From Daniel Raven-Ellison London National Park City Campaigner & Founder
After years of campaigning I’m excited for the launch of the London National Park City in July. It’s only happening thanks to the actions of thousands of people like you.
I am now writing to ask for your support again.
The London National Park City is a positive, proactive and inclusive way to help tackle many great challenges. The climate crisis, the extinction of species, air and water pollution, children not playing or learning outdoors as much as they should do, threats to essential public space and the state of our mental health are just a few of the problems that, by taking collective actions, we can make tangible progress on.
For me, one of the most exciting things about the National Park City is a set of two simple and powerful questions - “what if?” and “why not?” It’s these questions that have underpinned our campaign from the beginning.
Set to London being a National Park City, the “what if?” can spark imaginations. What if there was more paddle boarding on our canals? What if my street was amazingly more green? What if there was more outdoor play, learning and exploration in schools? The “why not?”, when enough people start asking it, can create a significant tipping point where the imaginary converts into an expectation that delivers change. If London is a National Park City, “why isn’t there more paddle boarding? Why isn’t my street greener? Why isn’t my school doing more outdoor learning? Why aren't we protecting public space? Why don’t we have more hedgehogs? Why don’t we have cleaner air? Why not?”.
The National Park City Foundation, the charity that we’ve set up to help make the London National Park City a success, is currently running a crowdfunding campaign. I am hoping that you will be willing and able to support it before it ends in 11 days time. Time is running out and we need to get things moving.
While we’ve led an effective campaign to make London a National Park City, we do not have the resources to scale-up our efforts in time for the July launch without your support.
For it to be as successful as possible, we need as many people as possible to understand what the National Park City is and how they can get involved. We also need to inspire thousands of conversations across the capital that lead to millions of actions that would otherwise not have taken place. Simple things like planting, playing, walking, swimming, cycling and sharing.
That’s why we are crowdfunding to create National Park City Maker, a newspaper-sized guide to getting involved with the London National Park City. We want to get these guides into the hands of influencers. They will also be tools that anyone can use to kick-start conversations with people in their building, on their street or at work. We hope the guide will lead to National Park City inspired groups forming in schools, organisations and communities across London and beyond.
While the National Park City Foundation has been highly effective in our campaigning, we’ve always relied on campaigns like this one to fund our efforts. Even a small contribution will help us move closer to our target.
If we hit our crowdfunding target we predict we will be able to reach 1 in 25 Londoners. This could have an incredible impact.
We have some great rewards, including murals by street artist ATM and bespoke gold leaf maps by Urban Good.
Individuals can get their name engraved on the London National Park City Founders’ Stone which will be located in a publicly accessible place in London. You can also get t-shirts, a wooden National Park City aster* for your window and we’ll thank you in the paper too. Why not get copies for everyone on your street or at your work?
Organisations are in a great position to support this campaign. Contribute to the crowdfunder and then distribute copies of National Park City Maker to your staff, service users or customers. If you do so at the right level, we will add your logo to our "thank you" page. Organisations can claim a professional workshop on how to engage audiences from theWholeStory too.
Small community groups do not have the financial resources that larger organisations have, but they are just as important. London can only become a National Park City because of the work small community groups have done across the capital over hundreds of years. If you represent one of these groups, help us hit our target with £10 or more and we’ll send you you some copies and include your logo in the guide too.
Let’s make something extraordinary happen - please do contribute to the crowdfunding campaign today.