Seth Godin directed our attention this morning to an organization called Room to Read, a nonprofit group that builds schools and libraries for children in some of the world’s poorest rural communities.
Here are some stats from their site. In the past seven years, they’ve built 287 schools, established more than 3,700 libraries, published 146 new local-language children’s book titles (with a more than 1.3 million total print run), provided 1.4 million English-language titles, funded 3,448 long-term scholarships for girls, and established 136 computer and learning labs.
Total number of children provided with access to books so far? 1.3 million. And they’re not even thinking about slowing down.
Their founder is a guy named John Wood, who learned how to move fast and aggressively (and to think huge) as a senior marketing and biz dev exec for Microsoft.
He’s shown an impressive immunity to being overwhelmed. His response to the challenge of lifting 10 million children out of illiteracy, in a 2002 interview with Fast Company, was "Why is that not possible? Microsoft doubled every year in its early days. Cisco more than doubled every year. I worked in a lot of different organizations at Microsoft that doubled year to year, and none of us thought it was incredible."
Welcome to the new philanthropy
Organizations like The Acumen Fund, Kiva, and of course The Gates Foundation are taking their tactics from the big-picture, big-action dotcom culture–and it’s working.
There are a lot of reasons Room to Read has been successful. One that interested me is that Wood and the organization he runs aren’t at all shy about asking for large sums of money. One aspect of their model essentially "sells" a school to a donor for $5,000. Woods has the experience to know that for his audience, $5,000 is a puny amount of money balanced against the satisfaction of seeing a school built and hundreds of children’s lives changed forever. He knows his market, he knows what drives them, and he knows that price is pretty elastic.
In simple marketing terms, Wood has the right message and the right offer. He has a strong, benefits-oriented tag line ("World change starts with educated children.") He has a good hook (impoverished local communities co-fund the schools, providing exceptional local accountability and buy-in) that speaks to the language and concerns of his customers. His value proposition–a package that presents the problem, the solution, the price tag, and the tracking that guarantees accountability–is sound.
His campaign has all the ingredients of any intelligently-run marketing campaign. His product just happens to be saving the world.
Traditional nonprofits are often run by folks who think "ethical marketing" is a contradiction in terms. They’re extremely smart about real life stuff like helping people in need, but often not so smart about the business and marketing that could help them accomplish that. Their staff and volunteers have a strong tendency to hate and fear the rich, and it’s never a good idea to communicate with anyone you hate and fear. And career nonprofit types are sufficiently accustomed to living on ramen and good luck that they have a hard time saying, "The best part is, it only costs $5,000."
Those organizations are still doing incredible things and alleviating suffering, and I mean them no ill will or disrespect. But sooner rather than later, their work will be overshadowed by this new model. And since the new model has the potential to work incredibly well, I celebrate that.
It’s time to quit making excuses and save the world, already
It’s easy to lose sight of it in the depressing information clutter after 9/11, but we actually have a shot at ending extreme poverty on this abused little planet. Not just in my two-year-old’s lifetime, but in my lifetime.
The technology of making stuff has gotten so good that we can make enough stuff for everyone (if we figure out the energy thing, which we will). New tools and new business models let us think on a global scale and act accordingly. A fractured status quo provides a lot of air and light for revolutionary ideas. Massive action is tricky to take in any context, and a lot of excuses have always been made about third-world inefficiencies, but the new players are looking at factors–cheap labor, social cohesion, powerful aspirations–that can make third-world projects workable on surprising scale.
My challenge to the bright, wired oddballs who read this blog is to get out there and find a way to help out. Together we and our bright, wired oddball kin are smart and obsessed enough to do this thing.
In the words of John Wood back in 2002,"We’ve helped 100,000 kids gain access to books so far. That is one one-hundredth of 1% of the illiterate people on this earth. So congratulations. Get your ass back to work."
Related reading:
An End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs
Fast Company’s 2002 interview with John Wood
How evil is Bill Gates?
Room to Read’s Web site
We are not powerless
The WILD Foundation and the Umzi Wethu project
You’ve hit on a really, really important point here. Many non-profits are so accustomed to working from a paradigm of scarcity, the idea of abundance is unfathomable–and yet as you point out, 5K is nothing to a lot of people.
The question this brings up for me is what can “regular” non-profits do to help themselves see the world in new ways–so they can ask for support in new ways??
Remember that joke, “How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? / Only one, but it can take a long time and the light bulb has to really, really want to change.”
Changing the mindset of a person is really hard. Changing the mindset of an organization is exponentially harder. Certainly not impossible, but it’s something you have to make a commitment to and work like hell on.
You are right of course (and I love that joke) but I think there must be ways to help tip the balance for organizations that are getting close. When I read Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind” I was struck by his description of living in a country of abundance, full of people looking for meaning and purpose in their lives. If this is true, (and the rise of the mega church says that it might be) than arts organizations (for example) should be poised for huge growth. Most however, are still telling the “starving artist” story. The first arts organizations to change their stories to “what the arts have in store for you” from “what you owe the arts” should be very successful.
Perhaps more than ever, a fractured status quo. Indeed, I hope we make changes through this debacle.
Peace.
Daniel Edlens last blog post..VA™ – Now I Can Merchandise Vinyl Art!