Attached you will find the article from Fast Company magazine (Dec/Jan issue) that announces their “2008 Social Capitalist Awards.” This is the fifth year Fast Company has selected outstanding companies for their social impact; however, in the past, they have only focused their search and selection process on the non-profit community.

2008 Social Capital Award – Fast Company.pdf (1.25 MB)

This is the first year that Fast Company embarked on an experiment to look at the for-profit sector for those companies that are truly making a social impact and changing the world. Thirty one companies applied and ten winners were selected…..including Better World Books!! Fast Company teamed up with the Monitor Consulting Group and some other outside social venture expertise to apply a rigorous methodology for selecting companies that, in the end, explicitly place social good ahead of shareholder return.

Take a look about what they say about your company….it is certainly nice to see a highly respected institution like Fast Company/Monitor Group verify (again, after a ton of examination), understand (they clearly “get” all that we do and the impact we are making in the world) and publicly applaud our business model.

I like the closing paragraph to the Social Capital Awards article here….worth highlighting for all of you.

“Change the world. Make some money. Raise more money, and make more change. It is an appealing prospect. Nonprofits were born because for-profits weren’t addressing some market failures — pollution, poverty, illiteracy. Profits won’t cure those ills, but it’s becoming a bigger part of more solutions. Perhaps it’s dawning on us that the cost of capital for changing the world should be lower. Perhaps the capital markets will cut the world a break.”

It goes without saying that this award is YOUR award….each and every one of you who make Better World Books run. Congratulations on being such an integral part of not only this recognition but in changing the world….one book at a time.