Recently, DSVP had the opportunity to co-host an event with John Wood, of Room to Read (see previous post). His vision is to end global poverty through access to books and education by building libraries and schools in some of the most impoverished regions around the world. He has taken his Microsoft back ground, and modeled his Room to Read mission with the aggressive growth strategy of Starbucks. The result...over 700 schools and over 7,000 libraries in nine countries. His mission is to impact ten million children by the year 2020.
As we look at our own unique challenges within our own back yard, we might question what the opportunity is for us to help support another international mission. I would suggest two reasons why this is important:
1. The work is innovative.
Our own education system is challenging at best. We strive to find new ideas to raise up and move to scale but are frequently slowed down by existing rigid infrastructure and systems. Same with the delivery of our nonprofit missions. We often approach the work with the same old model of building leadership and accessing resources. Room to Read's international education work and delivery of it's mission is proving to be social innovations that are worth learning (and borrowing) from.
2. John Wood is a pioneer social entrepreneur who is doing it right and well.
Although the social entrepreneur movement is almost 20 years old now, there are just a handful who have been working as such for a long enough time for us to learn from their experience. Ten years into his work, John's work is maturing in ways that are giving us all a more in-depth look at best practices. It is certainly worth nurturing into the next phase so we can continue to learn from and glean tools for social entrepreneurship. Indeed, it is important for us to raise up those who are doing it successfully.
Besides, who wouldn't want to help realize a vision..."to solve world poverty within this generation".
Listen to the Podcast!
Room to Read Luncheon
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