Meaning Behind the Mission: What Literacy Means To Me

Awakening the Mission (Cont.)

I work for an organization who focuses on literacy as part of its mission. And as you might have seen in previous posts I am grappling with how to make the mission more real at our organization:  How do we create passion for our mission with the daily grind of trying to run a profitable and sustainable business?  I've also suggested that finding this passion will lead us to higher impact.

A place to start might be to look at what this mission, literacy, means to me, personally, and why I think it's something worth being passionate about.

Seeing is Believing

Literacy wasn't something I really thought about much throughout my educational career. I guess growing up in the states and attending top notch schools I took it for granted as I'm sure a lot of us do. But then I had the opportunity to serve in the Peace Corps in Mali.

According to the 2009 Human development report Mali ranks right near the bottom in terms of human development at 178 out of 182. The literacy rate of adults 15 years and older is about 26%. Mali is a country where literacy is definitely a key component to development.

In Mali I lived in a small rural farming village where I had to learn the local language, Bambara, because no one spoke French. I think 98% of the adults were functionally illiterate. A school only existed in the village as of 2000 and when I arrived in 2002 classes were being held in a broken down storage building not nearly large enough for the number of children. They had constructed the base for a new 3 classroom school house at the direction of the government, but then funds dried up and the project was never complete. So despite being an agriculture volunteer, I decided to try to meet the communities greatest need and want which was to complete this structure. So my major project was to raise funds for and organize the construction of this school. So we raised funding and the school was completed in late 2003. Right after we finished this a French group came in and built 3 more classrooms. So now the village has 6 classrooms.

A Complex Issue

If I were to stop here, you would probably say it was a good, successful project. But, looking back I'm not so sure. On one level it was good. It provided much needed infrastructure. However, the school alone hasn't solved the problem of illiteracy in Sitafoula. For example, young women are still often kept out or pulled out of school early to either work for the family or get married at a young age. There are only 2 teachers who are only qualified to teach the lower grades. There are no books. The children are the first generation to be educated so parents can't help them with their studies nor do they fully understand the value of education. Without good mentors as examples of the value of education, young men often drop out early to go work. With teacher's only qualified up to a certain level, kids who reach the higher grades have to go elsewhere in order to continue their education. The closest schools with the higher grade levels are 5 miles away through the bush by foot. A lot of families will pull their kids out if they don't have a place for the kids to stay in town where they can rest and eat their meals. The list goes on... So the school was a start but far from a solution.

An Issue Close to Home

While I was living in Sitafoula, I met my wife, a shy young woman who stood out among her peers. When school was first introduced in 2000, she was already a teenager. Some families chose to put their kids in school, but unfortunately hers did not. They felt she was more valuable to them at home so she ended up cooking, cleaning, fetching water, and doing other chores for her aunt's family every day while her friends went to school. Today she lives here in the US with me and our two young boys. She knows better than anyone the importance of literacy. It has been a challenge for her to adapt to our culture and to learn English all while having never attended school in her life. But she diligently attends her ESL classes and works to learn to read while working part time and raising 2 toddlers. She dreams of being able to read to her kids, getting a drivers' license, passing the citizenship test, and maybe one day getting her GED. These are all things most of us take for granted.

Literacy is an important part of my wife's daily life. It's a struggle, but it's something we're confident we'll get through. Our true passion for literacy goes beyond her personal struggles. It lies in knowing that so many kids in Mali including our own family might miss out on all the things we take for granted when it comes to education and literacy.

Our brother Pa is struggling to complete high school against the temptations to quit and go work like most of his peers. Our brother Ablaye is at the top of his class entering high school, but isn't sure whether the future will see him graduating let alone going on to college. Our youngest brother Yacouba is following in his brothers' footsteps and his future depends on their uncertain success.

Then there are Sadjo and Araba. Sadjo is the first girl in the family to enter school as she starts the first grade this year. Will the family keep her in school despite customs and traditions that might pull her out? Araba is still only a small baby, but her education too is at stake. We can only dream right now that she can take it all for granted one day like our two sons probably will growing up here in the US. Then there are our boys' cousins and all the other children of the village and of Mali who are faced with the same uncertain future.

This is why literacy is important to us.

A Daunting Task, But One with Hope


My wife has selflessly devoted herself to helping her family overcome a lot of the obstacles standing in the way of her siblings education. She would never admit this because in her culture that is just what you do. She works hard at a part time job in the evenings to save money so that she can help her family when needs arise, but also hopes to save enough to go back to Mali and visit her family. Unfortunately, the part she saves for herself never seems to amount to much. Last year, she spent almost all of her savings on a plot of land and home for her family in the town where the kids were going to school so they could continue their studies. She routinely sends money to help her family with their farming, for holidays, to help with medical bills, and when times are tough such as a bad harvest. Just a couple of weeks ago she sent another large installment so her dad can repair rain damages to the family home in the market town where her siblings attend school. She has financed the last 2 years of Pa's education. She is trying to help her cousin and brothers continue on to university and possibly come to the US to study.

We're starting to realize that our meager remittances are not going to solve this problem. We've made some bad decisions along the way both for ourselves and for the family, and realize that in some ways we are only strengthening the "aid trap" of dependency. But we have strong confidence in the power of education and literacy. We believe these are the key to her family and community breaking out of the cycle they are in. Our hope is that our passion for solving this problem will help us to find a sustainable way to break the cycle, and maybe one day lead to the long term development of Sitafoula and the broader community and maybe even Mali on the whole.

For us, literacy means hope where sometimes there isn't a lot of hope to see.  For us literacy isn't something we just talk about or a cause we simply support.  Literacy is part of our lives.  The hopes and dreams, the livelihoods and lives of people, real people, our family depend on it.  The cause is more than a cause, it is a necessity.  It can sometimes be a daunting task, but it is something we're determined to figure out.  Our hope is that we will be able to build something out of this vital part of our lives that will impact others' lives in a meaningful way.  

Finding Your Inspiration


To me, at an organization that has a social mission and that really wants to have a great impact towards that mission, it is imperative to find this type of passion.  Otherwise, you will lose sight of whatever that mission is and you will forget why you started doing what you're doing in the first place.  You need to find your inspiration.  There's a difference between supporting a cause like literacy, and being inspired to address an issue like literacy by true passion for the cause.  From the former comes good and from the latter comes greatness. 

For an organization that is just getting started, my advice is to first figure out what your passion truly is and then build something great around that passion.  And to those who've already started, I would suggest stopping, reflecting, focusing, looking inward and trying to discover what inspires you.  Let it become part of who you are.  If your cause is literacy, ask yourself why.  Ask yourself why you care about it and what it means to you.  Ask those within your organization to share why they are passionate about it.  Build off of the stories like mine to create meaning behind your mission.   And then go do great things towards that end. 

Other thoughts and ideas are welcome...

Awakening the Mission

The Role of a Social Enterprise (Cont.)

In my previous post "Books for Africa, Literacy in Africa, and the Role of a Social Enterprise" I asked a few questions about what more we at Better World Books can do to extend our social impact and bring more life to it within our organization. I got some great comments on the post in response to these questions.

A friend and former colleague suggests that the answer lies in us harnessing the passion of our followers and customers to come up with the next "big idea". I definitely agree that there is something to be found through collaboration. I think there is a need for more collaboration in this space, and I think social enterprises can be good catalysts for creating more. It is definitely important to engage with others, and especially to listen to those who are passionate about what you're trying to do.

Daniela Papi also added some great thoughts about how to address these questions. She points out that we are doing a lot already by baking "good" into the business model and being sure to do things before "the bottom line" even at the cost of profits. But how do we go above and beyond even this? She points out our donation volume and the power that comes with that (and I would add responsibility). We're no longer giving a few books or a few dollars or even a few thousand dollars. We're dealing with hundreds of thousands and millions of books and dollars. There is a lot of power there. Daniela suggests we do our homework:

By doing a lot of homework on where your largest donations are going, seeing if they are providing the best format for supporting literacy education, and only supporting the groups you think are doing the best work, you can have the biggest impact with your funds while also inspiring others to improve their work to meet your standards. I don't want this to be misinterpreted as a disguise for donor-driven program development, as that is not what I am trying to promote, but instead a really thorough understanding of the metrics you are trying to change: literacy, learning, book use, love of reading/learning. When metrics are presented as number of books delivered, number of libraries built, etc it is hard to get at the more qualitative impacts you are looking to see.

If BWB identifies partners who have the skills to analyze your partners impacts and finds or comes up with a list of best practices with relation to increasing literacy and learning, these can perhaps be shared across the board and will help your team determine the best places to invest your future funding. In other words - you asked "What else can we as a business, a for-profit business, but one with a social mission do?". You can identify which areas you are investing in short term results and redirect some of that money into helping the entire sector learn, improve, and better benefit from the support you are giving them.

The same day Daniela wrote these comments I came across this post By Sean Stannard-Stockton on the Tactical Philanthropy Advisors blog: "Fixing the Power Imbalance in Philanthropy". Here Sean too points out the value add when social investors and donors see the responsibility they have and use it to invest wisely in high performance organizations over low performance ones. As Daniela points out, the point isn't to tell non-profits how to do development, it is to influence the field by promoting those who do development well.

Realizing Our Influence


I agree with my friend that we need to engage and collaborate more with our network of peers, customers, and followers to come up with new and innovative ways to create change. However, I also agree with Daniela and Sean that as an organization who is making significant contributions to organizations working towards social change we must recognize the responsibility that comes with that. We need to do our homework to learn how these organizations are performing, what is working in the field, and make decisions to point our influence towards the highest impact possible. So now the question that springs to mind is "What do we need to do to get to this in practice?"

Part of the answer lies in simply reflecting on and recognizing the size of our current impact. As an individual donor you think about a $1,000 donation differently than a $10 donation. You think more carefully about what you do with it. In a sense we've already done this by ensuring our funds are going to reputable organizations. But, from my perspective it takes a little more effort to do what Daniela and Sean are suggesting, to really be a leader that is influencing the whole field through smart high impact investments.

Finding Our Passion


I think to get here, you have to start with the mission. I believe it takes true passion for the cause in order to create momentum within an organization to think beyond the transaction from donor to recipient. If you're passionate about the cause itself, you will focus more on impact.

A lot of social enterprises are started by an individual who is dedicated to addressing some social problem and sees capitalism as a powerful tool that can be used to work towards alleviating the problem. In this case the enterprise started with passion and the business was built around that passion. So as long as the organization remembers why it started and what it set out to do, the passion for the mission should remain central.

There are other social enterprises that start from a great idea for a business that has a nice tie-in to social and environmental change. In the case of Better World Books the tie-in to literacy and the environmental fit perfectly and we've baked it into the business model itself. This is a great thing. But, what is our passion? Are we as passionate about our cause as the entrepreneur who builds an enterprise around directly addressing a social ill they care about? By default, I don't think we necessarily are, but I think we can be. I think it takes a more concerted effort. We have to "awaken the passion" within our organization and remind ourselves why we do what we do. In our case I think we need to ask ourselves: Why literacy? And we need to think beyond that it fits nicely with books. What does literacy mean to us? Why do we care about it?

I believe that once we're able to complete the exercise of self-assessment as to what our passion is, then it will be easier for us to see the potential we have to really lead change. Then we'll understand the importance of thinking beyond transactions towards actual human impact. We'll understand we're part of a larger community and in a position to take a leadership role in that community. And we'll see the value in engaging with others in the community to answer the question of how to best direct our influence.

So to start I think I'll write something about why I care about literacy...