Category: General

“What is the sound of hope we can make above the noise of despair?”

This is the question Richard Curtis, filmmaker, campaigner and co-founder of Project Everyone posed last year. When the news cycle feels overwhelmingly dominated by growing conflict, natural disasters and division, it’s easy to question whether progress is still happening – and crucially whether there’s anything we can do about it.

At Project Everyone, our answer is a resounding yes. And this week we’re taking over your podcast feeds to prove it. Coinciding with world leaders gathering in New York for the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the “Be Hope” Podcast Takeover has returned for its second year. Bigger and bolder than before, major shows from across the UK, India, the US, Canada, South Africa and Australia have united to push back against fatalism, reaching millions of listeners across the globe:
  

• The Rest Is Politics: Leading with Alastair Campbell and  Rory Stewart: With special guest Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados
• Office Hours with Arthur Brooks: With special guest Simon Sinek, Author and Founder of The Optimism Company
• All About Her with Soha Ali Khan: With special guest Shruti Haasan, Actress, Music Director and Singer
• KK Create with Kavya Karnatac: With special guest Jimmy Wales, Author and Co-founder of Wikipedia
• Be A Man, Yaar! with Nikhil Taneja: With special guest Ali Fazal, Actor and Producer
• The Rest is Politics: With Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci: Exploring the future of multilateralism.
• All The Cool Girls: With Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill: With special guest Clarissa Ward, Chief International Correspondent for CNN
• The Imperfects: with Hugh van Cuylenburg, Ryan Shelton and Josh van Cuylenburg: With special guest Luke Bateman, Former Rugby Player, Gambling-Harm Advocate and BookTok Creator.
• Kelly Corrigan Wonders: With special guest Nicholas Epley, Behavioral Scientist and Author of A Little More Social
• The Anurag Minus Verma Podcast: From Indian pop culture to AI, a conversation on finding hope amid growing uncertainty.
• Mindful Mondays with Shudu Musida: Reflections on hope, from the resilience of FGM survivors to progress in gender equality
• Live Well, Be Well with Sarah Ann Macklin: With special guest Rob Rea, Human Potential Coach and Breathwork Practitioner
• The Week Junior Show: With special guest Kalpana Arias, Nature Rights Campaigner, Founder of Nowadays on Earth and Glitch
• Outrage and Optimism: With Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson
• Cities 1.5:  Bonus trailer for their upcoming season, featuring soundbites on hope from interviewees.

You can dive into all the episodes on the official playlist. More shows to be added every day this week!

Why Podcasts? Why Now?

Social media and video networks have officially become the top ways people get their news worldwide. We’re tapping into that shift to meet people where they are by bringing together some of the world’s top podcasts to elevate stories of progress, optimism and collective action.

In the words of Kate Garvey, Project Everyone co-founder:

“At Project Everyone we say to make things happen you have to make things – and podcasts are where powerful conversations are happening right now. This is the second Be Hope Podcast Takeover and it’s bigger and bolder with a global network of hosts and guests who push back against despair and inspire hope that progress is not only within reach, it’s already happening.” 

To make discovering these conversations even easier, YouTube – the world’s largest podcast platform – is supporting the Be Hope Takeover with a dedicated playlist on its Social Impact Channel.

Hope Is a Choice

This Podcast Takeover reflects the core message of our latest publication, The Hope Report: The Next Era of Progress: despite rising conflict, aid cuts, and declining trust in international institutions, progress is far from over. 

International cooperation isn’t disappearing.It is changing.

Hope isn’t about ignoring the scale of the world’s challenges, it’s about knowing we have the tools, creativity and power to confront them.

After more than a decade of making things that make things happen, Project Everyone has a new look.

Working with the brilliant team at Pentagram, we’ve created a new identity that reflects who Project Everyone is today, the work we do and where we’re heading next.

And we love it.

Project Everyone began with a very particular mission: to help launch the Global Goals and make sure people everywhere knew about them. That spirit hasn’t changed, but over the years our work has grown.

Today, we’re a not-for-profit creative communications agency, designing campaigns, content and convenings that bring people together and inspire action on some of the world’s most urgent challenges.

Our new brand needed to reflect that evolution.

At its heart are the things that have always driven us: creativity, optimism and partnership. Our mission is simple: to use them to inspire action on the world’s most urgent challenges.

A brand built around connection

The new Project Everyone logo is softer, more human and deliberately fluid.

Inspired by handwriting, its letters move and connect with one another, reflecting the way we work: bringing people, ideas and organisations together to make things happen.

That idea of connection runs throughout the identity. The curves and shapes used across the brand are drawn from the forms within the logo itself, creating a visual language around connecting, convening and creating.

New colours, familiar roots

Colour has always been an important part of Project Everyone’s story.

Rather than leave behind the colours of the Global Goals completely, the new palette evolves them. The original 17 SDG colours have been distilled into a more focused collection of warm and cool colours, all centred around our new Project Everyone Yellow.

The result feels bright, optimistic and full of energy while still carrying a little bit of where we came from.

Making things that make things happen

Ultimately, the new identity is about giving Project Everyone a brand that can move with us.

One that can be serious when it needs to be, playful when it wants to be and flexible enough to work across the huge variety of projects, partners and causes we’re lucky enough to work with.

A new look, but the same belief at the heart of everything we do:

People. Planet. Peace.

And, as ever, making things to make things happen.

The Global Partnerships Conference marked an important moment in the conversation around the future of international development.

As budgets tighten and global challenges become increasingly complex, the conversation is shifting away from traditional top-down approaches towards shared expertise, local leadership and collaboration that can unlock investment and resources at a much greater scale.

For Project Everyone, this is both about acting on our values and recognising how closely connected our shared prosperity and security are to global stability. Challenges that cross borders reinforce the importance of international cooperation and of protecting the people and communities most vulnerable to their effects.

Framed by Yinka Ilori’s striking Arch of the Possible, the conference brought together leaders from government, finance, philanthropy and civil society to explore what this new model of collaboration can look like in practice.

The message of the arch captured the spirit of the gathering perfectly: let’s step forward together.

After a whirlwind month of events around the world, the Project Everyone team has been reflecting on an extraordinary few weeks of conversations, connections and action.

At the World Health Assembly in Geneva, we worked to push child protection higher up the global health agenda. In partnership with Together for Girls, we supported the launch of the Out of the Shadows Index, where Dr Gloria J Balboa from the Philippines and Dr Joss Reimer from Canada shared national commitments to ending sexual violence against children.

The Lost Screens Memorial also shone a spotlight on online safety, while an Ending Violence Against Children dinner with the World Health Organization brought together Health Ministers from more than 15 countries to discuss concrete action to protect some of the world’s most vulnerable children.

At the World Education Forum, our Ministerial Lunch focused on forging talent for Africa’s future growth. Leaders including Noriana Muneku from Zambia, Dr Sanet Steenkamp from Namibia and Siviwe Gwarube from South Africa explored how leadership development can be scaled to meet the needs of the next generation.

In London, the Global Partnerships Conference brought together international leaders including Maropene Ramokgopa, Stine Renate Håheim, Randeep Sarai and Éléonore Caroit to discuss how stronger global partnerships can help advance international development goals.

And in Melbourne, alongside Women Deliver 2026, we hosted Studio 5, a major convening space dedicated to gender equality. The programme brought together leaders, activists and changemakers, including former Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau, Helen Clark and Julia Gillard, to explore what stronger political will and collective action can achieve for gender equality.

Across each of these moments, the aim was the same: to bring together people with the influence, expertise and commitment to turn ideas into action.

These conversations help build the partnerships, momentum and shared ambition needed to tackle challenges that no one country or organisation can solve alone.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us and to the Project Everyone team working behind the scenes to make it all happen.