Posted by Jayme Aronberg, South Mid-Atlantic Regional Director

Our student book drive leaders are a great bunch. In between classes, jobs, activities (and probably a few parties) they find the time to organize and promote book drives to benefit literacy groups all over the world. Without the devotion of this esteemed group, we'd be lost. In addition to the great work they do with Better World Books, many of our student leaders are changing the world. A few months ago I learned of a student at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia who was working on opening a library in Kigali, Rwanda. I soon contacted Logan Gibson and we've been working together on a book drive at W & L. Through the Better World Books model Logan is able to raise funds for her library while collecting books for Books For Africa. I have been inspired by her hard work and tenacity. Here's Logan's story...in her own words:

A summer teaching English in South Africa my sophomore year ignited my love for the continent. The following year, 2007, I took on the effort to set up a library for the secondary school my cousin is building in Rwanda, and received a $10,000 Projects for Peace Grant to get it started. With the guidance of Washington and Lee University professors and librarians, I spent three months soliciting donations, purchasing books and software, making shipments, and devising a unique library cataloging system.

When I stepped of the plane in Kigali, Rwanda, I found that the books I had shipped three months earlier had not yet arrived. Though temporarily projectless, I was thrilled to immerse myself in Rwandan culture, get to know my Rwandan family, and take over teaching my cousin’s class of forty students, ages 9-46, while she traveled to America. The class was composed of pastors, electricians, mothers, farmers, and children, and though I stood at the front of the room, ours was a symbiotic relationship of learning and understanding. At night, I poured over the journals of the students—thankful for such an intimate window into their lives and inspired by each of their stories of devastating loss, forgiveness, and hope. I spent my free time devouring books on Rwanda’s peace and reconciliation process and found to my surprise that Rwandans were willing to speak about the genocide.

I traveled to Arusha, Tanzania to observe the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda where the masterminds of the genocide are put to trial. When I returned to Rwanda, I attended the traditional Gacaca courts where more grassroots reconciliation takes place. Sitting cross-legged in a field, I watched murderers confess to the families of their victims and walk free—an indispensable human experiment in restorative, not retributive justice.

The 2,500 pounds of books began to arrive shortly before I returned to America, and I spent sleepless nights cataloging them with the added inspiration that the students who had inspired me daily in the classroom would soon have the chance to experience the creative power of these stories. Through the library project, my hope is to cultivate peace in a small way by creating a safe and stimulating environment where both Hutu and Tutsi children can come together and use literary access as a healing resource.

Back on campus at Washington and Lee University, I step with purposeful energy. As chairwoman of W&L’s speakers committee, I am organizing a “Re-imagining Rwanda” forum this spring, and as campus President for Books for Africa, I am leading the effort to recycle and reuse books for use in Africa. The library project challenged me to be innovative, entrepreneurial, and flexible, but it was the personal relationships I formed with my students and my own observations of Rwanda’s growth and reconciliation that have truly inspired me to study and share the intimate lessons of Rwanda’s healing example.

Check out Logan's amazing blog for more stories and information.

Posted by Aaron King, Director of Campus Acquisitions.

You may have heard, Better World Books was recently anounced as "B Corporation".


You may also have heard the fancy business jargon:  "With the certification, Better World Books joins a growing international network of purpose-driven businesses dedicated to setting a new standard for social and environmental performance, creating benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders."


How ironic, a statement that explains how B corporations are different from a standard "C Corporation", but uses the same confusing business-speak to do so.

Now don't get me wrong, I have a business degree, and I respect and understand the need for very specific language and multi syllabic nomenclature in order to be effective within the business world;  however, I also understand how corporate vernacular can sound ridiculous to the average human being.

So lets break it down for  a second.  Capitalism itself has a bad reputation to many people.  You hear "Capitalism", you think "big evil corporation exploiting people". And  then you hear things like "the best way to make your operation more robust is by improving your economies of scale", and you think "who actually talks like that?".  ( I will admit, I occasionally speak like that) But let's face it, Capitalism itself is powerful.  What if we could harness this power, and use it for good? 

Well, that's what it means to be  B Corporation.  The power of Business, the intention of goodness.  It's like using a Hybrid cars made out of recycled parts to deliver meals on wheels to hungry people.

Or in our case, it is selling books to promote literacy.


You may have noticed that I used the word "ironic" a couple paragraphs up here.  Being that we are all about literacy, I feel compelled to clear up how this word is often misused.  Many people have said "that is ironic", when they actually meant to say "that is humorous", or "that is unfortunate".  Irony means  achieving a result that is the opposite of your intentions.  The best example is Oedipus, from Greece.  He was given a prophecy that he would someday kill his father and marry is mother.  Clearly, that is not something he would want to happen... so he moved far away.  As a result of his departure, he ended up not even recognizing his parents later in life, and (SPOILER ALERT!! Stop reading if you do not want to know the fate of Oedipus) he ended up in fact killing his father and marrying his mother.  Poor Oedipus.


Now, I could say "how ironic that I warned you of 'spoiling'" the Oedipus story.  But that would be wrong.  It is not ironic at all, just humorous that I would use a spoiler alert to protect you  from learning the end of a story that has been around for millions of years*, when typically spoiler alerts are only used for new stories.

In Summary:
1. Better World Books is proud to be a B Corporation.
2. B Corportions are awesome.
3. Irony is a powerful literay device if used properly, but with great power comes great responsibility.
4. Times were tough in Ancient Greece

-Aaron

*Hyperbole used for effect.

Posted by Abby LaCombe, Rocky Mountain Regional Director

The National Center for Family Literacy and McDonald’s restaurants in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties in California partnered to distribute more than 12,000 age-appropriate books in honor of National Family Literacy Day. Yay, literacy (with fries on the side)! (Original Story)

                

Posted by Aaron King, Director of Campus Acquisitions.





From Left to right pictured are Rod Risley (Executive Director of Phi Theta Kappa), Xavier Helgesen (one of the co-founders of Better World Books), Al Gore (former Vice President of the United States), Aaron King (Director of the Campus Division for Better World Books, and the guy writing this post), and David Murphy (CEO of Better World Books).

Now I know because I am standing behind Mr. Gore, I look like I was photoshopped into this photo.. but trust me, I was there, it is just a trick of the light. If this were a court of law, I would say "look, you can see the shadow from his shoulder on my suit jacket, I really was there!"


So, I would love to say that Al Gore, while contemplating his next initiative to help the environment, heard the news that Better World Books and Phi Theta Kappa were teaming up to run book drives on college campuses around the country, keeping books out of landfills, providing funding for Phi Theta Kappa chapters, and most importantly, raising money for literacy programs.  

When Al Gore heard of this wonderful partnership, he immediately arranged a meeting with us to encourage us in our good work, and then took a photo with us.

Unfortunately, the above tale would be a fabrication;  yes, we do have a great partnership with Phi Theta Kappa, and yes we have saved millions of books from landfills, and raised a lot of money for Phi Theta Kappa and literacy too.. but Al Gore did not set up any meeting with us. 

Mr. Gore was gracious enough to be one of the speakers at the Phi Theta Kappa conference in Nashville in April 2007, and there was a Photo Session Scheduled where a select group of conference attendees got to stand in line and cycle through for a Photo Op with Mr. Gore.   We had about 15 seconds to say hi and tell him about our program, but lets be honest, Mr. Gore met thousands of people that day... so lets just say I am not expecting any invites to his house for coffee anytime soon.

While we were waiting for our 15 seconds with Mr. Gore, we a got a chance to meet Kevin Sharp, country music star, cancer survivor, and inspirational speaker, another one of the presenters at the conference.  He had hosted his own photo op the previous day, and now got to experience the other side, waiting in line just behind us for the chance to meet Al Gore. 

So Let me close by saying: Mr. Gore, it was very nice to meet you, I won't be offended if you don't remember me, and thanks again for inventing the internet, allowing me to post articles like this.

I hope that Better World Books can continue to work with Phi Theta Kappa and all of our amazing partners to someday save enough books from landfills and raise enough money for literacy that Mr. Gore features us as a great way to help improve the world in whatever his next project is. 

-Aaron

Posted by Aaron King, Director of Campus Division



I just read about this amazing concept: Getting laptops for everyone in the world! They designed a new robust amazing laptop, made it cheap, made it fun... and i wont try to do it justice here, check it out: http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/explore.php

For a limited time, you can "give one, get one", buy one of these bad boys for yourself and send one to a child in need. and, it is tax deductible! Load it up!

I just did it, I feel great about it, and I can't wait to get my new toy....

Also, you get a free T-mobile wi-fi access for a year... wow, this thing is practically free!

[Ed: check out the news about the recent spat with Intel and other things at One Laptop Per Child News]

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

As many of you may know, December 1st is World AIDS Awareness Day.  From the World AIDS Day site:

According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 33.2 million people living with HIV, including 2.5 million children. During 2007 some 2.5 million people became newly infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.

Around 95% of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing nations. But HIV today is a threat to men, women and children on all continents around the world.

Started on 1st December 1988, World AIDS Day is not just about raising money, but also about increasing awareness, fighting prejudice and improving education. World AIDS Day is important in reminding people that HIV has not gone away, and that there are many things still to be done.

[...] The 2007 theme, “leadership”, highlights the need for innovation, vision and perseverance in the face of the AIDS challenge. The campaign calls on all sectors of society such as families, communities and civil society organizations - rather than just governments - to take the initiative and provide leadership on AIDS.

There you go, click the link and find out how to help.

You may be saying "I understand why you bring in environmental issues on the blog, Better World Books has a triple bottom line that emphasizes environmental impact, but why a focus on AIDS today?" (although you're likely not using these exact words...)

Well, reader, note the following:
”Recognizing that poverty, underdevelopment and illiteracy are among the principal contributing reasons to the spread of HIV/AIDS…”

(Para 11, United Nations General Assembly (UNGASS)
Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS 2001)

Now you get it, right? Our work everyday with literacy partners Worldfund, Books for Africa, Room to Read and The National Center for Family Literacy is all about getting books and education to the people that most need them. In this way we make our effort to battle poverty, underdevelopment and illiteracy, the very things that the UN has identified as the "principal contributing reasons to the spread of HIV."

We don't just talk a big game folks, we walk it. So get out there, tell a friend, spread the word, start a book drive, or buy a book, but make sure to do something to live out the tenet that "we must be the change we wish to see in the world." -Ghandi

Posted by Roselle Agner, Mid-South Regional Director



The following blog post is from Tim Stewart working with the Belmont (University) Volunteers for Literacy to run a drive:

For the past 2 years, Belmont Volunteers for Literacy, a student run group dedicated to improving literacy among children and adults in the Nashville community through educating students about the problem of illiteracy and involving students in literacy tutoring, has participated in the Better World Books Book Drive in order to assist in funding their annual Family Literacy Day.

Belmont’s Annual Family Literacy Day, which was begun in the spring of 2000, is designed to celebrate the joys of reading with children and their parents in our community. Serving as a culmination of the various ongoing tutoring and service projects that students are engaged in throughout the school year, the event involves more than 150 student volunteers and engages 200 – 300 children annually. Student groups organize “Reading Circles” with different themes. One fraternity, for example, dresses up like pirates and reads pirate stories. Nursing students have done health themes and read fun children’s books about the importance of taking care of our bodies.

In addition to the Reading Circles, we have reading related games and crafts and the children can get their faces painted like their favorite character in a book. Refreshments and door prizes round out the festivities and each child has the opportunity to choose a book or two to take home from a large collection of books donated by a local literacy organization.

Though additional funding is necessary to put on the event, the portion we receive from our Fall and Spring Book Drives provides a significant contribution to our efforts. We are pleased to be able to support literacy initiatives both globally and locally through our partnership with Better World Books.

Sincerely,
Tim Stewart

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

World Change Starts
With Educated Children®

Our partners are always making big news. I can hardly post something on here before something new and exciting comes out about the same group. For example, before we showed you Room to Read at the Clinton Global Initiative, and you would think that would be enough excitement for a while, but alas reader, you would be mistaken. My inbox tells me today that Room to Read is up to more big things. Feel free to check out the full newsletter or my digest below for you busy types.

GOOD Magazine
Room to Read has partnered with GOOD Magazine since 2006 to benefit children in the developing world through GOOD's unique subscription/donor model. Founded by Ben Goldhirsch in 2004, the magazine seeks to "do good" in the world by contributing 100% of subscription revenue to twelve selected charities. Through this "Choose Good" campaign, subscribers select the charity they would like their donation to go to - this year they have contributed over $52,000 to Room to Read! [emphasis mine]

In addition to donating subscription fees to charities, GOOD hosts a number of events around the country to spread awareness about the Choose Good campaign and their charity partners. These events are always a lot of fun and offer a great opportunity to meet other individuals who are passionate about changing the world. For a list of upcoming GOOD events, please visit: www.goodmagazine.com.

The Literacy Site
Room to Read has been selected as a charity partner of the Literacy Site, which is dedicated to funding free books for children. With a simple daily click of the "Click Here to Give - it's FREE" button at The Literacy Site, visitors help provide free books to children in need. Visitors pay nothing. The funding of these books is paid for by advertising site sponsors and accomplished through the site's charitable partners, Room to Read and First Book.

On average, 70,000 individuals visit the site each day to click the "Click Here to Give - it's FREE" button. To date, more than 55 million visitors have helped provide more than a million books to children who need them the most. We hope you will bookmark the site and visit everyday to click and help children in need get free books. Every click counts!

Little notes (still N.B.!):

• Room to Read and John Wood are featured on page 59-60 in Bill Clinton's book Giving
• John Wood and Erin Ganju, Room to Read's COO, were invited to a breakfast at the White House with the First Lady Laura Bush
• Room to Read is the featured charity in Neiman Marcus' 100th Year Anniversary Christmas Book which debuted on October 2
• Literacy One (a product of Scholastic, Boeing and Cathway Pacific) takes flight, carrying 750,000 English language children's books for libraries in over the next three years.
• Room to Read opens library in Nepal: their 5000th library!!!
  

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director


Picure of Bruno, Student of the Month from Alagoas, Brazil

Hey all Worldfund supporters, this one goes out to you, a la Luanne Zurlo, Executive Director:

Posted by Abby Rae LaCombe, Rocky Mountain Regional Director

The National Endowment for the Arts released a study on American reading habits recently. The study draws on more than 40 sources, including federal agencies and universities, and examines the reading habits of American children, teens, and adults. The study found that nearly one-half of Americans aged 18-24 read no books for pleasure! It also found that 65% of American college freshman either do not read for pleasure, or read less than one hour each week. That trend improves slightly through college, with 1/3 of American college seniors reading nothing for pleasure during the week.

There is a lot of discussion on the study. Are we reading less or are we reading differently? Some argue that the decline is not actually a decline at all, but a transfer of attention. Rather than reading books and newspapers, teens and young adults are utilizing the internet for their news and entertainment. Hmmm...

Check out: The NEA site to learn more.

The attached picture is ME on Pearl Street in Boulder, CO while I was on my tour of conferences, campuses and bookstores in the Rockies.

Posted by: Jacob Fu, Account Representative

As Walter recently mentioned, the Library Team was in Charleston from November 7-10.  It was my first time in the city and also my first time to the Charleston Conference.  I had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather and it was great meeting everyone there.

One of the things I most enjoy when going to a new city is the food!  During the GALA Reception on Thursday night, we were presented with barbeque, boiled shrimp, steamed shrimp, and a plethora of other goodies.  Although I’m not a big fan of oysters, it was a lot of fun standing around shucking and enjoying everyone’s company.


Another great place we stopped in for brunch was Jestine’s Kitchen.  It was a great local place that had a line waiting to get in before it even opened.  The meatloaf and sweet tea were amazing!


I definitely look forward to going back next year.  Let me know if you have any suggestions on places I need to try.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

Check out the following press release at the link below for more information on this exciting development!

BETTER WORLD BOOKS BECOMES A FOUNDING B CORPORATION

Online bookseller promotes literacy worldwide while benefiting its partners, employees and the environment

November 6, 2007

Berwyn, PA -- B Lab today announced it has certified online bookseller Better World Books, a leading online seller of new and used books, as a Founding B Corporation™. With the certification, Better World Books joins a growing international network of purpose-driven businesses dedicated to setting a new standard for social and environmental performance, creating benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

To become certified B Corporations, businesses must meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards and amend their corporate governing documents to incorporate the interests of employees, community and the environment.

Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director


I personally am a Google guy.  With the interconnected nature of Firefox/Camino/Safari/Internet Explorer and the famed search engine, there are many people who would likely agree with my decision.  Well if Google is your engine of choice, i have a great site for you, and if it isn't your cup of tea take a minute to consider the following:

Search Kindly

Search Kindly is a site that uses Google to search
(comes up with the exact same results, notice:

search "Better World Books is awesome" on Google
search "Better World Books is awesome" on Search Kindly

see?)

Anyway, the reason you should consider the switch is because Search Kindly donates all of the money they make off of advertising to the programs that users vote on everyday (the organization of choice changes every month).  They are a non-profit "dedicated to the idea of micro-volunteerism and micro-philanthropy i.e. a lot of people doing a little is better than a few people doing a lot."

They're making money and sending it to some great places including Wildlife Direct, Invisible Children and Friends in Deed along with others.

Posted by Sarah Lynne Reul, Senior East Coast Director

Here's some additional photos from Martha Schouten at University of Oran in Algeria. The shipment of books from Books for Africa should be getting there soon - we'll have more pictures then!

Posted by Natasha Harris, West Coast Senior Director

Last weekend Better World Books attended the Green Fest in San Francisco to promote BetterWorld.com.  What an incredible event!  Over the course of three days, we spoke with thousands of people, ran a very successful book drive, and learned a good deal about other green initiatives happening throughout the world.  All in all, the event was a great success, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly!

Above: Paul Drake, Geoff Schwarten, Silvia Sweidan, Brad Weirich, Natasha Harris, Justin Brandon


Above: Plastic Man

The man above was one of the flashier participants at the Fest.  He single-handedly ran his own awareness campaign about plastic, and came dressed in 700 plastic grocery bags (the amount of bags the average person throws away in a year) in order to effectively demonstrate how much waste our lives contribute to the environment.  Makes you want to buy reusable grocery bags, right?!

Posted by: Dustin Holland, Director


BetterWorld.com is featured in the "Let's All Get Merry!" December/January 2008 Issue of the Hallmark Magazine.  Check out the "Shop for a Cause" section on page 23 to read more.

Posted by Damara Catlett, Northern Mid-Atlantic Regional Director

In the beginning of October one regional director learned that she would have to box approximately 2,000 books by herself. However, to her delight several LaSalle University students came to her rescue!

This is a very special thank you to Bell Tower Books for their donation and to the La Salle Cross Cultural Association for their tremendous work helping to pack these books.

Tons of drama taping.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director



Over at the National Insitute for Literacy (or NIFL, not to be confused with our partner, the NCFL or National Center for Family Literacy), there's a podcast from this past August about the findings of the "2003 Assessment of Adult Health Literacy."  Head over there to see the full results.  They define "health literacy" as:

Health Literacy as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.  Health Literacy is important for all adults; it is not just important for those who cannot read.  It is also and can be an issue for well-educated adults to know and understand health information needed to make everyday decisions.  Making good decision, health decisions, depends on having a high level of reading and comprehension skills.

As the page suggests, the following were the basic conclusions from the report, but there are much more in depth comments and findings within the report (natch):

Health literacy was reported using four performance levels: Below Basic, Basic, Intermediate, and Proficient. The majority of adults (53 percent) had Intermediate health literacy. About 22 percent had Basic and 14 percent had Below Basic health literacy. Relationships between health literacy and background variables (such as educational attainment, age, race/ethnicity, where adults get information about health issues, and health insurance coverage) were also examined and reported. For example, adults with Below Basic or Basic health literacy were less likely than adults with higher health literacy to get information about health issues from written sources (newspapers, magazines, books, brochures, or the Internet) and more likely than adults with higher health literacy to get a lot of information about health issues from radio and television.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

Hey folks.  For all of you out there who can't get enough of recycling, have a sweet compost heap or windmill in their backyard or just have a predilection towards futuristic design and architecture, check this stuff out.

>Zero House, designed by Scott Specht, has the following awesome characteristics [thanks to Gizmodo]:


That extra wide roof holds a slew of high-efficiency solar panels that let you say goodbye to electric bills, powering the whole house and storing up enough extra energy in its batteries to keep everything running for a week, even if every single day is cloudy. That's just the beginning...

The house holds its water in a 2700-gallon roof cistern, and the sheer weight of all that liquid pushes water through the plumbing. When you flush the toilets, it all ends up in a compost container in the basement, which digests all that stuff organically, relieving you of attaching your abode to any sewage pipes.

Even so, this house is highly civilized unto itself, with LED lighting built into the walls and ceiling, using very little power and lasting 100,000 hours without changing a single bulb. It's off-the-grid living, in gorgeous style. Cantilevers, anyone?


>If that doesn't catch your fancy then try on the "miniHome" at Sustain Design Studio

>Trouble is, if you're like me, you love the city.  I'm doing what I can to help the environment but I can't bear the idea of being so far away from so many things and people that I love.  For us city-dwellers check out DPD Green Building, an initiative started by the Seattle government.  They offer design plans, classes and lectures and a myriad of other materials for the DIY green conscious folk.

And hey skeptics, it wouldn't be too bad to get rid of your water and electricity bills right?

Posted by Mary Murphy, South Senior Director

You collected the highest number of qualifying books of all the states in the USA (more than 818 cartons!) for the collegiate "Book Drives for Better Lives' program!

Hooray!

AND

you have saved 25,282 pounds of books from the landfill which is equivalent to over 12 tons of books--all from Florida!

Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!

Thank you to all the chapters in this, the Sunshine State that made this possible!! You are bringing light and hope to others through these book drives.  From my heart, I thank you for yours.

-Mary

Florida from Space, courtesy of Wikipedia

Posted by Laurie Lawson, Southwest Regional Director

With Thanksgiving just 10 days away, I am already anticipating renting some good movies and getting cozy on the couch during the long weekend. For those of you with a similar plan, my recommendation is a double feature of two documentaries that follow Sudanese refugees on an extraordinary journey from Africa to America...the emmy nominated Lost Boys of Sudan 

http://www.lostboysfilm.com/index.html

and the more recently produced God Grew Tired of Us.

http://www.godgrewtiredofus.com/

Both are powerful accounts of courage and a wonderful reminder of all we have to be thankful for.

Posted by: Walter Sears, Associate Director

I am lucky enough to be attending the 27th Annual Charleston Conference enjoying some of the best weather that the southeastern United States has to offer in November.  We have spent two days honing our acquisitions skills learning about weeding processes, approval plans and, most interestingly, RFID (IMO). 


Thanks to Corrie Marsh, Associate University Librarian at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, I learned that they are using RFID to indicate low tire tread, keep track of students and school buses, even pay for cover charges and drinks at bars in Barcelona & Miami.  That’s right, a bar owner in Barcelona has added an RFID reader that can charge your account for cover charges and drinks through an RFID tag surgically imbedded under your skin!  Check it out here www.txcdk.org/rfid.  To take it a step further, China is planning to issue over 10 million RFID identification cards to individuals and 3 million RFID readers to the police to assist in crime prevention.

Is RFID going too far?

Posted by Niko Tomlinson, Senior Director- Central West Region

We've got pictures!!!

The weekend of October 12-13th brought together 15 strong chapters from the immense Min-Wi-Kota Phi Theta Kappa region at St. John's College in Collegeville, MN [Min-Wi-Kota, by the way, is shorthand for Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas].  The meeting was cohosted by two dynamic and long-standing great bookdrive running chapters: Alpha Alpha Gamma and Alpha Eta Zeta who are pictured above (Alpha Alpha Gamma is the first picture and Alpha Eta Zeta is the second one).

I was honored to have an opportunity to speak to all these amazing chapters- just the week before I had been meeting with another student organization about a potential regional partnership and I was describing Phi Theta Kappa as a great model and they were BLOWN AWAY that we had a partnership with Phi Theta Kappa.  It was a great reminder to me of how special this international student organization really is and how lucky we are to have such a strong and continually evolving and growing partnership.

Here are some of the strong results the Min-Wi-Kota region posted this past year with their Better World Books drives:

25 Chapters ran successful bookdrives!

Over 875 cartons collected and sent in!

More than 14,000 books kept out of landfills!

And over $4,000 in fundraising!

Congratulations to all the Min-Wi-Kota chapters for your terrific work this past year- I got a bunch of interest following up from the Fall Leadership conference and I'm excited to see this region continue growing and doing amazing things for literacy and the environment!

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

You know how sometimes you're at the office and feeling a bit lazy?  It's rainy outside, your report is done (or as done as you're going to get it today) and you want something to kill the time?  You've gone to the watercooler approximately 20 times in the last 3 hours and you've even read the Metro section on NYTimes.com even though you don't live in New York (how cosmopolitan of you!).

Instead, try this:
Free Rice

Free Rice donates rice for every question you answer correctly, via the United Nations.  Not only will you be doing something less asinine than watching those "Rock of Love" reruns or something else that is about as mind engaging as sharpening a pencil, but you'll in fact be doing something good for the world!

Now I personally would never avoid work (are you reading this Aaron and Sarah Lynne?) but for those of you who must, at least make it worthwhile.  I'll be doing this after 6pm, of course.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director



Here in the world of socially responsible companies and triple bottom lines we have our ear to the ground about corporate giving.  So when my colleague, Niko Tomlinson (Senior Midwest Director), sent me an email about www.CorporatePhilanthropy.org, I was obviously intrigued.  You'll notice there's a very informative--if somewhat dry--report on Corporate giving trends for the Fortune 100 as well as surveyed companies on the whole (get it at the link below).  The results were surprising but ultimately positive.

Niko did an excellent job of boiling down the N.B. parts of the report:

The lead stats:
Total giving increased-
-Median $ amount increased from $29.5 million to $32.6 million per year
-Median % increase of 4.8 per company
-Median total giving as a percentage of revenue was unchanged at 0.14%
-Median total giving as a percentage of pre-tax profit fell from 0.98% in 2005 to 0.93% in 2006
-SO... companies are giving a smaller percentage of their profits but the absolute dollar amount is greater.

Now I'm no economist (full disclosure: I was a Music and English major) but it doesn't take an M.B.A. to tell you that more overall money from corporate giving is a good thing.  Hopefully this type of philanthropy will be seen as less of an added bonus to what a company is doing, and more of a necessity in company (and popular) culture. 

Download and read the full report (.pdf format) at this link.

Posted by Silvia Sweidan, Northwest Regional Director

Cheers Everyone: I had a wonderful journey to the Northwest College Bookstore Association in Portland, Oregon on October 23 – 25, 2007. The theme for this year's show was “25 Pieces of Silver” in honor of the 25th anniversary of NCBA. Communicating with bookstore managers and other staff made me realize the essential role independent bookstores play in all of our lives: be it students, professors, or Better World Books-- in our continuous mission to support literacy around the world. Independent Bookstores will always play a highly significant role in promoting a more ‘Green’ culture through donating their “dead stock” books, supporting literacy in the poorest countries in the world, and increasing traffic to their bookstores thus creating a Better World for ALL…

Picture of Ben Baker and Silvia Sweidan at the NCBA Annual Conference 10/24/2007

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

A colleague of mine pointed out this article from Grist (an excellent site for environmental news):

Wondering which colleges are greenest? The Sustainable Endowment Institute has released its second College Sustainability Report Card, grading the environmentaliciousness of the 200 U.S. colleges with the largest endowments. Two-thirds of the schools got better grades this time than last; the average overall grade was a C+, and six schools received an overall A- for their efforts -- Carleton College, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Middlebury College, University of Vermont, and University of Washington. The colleges were graded on transportation, administration, climate and energy, food and recycling, green building, and investment priorities, as well as endowment transparency and shareholder engagement (both of which most schools solidly failed). Among the encouraging statistics: Around half of the schools have committed to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, more than two-thirds have green building policies, and more than 80 percent source at least some cafeteria food locally.

[Thanks to Ed Would at Grist]

This is fantastic.  Awareness breeds accountability, and the more of these we have, the better.  Go see where your schools stands and do something about it!  Sustainability isn't magic, it's about the effort that you put in everyday.

                

Posted by Yanna C. Ogilvie, Senior Central Eastern Director

In the last year members of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) have collected over 10,000 books to help spread global literacy. A majority of these books have gone to support Books for Africa and help end the book famine in Africa. Better World Books is incredibly thankful for these successful book drives and hope the new school year will bring twice as many books from the AMSA community.

I want to personally thank Michael Casey, a medical student and AMSA member. His hard work and passion for this partnership is instrumental to its success. Thanks to his tenacity and passion in just one years time one book drive has increased to 20 and 500 books have become 10,000! We are grateful to all the AMSA chapters that participated. I especially want to thank the top three collecting AMSA chapters from last Spring:

1. California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo: Collected over 1,000 qualified books!
2. University of Florida: Collected over 950 qualified books!
3. Columbia University: Collected over 850 qualified books!

Thanks to all the books AMSA has collected Books for Africa can fund the shipment of 30,000 books to Africa, enough to fill 15 schools! We are truly thankful to work with such remarkable and passionate people. Thank you!!!

Sincerely,
Yanna C. Ogilvie

Picture of Mike Casey and Yanna at AMSA National Convention in March

Posted by Sarah Lynne Reul, Senior East Coast Director

Room to Read participated in the Clinton Global Initiative back in September – check out this video of John Wood & Erin Ganju (Room to Read’s CEO & COO) on stage with Bill Clinton at the event [thanks to the Clinton Global Initiative for use of this video]. John commented on the experience:

At the Clinton Global Initiative, we had an amazing amount of exposure to over 1,000 philanthropic leaders (a great mix of funders and other NGOs). Bill Clinton called Erin and I on stage to announce Room to Read’s commitment to grow our Reading Room program to 10,000 by EOY 2010 and to double our geographic footprint to 15 countries, and to print at least 3.5 million new local language books to add in with the big commitment Scholastic is making. And, in a ‘stage whisper’ that I will always remember, Bill said “I really loved your book”. The next day, we were featured on an education panel with Andre Agassi (nothing like a little star power to draw a crowd), along with the leaders of Escuela Nueva and BRAC, two of the world’s most respected NGOs doing work in education. Those latter two are also 25 and 30 years old, so for a 7 ½ year old organization to be alongside them says a lot for the regard with which the CGI Education panel holds our work.

We were very surprised that during his closing comments, former President Clinton repeated once again his respect for our work. Two shout outs from Bill on subsequent days ain’t a bad thing! Lisa, Erin and I were mobbed with constant meetings, and we met a lot of potential funders, and also dozens of other NGOs that want to partner with us. We will be deluged with follow up for the next few weeks – nice problem to have!

Posted by Sarah Lynne Reul, Senior East Coast Director


Martha Schouten, from the University of Oran in Algeria (previously blogged here) sent me this picture of her just-renovated office, featuring one of the school's teachers and some of the English Club members. The university has enlarged the room so they can fill it with some of the books that will be coming in a