority of Americans want to pull back from the world stage. After 20-plus years of wars and unproductive foreign interventions, perhaps there’s a good case for no longer wasting blood and treasure on other nations’ problems. We can, and maybe should, stop playing the part of the world police. But we live in an increasingly globalized world and, like it or not, we can’t get off.
Before we withdraw wholesale into our America First shell, let’s try to distinguish between our failed military incursions, drug wars and other exercises in force, on the one hand, and the benefits we all gain from engaging the world on the humanitarian front, as members of the same planetary community.
Those of us in the Northwest have a lot at stake when it comes to being good neighbors to the world. Not only are we already tremendously integrated globally through trade – in airplanes, coffee and software – we also have one of the largest humanitarian sectors in the country. We have literally hundreds of organizations large and small, and thousands of employees working around the globe who are dedicated to making the world a better place for everyone. We think this work makes for a better, safer and more humane world. We don’t want to get off; we want on. Continue Reading
Posted on May 7, 2014
Jennifer Lentfer, Senior Writer for Global Washington member Oxfam America, writes about the unique role that Nigerian women are playing in their communities despite wars and, most recently, the abduction of hundreds of school girls at the hands of a militant group:
As Nigerian women bring international attention to the abductions, Gbowee describes the ability of women to keep society together and build peace, even in the midst of wars.
International media attention has gained momentum on the story of over 270 school girls who were abducted in Chibok, Nigeria by militant group Boko Haram in mid-April.
But Liberian peace and women’s rights activist and Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee wants people to know that from the moment the girls were taken away, the women of Nigeria have kept the pressure on.
Read the complete story here: http://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/2014/05/women-of-nigeria-pressure-leymah-gbowee-bringbackourgirls/
