John Wood Calls on Billionaires to Give More

Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 15

Times are tough for everybody—even billionaires. But John Wood, chairman of Room to Read, an organization that builds schools and libraries in developing nations, is calling on the world’s wealthy people to give more money for worthy causes. Room to Read has a $23 million budget this year, which is allowing it to expand in the nine countries where it operates, but Wood, a former Microsoft executive, says the generosity of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should be matched by others of the wealthy class. “The world’s billionaires need to do more. They need to pick an issue and go out and do something about it.” It’s no surprise that charitable giving is down. It amazes me, though, that I’m hearing from some social enterprises and NGOs that donors are backing off on pledges. Seems cruel at a time when poor people are getting whacked by this economic mess harder than everybody else. So, billionaires of the world: unite around philanthropy. Now is when we find out who’s really dedicated to make a difference and who gives mainly to buff up their image.

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Several GlobeSpotting readers asked for details of Wood's Room to Read project--basically wanting a progress update. Here's one specific question I put to Wood at the Aspen Global Leadership Network conference, from reader David Lish:

"Social entrepreneurship is increasingly seen as an important component of any national or global development strategy. In the case of Room to Read, is Mr. Wood’s entrepreneurial approach translating into a cultural shift in the way developing countries view and prioritize education?"

Wood: I wish I could say "Yes." We haven't caused a big cultural shift yet, but I hope we can do that.

We have small victories.

I see some instances where there's more attention to the need for libraries. In one area of India, after we put in some of our libraries, the ministry of education used our model and information as the basis for doing 50 of their own libraries.

I get e-mails from Nepalis who are inspired by what we do and are vowing to do more about literacy.

Also, I talk to people in the business community. They're starting to realize the importance of literacy in their ability to get talent in developing nations. We're seeing some good momentum. We're seeing corporate social responsibility dollars shifting to education.
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John spent an hour talking about his program to a couple of dozen participants in the AGLN program.

It's amazing to me how fast it's growing. In less than 10 years, he's operating in nine countries, has built 765 schools serving 210,000 students. He has built 7048 libraries. And his organization has published 310 original titles in local languages.

For those of you who don't know what Room to Read is about, here's a quick synopsis:

When he was trekking alone in Nepal in 1998 he happened up a resource officer for the local school district who was responsible for provisioning libraries, but had no budget for books. The man showed him a school with no books in the library--a handful of cast-off books from trekkers were locked away for safe keeping. So Wood quit his job as a Microsoft executive and started a non-profit organization dedicated at improving literacy in developing nations.

The idea was to focus on grades K-12--building schools and libraries, and offering scholarships to girls. Room to Read works with national and local education ministries on the school building projects--and will only go ahead with a project if it gets their full cooperation. That includes sweat equity from parents. The organization builds libraries or sets up libraries in existing school spaces. It offers the scholarships for girls because poor families too often spend their scant resources on male children and girls and left out.

The organization is operating in Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka, Laos, South Africa, Zambia, and Bangladesh.

While Room to Read's accomplishments so far are quite impressive, John isn't satisfied. Children aren't using the libraries enough. Of the 5.6 million books in the libraries, only 1.3 million have been checked out so far. So Wood's local teams are working with schools to make the library experience more compelling to children. Self-publishing content is another piece of the strategy. The more books the organization can publish in local languages that are sculpted for young readers in those places, the more likely they'll want to read them. Unfortunately, it costs about $12,000 per book for writing, editing, and printing expenses.

But think of it this way: A generous billionaire could afford to pay for a lot of original Room to Read titles.

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