GNH Supports The People’s Climate March: A Look Inside How It Works When You Are Serious About Happiness

If you think measuring the right things could change the world, then it behooves you to measure the way you go about promoting that idea.

So, if you had been a fly on the wall at the last few Gross National Happiness Board meetings, you would have heard a lot of discussions about the development, fine-tuning, and use of a “policy decision making grid” that would allow us to look at every policy decision we make in light of the nine GNH domains, and rank the policy on whether or not it supports that domain in some way.

First up: The People’s Climate March is scheduled for April 29, 2017 in Washington, DC. We have been asked by the organizers to be a part of the loose coalition of organizations that will be promoting and participating in this event, which is intended to impress on decision-makers in Washington that a wide swath of Americans is deeply concerned about climate change and its effects on our environment, economy, health and overall wellbeing. Not being a politically partisan organization, it was important to our Board that our involvement be based on whether or not such an event “measures up” to our stated purpose of improving wellbeing for all.

While it might seem obvious that having a liveable planet is foundational for the wellbeing of humanity, we had previously agreed to employ a policy grid to add objectivity to the process of allocating our human and financial resources.

As it turned out, after personal reflection, each board member scored The People’s Climate March against the nine domains using a Likert scale of 1-5, and came up with a composite score of 4. So we are on! Said Advisory Board member Brian Kaminer, “It’s a good process, helpful in reflecting on the meaning of the domains.”

And it puts our decision-making right in line with our rhetoric. GNH USA is proud to work in service of a movement that seeks to secure basic elements like public health, food security, and resource stability for everyone, everywhere. And, in supporting the march, we make common cause with an illustrious list of organizations from around the country and the world.

Watch these great march videos: 1-Why We March 2-Climate Change is about Power  3-People’s Climate March

Interested in using the GNH Policy Decision-making Grid in your own organization? Email me (Jeannette@www.gnhusa.org) for the Excel file. And … see you in DC!