Positive Money campaign – What a year so far…

At just over halfway through the year, we want to share the latest news from the Positive Money campaign.

In July, 400 of you chipped in to raise the £2000 we needed to run a professional poll of MPs before their summer holidays. A huge thank you to everyone who made a donation. We got our questions in just in time…

So in a couple of weeks, we’ll find out how many MPs know where money comes from!

Last week we held our biggest ever event in Parliament in collaboration with the think tank New City Agenda. The topic was “Is a crisis looming for central banks?” Positive Money’s Fran Boait, alongside Lord Adair Turner (former chairman of the Financial Services Authority) and Anthony Hilton (Senior Commentator at the Evening Standard), debated the problems facing our money system and the radical changes needed to fix them.

You can see Lord Turner’s speech and Fran and Anthony’s responses on our video here.

As for our research, earlier this month we hosted a roundtable on “The future of cash” with attendees from Age UK, Finance Lab, Toynbee Hall, and industry insiders. In August we’ll publish our paper on “Escaping Growth Dependency”. And very soon we’ll have a shiny new website, laying out what we’re currently working on – watch this space!

We’ve also got a sparkly new online shop with new jumper, T-shirt and tote bags designs! Please consider buying so together we can spread the word on money reform even further.

And that’s all been happening right after a big election campaign!

You can read all about what Positive Money supporters did together during the election here. But highlights include our video about the Magic Money Tree that went viral on Facebook, and hundreds of supporters chipping in so we could drive two big AdVans round Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn’s constituencies the day before the election.

Positive Money supporters have been busy in their local areas too. New local groups launched this spring and summer with first and second meetings in Oxford, Brighton, Tonbridge, Norwich, Dover, North Wales, York, Bath, Southampton, Derbyshire, Shrewsbury, Leeds, Suffolk and Leicestershire – fantastic stuff!

And to top it all off, the Positive Money team is growing, fast! After our long-serving researcher, Frank, left us in June to do new research projects at the New Economics Foundation, economist Ed Smythe joined us. We’ve hired a policy and media intern, Simon, and will soon be joined by another economist and a Chief Operating Officer, to help us do more and better campaigning!

We’re also hiring for a youth network intern, so if you know anyone great who can help us launch our youth network, please encourage them to apply before the 31st July deadline!

Finally, Nicky Morgan MP has been appointed the new chair of the powerful Monetary Policy Committee. Back in March, Positive Money supporters made a strong written submission to their inquiry into the impact and effectiveness of monetary policy since 2008. We’re hopeful the inquiry will re-open the in the Autumn, and that we’ll be called to provide verbal evidence too.

We hope you feel as proud as we do about all we’ve achieved together in the first half of this year, and we’re excited for all that’s to come next – with our growing team and expanding network.