Our values help shape what we believe is desirable, important or worthy of striving for in our lives. They guide and inform the ways we act and what we think. They influence how we interact with other people and the more-than-human world. They are influenced by our experiences in our lives.
Source: Milton Rokeach’s book
The Nature of Human Values (1973)
Extrinsic values refer to values such as ‘wealth’, ‘social recognition’, ‘social status’, ‘conformity’ and ‘ambition’. They rely on external approval or rewards to be recognised. We see these types of values championed a lot in our societies.
Intrinsic values refer to values such as ‘broadmindedness’, ‘equality’, ‘social justice’, ‘forgiveness’, ‘community’, ‘creativity’ and ‘responsibility’. They are understood as being inherently rewarding. Intrinsic values are associated with greater concern about social and environmental issues, and greater motivation to engage in various forms of civic action.
We use the term cultural influencers to describe anyone who helps to shape and sustain the mainstream culture in which we live. This will include everyone, but particular influence perhaps lies with those who work in the media, advertising, education, health, NGOs, governments, arts and cultural organisations, pop culture, the music industry and sport.
Common Cause exists to help build the foundations needed to shift cultures away from competition, inequality and oppression, and towards regeneration, equity and harmony, by celebrating and elevating the intrinsic values that underpin our care for one another and our living planet.
Where the interconnectedness of all living beings is honoured in the cultures and systems we co-create and live by.
Common Cause began as a series of reports written by Tom Crompton (who at the time was working for WWF-UK) in collaboration with leading social psychologists (especially Professors Tim Kasser and Greg Maio and John Thøgersen). These reports challenged many of the assumptions underlying environmental campaigning at the time – such as the belief that “simple and painless steps” would provide a foot-in-the-door to transformative behavioural changes, and the repeated centring of financial benefits or social status as a means of encouraging public action. The reports built a picture of an alternative approach to campaigning founded squarely on the role of values as a key factor in shaping human attitudes and behaviours.
Inspired by these reports, a group of campaign and communication staff from diverse NGOs formed an informal steering group and oversaw the publication of “Common Cause: The Case for Working with our Cultural Values”. From here, other organisations stepped forward to help develop and advocate for this thinking – including Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC), which was commissioned by WWF-UK and others to develop and publish the Common Cause Handbook and Common Cause for Nature before going on to develop its own work in this area.
Due to focus expanding beyond issues of solely environmental concern, in 2015, with a grant from WWF-UK, Oliver Smith and Tom Crompton established Common Cause Foundation as an independent not for profit (a Company Limited by Guarantee with an asset lock), with the committed support of our first non-executive directors – Peter Lipman and Halina Ward.
As an independent organisation, our focus continues to evolve. Our pioneering research on people’s perceptions of their fellow citizens’ values has proved to be particularly important, as has our development of collaborations with new kinds of organisations, including arts and cultural organisations and a football club.
She/her
I’m a communicator, organiser, writer and creative focusing on culture and systems change to eradicate poverty, inequity, white supremacy and patriarchy, to regenerate the environment and support the transition to a post-capitalist world.
She/her
I’m driven by the question of how more people can be supported to understand, think and feel differently about the social and environmental challenges we face, so that they can take action in more effective ways.
He/him
I am compelled by the realisation that we cannot expect proportional or lasting responses to today’s profound social and environment challenges to emerge unless these responses are rooted in an understanding of what matters to people, and what shapes what matters to people.
Amit Chadda
Amit is a former arts educator and school leader, now working in the charity sector as a learning and development specialist. He has volunteered for a range of organisations working to tackle social injustice and recently served as a Trustee for a charity providing education and healthcare to a rural community in India.
As an experienced leader, Amit brings expertise in values-led people and organisational development. He believes that people, relationships and our intrinsic values should always underpin the decisions we make, the cultures we create and the ways in which we approach problem solving.
As a queer British Indian, Amit is also interested in work that seeks to amplify the voices of minoritised communities and in dismantling the constructs that result in their marginalisation.
Corina Kwami
“Dr Corina Shika Kwami” is a polymath, renaissance woman working across the sciences and the arts. With a background in public health, infrastructure & cities and jazz, she is a recognised thought leader on the arts in innovation, future cities and sustainability in countries across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. Kwami holds a doctorate from University College London and is a Senior Director of Strategy at Purpose & Head of Office EMEA. Since joining Purpose, she has led the development of a narrative change curriculum for practitioners across different sectors, contributing her subject-matter expertise on governance for thier climate portfolio and collaborating with partner organisations across EMEA in designing for people and the planet.
Her work cuts across the arts and sciences, music and dance in order to facilitate exchanges between these worlds. You can see her face on a screen on the Discovery Channel, Smithsonian and Science Channel talking about the lessons learned from infrastructure in cities across the globe.
Jawad Anjum
I turned away from an engineering career in the energy industry to one of community organising through the programme ‘On Purpose’. I have loved building power among people who were disengaged politically and through the alchemy of collective care and organised action to turn their individual anger into hope for genuine long lasting change.Whatever sector I have worked in, that has been the thread running through it all.
What has consistently fed my spirit more than anything else is witnessing someone realise the potential they have always had inside them, to claim it and act upon it with others for a greater good. To have played a small part in this for some people has been one of my greatest privileges and joys in this life.
Noeline Sanders
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Common Cause taster workshop, and I was profoundly inspired by the research, methodology, and theory of change presented. The exploration of intrinsic and extrinsic values, along with their interactions and practical applications, resonated deeply with me. So much so, that I purchased three copies of the handbook to share with friends who were grappling with similar questions. This experience stayed with me over the years, sparking a desire to make my conversations on the critical issues we face more impactful. Despite feeling under-skilled at times, Common Cause has lingered in the back of my mind as an approach I’ve wanted to explore further.
My motivation to join the Common Cause Foundation as a Non-Executive Director (NED) stems from both personal and professional alignment. Personally, as outlined above, I strongly resonate with the foundation’s mission to foster meaningful conversations and drive transformative change. I’m particularly drawn to its emphasis on understanding how change happens and connecting the dots between systemic, grassroots, and cultural transformation to create a world where both people and the environment can thrive.
Professionally, I believe my strategic, financial, and governance expertise, combined with my passion for the foundation’s mission, make me well-suited for the NED role at the Common Cause Foundation. I’m eager to contribute to its important work and help drive the change we all wish to see.
Shelagh Wright
I’m a committed internationalist working with networks all over the world to develop the capacity and connectivity of creative and cultural activists to change systems at the individual, local, community or city level.
We know that we have to be concerned as much with how we do things as with what we do. There’s a need to radically reframe, democratise and feminise political space as key to transformation by bringing ‘other’ voices into the debate; reducing hierarchy; listening more; celebrating dialogue; and putting care, co-operation, relationship and people’s experience at the heart of our ways of doing and deciding. This is a kind of conversation that includes rather than alienates, and we urgently need to make that possible right now.
Susie Talbot
I’m deeply interested in what it means to be both a human being and a planetary being, inextricably interconnected across all forms of life, and how the recognition of this worldview shapes our legal, economic, social and governance systems.
I’ve worked as a lawyer for over two decades to support the strategic use and evolution of the human rights framework, in close collaboration with local communities, NGOs, networks and UN entities around the world. In 2020, I founded the Anima Mundi Law Initiative to advance the emerging Earth jurisprudence / rights of nature movement and as a space to envision ‘a new legal story for an ecological age’, with the belief that the transformation to more holistic legal systems invites us to explore the values underlying our laws, both human and more-than-human perspectives, place-based connections, and a diversity of practical and experiential wisdom.
Victoria Mears
Victoria is a pragmatic idealist interested in how best to effect positive change on the world. With a career that has spanned working with a series of leading international organisations like Save the Children, CARE International, and ActionAid, she has tackled issues ranging from women’s rights to climate change. Recently, as Head of Business Development at Malaria Consortium, she has focused on Global Health, leading their efforts to design and mobilise funding for projects focused on malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
Victoria’s journey began with studies in neuroscience and psychology at the University of Oxford, followed by a stint in factual television which included working with the BBC, National Geographic, and Discovery, with the goal of crafting content to inspire action on social and environmental issues. Seeking a more direct impact, she earned an MSc in Environment and Development from the LSE, transitioning into the development and humanitarian sphere, where she remained ever since.
