My Trip to Books For Africa

Posted by admin on 10.26.2009 at 11:32 am

by Paul “Paco” Miller

On October 2nd and 3rd I had the opportunity to represent Better World Books (BWB) in Minneapolis/St. Paul at several events put on by our partner Books For Africa (BFA). Those two days were jammed packed with events that made me find my way around the twin cities, but were well worth the trip. My biggest take away is that BFA is a great partner for BWB. Everything about the trip reaffirmed how reputable an organization it is and made abundantly clear the important role it plays in the great task of confronting the obstacles to literacy and education in Africa.

The events ranged from breakfast with Dr. Augustine P. Mahiga, the Tanzanian Permanent Representative to the United Nations; lunch with Johnnie Carson, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs; a conference on Literacy and Education in 21st Century Africa co-hosted by the University of Read more…

4 Comments » | Tagged Our Partners, books for africa, Dr. Augustine P. Mahiga, Johnnie Carson, Paco Miller

We found a new way to support our Non-Profit Literacy Partners

Posted by admin on 06.16.2009 at 1:24 pm

Great news!  As you probably already know, promoting literacy has always been woven into the fabric of our business.  Now we’re delighted to announce we’ve given an ownership stake to our non-profit literacy partners.   Yup…we’ve granted Incentive Stock Options to these partners – as far as we know, a first for social enterprise.

The purpose of the plan, put together with the help of our primary investor, Good Capital, is to ensure that our literacy partners can have a stake in and share in our financial success.

We’ve put aside roughly 5% of the company for use in stock option grants to an initial group of five literacy partners (with potential to add others in the future):  Books for Africa, Invisible Children, Room To Read, WorldFund and the National Center for Family Literacy.

One of our fearless leaders Xavier Helgesen puts it best:  “We created Better World Books to show that it is possible to do good while at the same time run a successful company.  Our literacy partners are essential to our mission, and we want them to flourish.  Today’s announcement ensures that as our company grows, our partners will too.”

Check out the press release to get all the details. Or read more about it at Change.org.

3 Comments » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, better world books, books for africa, Good Capital, Incentive Stock Options, invisible children, National Center for Family Literacy, room to read, Social Enterprise, social entrepreneurship, worldfund, Xavier Helgesen

We can’t thank you enough!

Posted by Dana on 05.07.2009 at 12:31 pm

It is because of you — all of you — our amazing customers, book drive organizers, librarians, fans and friends that we were voted THE MOST PROMISING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR by Business Week.

We are so proud of what your support has been able to do for our Non-Profit partners.  So far we have:

With your help, Books for Africa, Invisible Children, Worldfund, Room to Read and the National Center for Family Literacy are doing amazing things to increase literacy around the world!

Thanks!  And please keep spreading the word!

2 Comments » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, book drive, books for africa, business week, BusinessWeek, invisible children, National Center for Family Literacy, room to read, social entrepreneur, social entrepreneurship, Social Impact, Winner, worldfund

Getting Books to (Walk) Sudan

Posted by Yanna on 12.11.2008 at 12:45 pm

[To see previous efforts with Walk Sudan and getting books to Africa, you can look here, here and here and if you feel like reading a newspaper version, look here].

Many of us have heard the plight of the 27,000 “lost boys” of Sudan, their perilous 1,000 mile walk left more than half dead, and the rest came home to a country devastated by war, bare of essentials like clean water and schools. Matt Hoffman, an alumni Phi Theta Kappa member from Illinois Central College, was touched by these horrific stories and moved to immediate action. Matt reflects, “A good friend of mine, Sean Fahey from Endless Eye, informed me that his 501(c)3 had committed to raising funds to shoot a documentary film to raise awareness about the situation in Southern Sudan.” Sean’s organization has been working with Justin Machien Luoi, a Lost Boy, to build a library, a school, and provide clean water for Panyijiar County, Southern Sudan. Matt wanted to know how Upsilon Mu, Illinois Central College’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter, could get involved. They talked for a few hours that night and decided to design a “walk event” in Peoria, Illinois. That is how WalkSUDAN was born.

WalkSUDAN is a project intended to raise awareness and funds to Read more…

1 Comment » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, africa, books for africa, endless eye, Illinois, pacodes, peoria, sudan, walk sudan

World AIDS Day

Posted by Jack on 12.01.2008 at 1:42 pm

From the offical website: The 1st of December, World AIDS Day, is the day when individuals and organisations from around the world come together to bring attention to the global AIDS epidemic. 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. Whilst we have come a long ways since 1988, there is still much more to be done.

Read more…

1 Comment » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, books for africa, literacy, World AIDS Day

Books for Africa Gala

Posted by Xavier on 09.30.2008 at 11:33 am

What a night it was! David, Niko and I were privileged to attend Books For Africa’s 20th anniversary gala. We all had especially big smiles on our faces when we saw a chart with the number of books shipped to Africa start skyrocketing in 2003 after being almost flat for 10 years. I wonder what happened in 2003? Well, they hired a dynamic director (Pat Plonski) and partnered with a certain online bookseller. Now they ship 75,000 books PER WEEK.

The momentum was unbelievable – there were two congresspeople in attendance, and an address to the audience recorded by none other than Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the UN.

Better World Books is still easily Books For Africa’s largest source of funding, and we presented them with a $95,000 check just to remind everyone. BWB delivers more funding (and a lot of books!) than they receive from OPEC, USAID, or the Minnesota Vikings, all supporters as well.

So Better World Books, be proud of every day you spend working. As Tom Warth, BFA’s founder says, “the children of Africa thank you”.

Have your say » | Tagged Impact, books for africa, Impact, Kofi Annan, Our Partners, Pat Plonski, Xavier Helgesen

Small Effort, Big Effect

Posted by admin on 09.22.2008 at 3:49 pm

I met Mulbah earlier this year in his hometown.  He is a Liberian college student in his early twenties who has spent most of his life coping with the twenty years of civil war that ravaged his country through 2003.  Mulbah is a persistent guy.  Though we initially spoke for less than ten minutes, as I was rushing off to our next meeting, Mulbah made sure to collect my contact information so that he could keep the conversation going.  Before I had even made it back home to California I had this e-mail waiting for me [ed.: misspellings kept, sic neglected]:

Dear Justin,
I am very happy to extend my sincere greeting to you, including your family members, love one, friends and the entire Better World .
Sir, you give me your call card including you E-mail address at the ALPP/ Creative Associates International Inc. office which is commonly called Bong LRC during your trip to Africa for Vision In Action, Million Books Match for Africa.
Justin, you and are got into conversation but we did not end due to your busy schedule, that is I graduated since 2004-2005, and I started my Freshman Courses at the Cuttington University, Suakoko, Bong County but due to lack of finance I drop from school and my parents don’t have money to sponser my education. […]

It’s Mulbah [redacted].

He wanted to know if I could help him find a scholarship to continue his study of economics at Cuttington University – one of the schools that has received books through the partnership between Better World Books, USAID, and Vision In Action.  Though I did not have the personal means to help him pay for college I wanted to find a way to help him continue his education.

Read more…

1 Comment » | Tagged Impact, books for africa, economics, Impact, justin brandon, liberia, students

Bring a Book to the Sullivan Summit!

Posted by David on 05.22.2008 at 10:06 am

Hello everyone.  Take a look at the attached .pdf from Books for Africa.

Sullivan Summit.pdf (911.48 KB)

This flyer was sent to all 500+ delegates attending the “Sullivan Summit” in Arusha, Tanzania.  Note that Better World Books, through the Better World Books Fund within Books For Africa, is sponsoring the shipment and that the books will be distributed by the Poverty Eradication Network (PEN) in Tanzania. Natasha Harris, Niko Tomlinson, Mary Murphy, Jaime Knabet, Dustin Holland and myself visited the PEN folks in the summer of 2006 and have continued to stay in touch with them (Mungwe and Andrea).  They do fantastic work (based in Dodoma, the national capital of Tanzania) throughout the country.

To find out more about the Sullivan Summit VIII, go to www.thesullivanfoundation.org/summit/.

Have your say » | Tagged Dispatches from the Green House, Uncategorized, africa, better world books fund, books for africa, david murphy, sullivan summit, Tanzania

Love from the Red and Black

Posted by admin on 05.05.2008 at 2:04 pm

(the author of this great article, Amanda Brouillette)

Over at the Red and Black, the student newspaper of the University of Georgia wrote an article that simultaneously talks about how sweet we are:

Better World Books has given more than 864,600 books directly to Books for Africa, as well as the National Center for Family Literacy, which helps here in the United States.  They’ve also raised $900,000 of unrestricted funding for Books for Africa, www.booksforafrica.org, since May of 2002.

A warehouse full of books at the Books for Africa headquarters in Minnesota is useless without the incredible amount of funding necessary to ship the books all the way to Sudan, Darfur or Ethiopia. This unrestricted funding ships the books across the Atlantic, and ensures their transportation inland to different countries and villages.

It’s hard to comprehend being forced to share my only book with six other students, but Fresew said that is the case, even in Africa’s private schools.

while talking about what the local Bulldogs can do to help:

As you finish your finals, get closure on that ridiculously hard class – take a walk to one of the bright green boxes that says, “Book Drives for Better Lives,” and let the bane of your semester save someone else’s life. I promise you, it’s worth it.

Check out the full article here.

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, books for africa, newspaper, press, UGA, University in Georgia

Show Us Some Love: Republic of Guinea Edition

Posted by admin on 02.21.2008 at 9:40 am

As the resident evangelist and blogger I take whatever opportunity I can to talk about the great things that we do here at Better World Books.  Considering the amount of positive emails I get, this is a relatively easy task, however sometimes, it gets even easier.  Check out these letters from the Republic of Guinea written to Books for Africa from schools and missions expressing their gratitude.  Through our book donations and funding and support, Better World Books is proud to be a part of a group that creates impact like this:

Have your say » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, Show Us Some Love, africa, books for africa, Impact, Our Partners, Republic of Guinea