THE JOURNAL
The Journal
Field notes from the house — what we are learning on live briefs, written while it is still inconvenient.
7 min read
Who the work is actually for
Every project has a board that approves it and a person it it supposed to changed. They are rarely in the same room, and the gap between them is where good intentions go to die.
Lethumusa Kulube
4 September 2026
EDITORIAL PILLARS
Three places the writing comes from.
Letters from the founder on how organisations hold power, money and other people’s trust.
What we see across the briefs that reach us — funding patterns, hiring, procurement, politics.
The working methods: checklists, frameworks and post-mortems from live projects.
A SERIES
Stewardship Letters
Monthly letters from the founder on how organisations hold power, money and other people’s trust.
04
Who the work is actually for
Every project has a board that approved it and a person it is supposed to change. They are rarely in the same room, and the gap between them is where good intentions go to die.
- Lethumusa Kulube
- 7 min read
03
On being asked to be cheaper than we are
A note on the difference between a budget constraint and a value judgement, and why we answer them differently.
- Lethumusa Kulube
- 5 min read
02
Dependency is a design decision
Retainers are not inherently wrong. Retainers that exist because nobody documented anything are.
- Lethumusa Kulube
- 6 min read
RECENT ESSAYS
Everything else we have published.
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July 2026
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August 2026
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September 2026
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