I recently discovered two enterprises which focus on books.
My discoveries of each of them came so close together, that I decided it was a
sign to write about them.
Just when books seem to be going out of fashion, replaced
with ebooks or online texts, along come two social enterprises that use books
to change lives.
Better World Books, in Mishawaka, IN, is the brainchild of
two Notre Dame Alumni (yet another reason why I like them), Xavier Helgesen and Kreese Fuchs. They have built a for-profit social enterprise which collects
used books, resells them online and funds literacy programs around the world.
For each book they sell online, Better World Books makes a book donation to
someone in need. Better World Books (BWB) delivers on its dual -- environmental
and social -- mission; used books are saved from landfills and BWB contributes
to individual literacy in the United States and in some of the poorest
countries of the world.
The BWB website summarizes its astounding impact: Since it
began 11 years ago, BWB has raised over $11.6 million for literacy including
$5.7 million for over 80 literacy and education nonprofits and $4.9 million for
libraries nationwide. BWB has contributed more than $2 million to college
service clubs who have run book drives and has directly sent more than 5
million books to Books for Africa, the National Center for Family Literacy and
Feed the Children. BWB has collected over 77 million books through active book
drives at over 2,300 college and universities and collections from over 3,000
libraries. If you or your kids need to offload some old textbooks, that is
where this all began. The founders credit their success on the fact that all of
us want to do good. Their business allows us to solve a book inventory problem
and feel good knowing we are giving back at the same time.
More Than Words is a nonprofit social enterprise, located in
Waltham, MA, that empowers youth who are in the foster care system, court
involved, homeless, or out of school to take charge of their lives by taking
charge of a business. The youths who work at More Than Words (MTW) run an
inviting 501(c)3 nonprofit used bookstore featuring a wide array of titles,
comfortable seating, and free wi-fi. The in-store coffee bar serves Starbucks
coffee, espresso, tea and other popular café drinks, as well as delicious baked
treats. To manage the bookstore and online business, these at-risk youth work
as a team which helps them develop management responsibilities, leadership and
self-confidence. MTW also provides personal transition planning and case
management to support these kids as they progress toward employment and education.
These often marginalized youths use these skills to help themselves make the
transition to adulthood and become thriving members of their communities.
The MTW website speaks to the youth whom they embrace, with
alumni stories of encouragement and a strong feeling of success throughout the
site. MTW workers are proud of their business and proud of themselves. The
business can be an escape from their chaotic life, but rather than just
treading water, the youth who commit to the program are offered a future that may
have been otherwise unattainable.
What does this have to do with social media? Who cares! But both
enterprises maintain terrific blogs to broaden their reach and BWB is very active on Facebook (one of
my favorite Facebook Pages) and Twitter. The beauty of engaging communities who
enjoy books is that the potential content is limitless: authors, genres, events,
hot topics, etc. And that’s not even the tip of the iceberg on content
potential when you consider how much there is to say about doing good.
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