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Neologisms (from Greek néo-, meaning ‘new’ and logos, meaning ‘speech, utterance’) – can do all sorts of jobs. But most straightforwardly new words describe new things. As such they indicate areas of change, perhaps of innovation. They present us with a map, one that can redefine what we know as well as revealing newly explored areas; new words for new worlds.

The post Business and society: new words for new worlds appeared first on OUPblog.

When children see their lives reflected in the books they read they become more enthusiastic readers. Their educational outcomes improve. They succeed in school and in life.

But few books actually reflect the cultures and circumstances of the kids First Book serves, all of whom live in low-income households and many of whom are of minority backgrounds. In fact, a mere 11 percent of 3,500 children’s books reviewed by Cooperative Children’s Book Center this year are about people of color.

This is the reason we created the Stories for All Project^TM – the only market-driven solution to increase diverse voices and promote inclusivity in children’s literature.

Today, we’re proud to share our latest news with you: With support from Target, KPMG and Jet Blue Airways, First Book is making 60,000 copies of outstanding children’s titles featuring diverse characters and storylines available for the first time ever in affordable trade paperback format, to fuel learning and educational equity.

We chose these titles from hundreds submitted by publishers with input from the 175,000 educators and program leaders we serve. By aggregating the demand and purchasing power of this educator community, we have become the first organization to create a viable and vibrant market for books that reflect race, ability, sexual orientation and family structure in our ever-diversifying world.

Each of our selections contributes unique perspectives underrepresented in children’s literature while remaining relatable to all readers. As part of this current effort, First Book is thrilled to make available two titles by new picture book authors:

• “Niño Wrestles the World” written and illustrated by Yuyi Morales
• “And Tango Makes Three” written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell and illustrated by Henry Cole
• “Tiger in My Soup” written by Kashmira Sheth and illustrated by Jeffrey Ebbeler
• “Boats for Papa” written and illustrated by new author/illustrator Jessixa Bagley
• “Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah,” written by first-time children’s author Laurie Ann Thompson and illustrated by Sean Qualls,
• “Knock Knock: My Dad’s Dream for Me,” written by Daniel Beaty and illustrated by Bryan Collier

Copies of all six titles will be available through the First Book Marketplace.  The first three titles are also available for the first time in paperback format on Target.com and at Target stores nationwide.

Every day, in communities around the country and around the world, we see the critical need to further our human understanding and embrace the gifts and experience each of us brings. The Stories for All Project and promotes understanding, empathy and inclusivity with stories that can help all children see and celebrate their differences and similarities.

The post The Stories for All Project: 60,000 New Books to Increase Diversity, Promote Inclusivity appeared first on First Book Blog.

Today’s blog post is an excerpt from A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity, the latest book from New York Times’ columnist and best-selling authors Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

In A Path Appears, which was released yesterday by Random House, Nick and Sheryl highlight “some of today’s most successful local and global initiatives to fight inequality.”  The book “makes clear how typical citizens can drive the momentum of worthy solutions to our world’s most pressing social problems.”

We are honored that Kyle Zimmer, First Book president, CEO and co-founder, is one of many social entrepreneurs featured in the book:

“While visiting the homes of those children, she noticed that there were few if any books. When she gave some children books, they would confide: This is my first book. That gave her the idea to found First Book, a nonprofit to deliver books to children living in poverty and then encourage them to read. She started the endeavor with two colleagues originally as a hobby organization, but it turned out to be impossibly tough to hire a good manager for it: “We had about $1.30 in our bank account.” So she quit her corporate law job in 1995 and took on the role of chief executive…

There were plenty of missteps. When First Book started asking [publishers] for book donations, Zimmer arranged for a few trucks to pick them up. “I was sitting here thinking I knew what I was doing, and I started rounds of calls to get books donated,” said Zimmer. “The publishers were wonderfully generous, and the fire hose of books for turned on.” First Book soon was scrambling for pickups, larger trucks – any form of transport. When one employee found a distributor willing to transport the books, Zimmer was delighted. But they had some explaining to do when a truck with a beer company logo pulled up in front of the schools to unload boxes of books…

First Book now distributes books to church groups, libraries in low-income neighborhoods, Head Start programs, homeless shelters, youth outreach center, and pediatrician’s officers through Reach Out and Read. After twenty years – and significant transformation – First Book has distributed some 115 million books to 90,000 organizations.* In 2013, First Book accounted for 2 percent of the children’s books distributed in the United States. Not bad for a nonprofit.

*Since A Path Appears went to press, First Book has continued to grow and expand. To date, we have distributed 120 million new books to a network of 140,000 schools and programs.

Excerpted from A Path Appears by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Copyright © 2014 by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Tags: Nick, Kristof,, Sheryl, WuDunn,, A, Path, Appears,, book,, reading,, social, entrepreneurship,, impact

The post A Path Appears appeared first on First Book Blog.

Last week, hundreds of thousands of parents, educators and readers of all ages issued a call for more diversity in children’s literature, rallying under the banner of #WeNeedDiverseBooks. The campaign spread quickly from Twitter to media outlets around the world as people shared powerful stories about the need for all children to see themselves in books.

Today First Book is answering the call with a market-driven solution addressing the lack of diversity in children’s literature.

Children from all walks of life need to see themselves – and others – in the stories they read. So First Book - a nonprofit social enterprise that provides new books to kids in need – has reached out to U.S. and Canadian publishers and asked to see more books from new and underrepresented voices.

But we understand that publishers won’t print what they can’t sell, so First Book is putting our money where our mouth is and pledging to purchase 10,000 copies of every title we select.

Once published, the titles will be available to children everywhere.

In addition to helping bring these new voices to the children in our national network of schools and programs and to bookshelves everywhere, First Book will also fund, for the first time ever, affordable paperback editions of diverse titles that have previously only been publicly available in expensive hardcover formats.

Although we’re excited about the attention this critical issue has been receiving lately, our commitment isn’t new. Today’s announcement is part of First Book’s Stories for All Project, our ongoing efforts to increase the diversity in children’s books.

Join us in helping all children see themselves – and others – in the stories they read.

Click here to sign up for occasional email messages about The Stories for All Project and other First Book news.

Click here to download a PDF copy of the ‘Request for Proposals’ that First Book issued to publishers.

The post A Market-Driven Solution to the Need for Diverse Books appeared first on First Book Blog.

This piece also appears on The Huffington Post’s Impact blog.

Steve White, a volunteer at a local nonprofit, worked through the holidays to ensure that 3,000 kids in need in Denver would have brand-new books of their own at Christmas.

Elisa Mayo, the finance coordinator for a school district in Mississippi, helped students at her Title I school get the books — and the encouragement — they needed to start book clubs, and now dozens of students, from third to fifth grade, voluntarily skip recess to meet and to talk about their new books.

A community group in Navajo County, Arizona was so determined to have a free library for local children that they raised money through bake sales, started with a donated room in a nearby gas station, and eventually came up with the funds to build a library.

These everyday heroes all have something in common. They are part of First Book, a nonprofit network of teachers, librarians, community leaders and program administrators serving kids in need — a network that stretches across the country and around the world.

These men and women and thousands more like them are working every day to transform the lives of children from poor neighborhoods, and they know how desperate the need is. Kids from low-income families lack the resources that many of their middle and upper-class peers take for granted. Every study confirms the impact that has on their futures. One study that never fails to shock revealed that, while children in affluent neighborhoods had access to an average of 13 books a day, there is only a single age-appropriate book for every 300 children.

First Book is working to change that. We partner with the publishing industry to provide books — brand-new, high-quality books — to the teachers and program leaders who sign up with us. Our network is the fastest-growing group of educators in the country serving kids in need: we just reached the incredible milestone of 100,000 registered schools and programs.

Reaching that milestone is exciting, because that means that we’re reaching more children in need than ever.

But there’s another reason why bringing so many educators together matters.

By joining First Book, the people we serve are acknowledging something important: we have more power collectively than we do as individuals. It’s one of the most powerful ideas in human history, from the birth of cities to the workers’ unions that built the country to the marvelous online social networks that are transforming how we communicate.

We’ve already seen the impact this can have. For example, at one point, there was no bilingual edition (English and Spanish together) of the perennial children’s classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but the educators we work with requested it repeatedly. Based on that feedback, we were able to go to the publisher and show that there was real demand. A bilingual edition rolled off the presses shortly thereafter, a book now available to all children and families.

This unprecedented network is also the source of valuable insight into the needs of those serving children at the base of the economic pyramid. There is no group of people whose voices are more critical to our collective future; what they have to say about the 30 million children living in low-income families in the United States and their futures is of paramount importance to us all.

Everyone at First Book is proud of our role in supporting this network. But we know there’s much, much more to be done. We estimate that there are 1.3 million educators and program leaders out there eligible to join us, and we’re doing everything we can to connect every single one.

The post The Collective Power of a Nation of Readers appeared first on First Book Blog.

First Book’s fearless leader, President and CEO Kyle Zimmer will speak live Thursday at 1:05pm EDT on HuffPostLive alongside other tireless social entrepreneurs that include Hilde Schwab, David Jones and Asher Hasan. The live discussion will examine how corporate assets can deliver social impact both nationally and globally.

Check out the livestream below, available at Thursday 1:05pm EDT:

The post How is First Book Delivering Social Impact? appeared first on First Book Blog.

In 2012, Malala Yousafzai, age 15, was shot in the face by Taliban thugs for daring to promote education for women and girls in her native Pakistan. She has not only survived, she has taken her cause to the global level. Her speech before the United Nations inspired the world: “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”

I think of Malala often; her words and the battle she is waging against forces determined to keep her away from a world of knowledge. We know that one child with one book can change the world. But millions of children are being held back from the knowledge they’re so hungry for, not only by violent fundamentalism but by relentless poverty. This is a battle, and we have to win.

That’s why today at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York, I announced First Book’s commitment to reach 10 million children worldwide by 2016 with the books they need to read, learn and succeed.

First Book Global: New Books to Kids At Home and Around the World

Each year, First Book, a nonprofit social enterprise, connects 2 million children from low-income families in the United States and Canada with brand-new, top-quality books and educational materials. Over the next three years, we will expand our efforts globally, reaching classrooms, programs and NGOs in India, Brazil, Egypt and elsewhere.

Our efforts abroad will strengthen our work domestically. One of our core missions is to bring children here in the United States books and digital content that reflects the full diversity of the world. As we expand the market for books and materials in a range of languages, countries, and cultures, the array of content we can offer in the United States will also grow. More stories will be available to all children.

We’ve been preparing for global expansion for a long time. Our team at First Book has already learned from pilot projects around the world with partners including Feed The Children, World Vision and Touch A Life Foundation. We have been in discussions with a variety of potential global partners who are eager to work with us to access new educational resources that have been so scarce for the children they serve.

A Real and Urgent Need

Make no mistake. It will be hard work. The demands on our staff, volunteers and partners will be staggering, and the fundraising needs are daunting.

But we don’t have the luxury of waiting until it’s easy.

Children in poverty around the world are waiting for us, and so are the local heroes working to educate them. They have no supply pipeline for books, calculators, educational games and digital readers. First Book is the missing piece, and they need us now.

Over the next three years, we’ll be building our content, our partnerships and our outreach, and we’ll be asking you to help us fulfill this commitment to children around the world.

Click here to sign up for occasional email updates about First Book and our global expansion, and to learn ways you can get involved.

The post The Power of Children’s Books to Change the World appeared first on First Book Blog.

The lack of diversity in children’s literature is a problem that affects all children, especially children from low-income families, who rarely see themselves, their families or their communities in the stories they read.

The problem is real. In a study last year, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center reviewed thousands of kids’ books, and found that:

• only 3.3 percent were about African-Americans
• only 2.1 percent were about Asian-Pacific Americans
• only 1.5 percent were about Latinos
• a mere 0.6 percent were about American Indians.

The teachers, librarians, mentors and program leaders we work with tell us time and again that one of the biggest challenges they face in helping kids become strong readers is the lack of stories featuring heroes and experiences they can relate to.

Today, at the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative America (CGI America) meeting, hosted by President Bill Clinton, I announced First Book’s commitment to create a sustainable solution to this problem by dramatically expanding the market for diversity in children’s literature through The Stories for All Project.

First Book aggregates the voices — and purchasing power — of thousands of educators and program leaders who serve families at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Through The Stories for All Project, we’re showing the publishing industry that there is a strong, viable and vibrant market out there for books like these.

One more important thing: This isn’t just about kids from African-American or Hispanic families being able to read stories about characters who look like them. All kids should have access to stories featuring diverse characters, to see the world in all its true rich variety.  We’re creating this market in order to make diverse content available to kids from low-income families, but once that content exists, it’s available for everyone.

First Book is truly eager to collaborate with everyone interested in  really changing this landscape for all kids.

Add your name to First Book’s email list to recieve occasional updates about The Stories for All Project and other ways to get new books into the hands of kids in need.

The post Lack of Diversity in Kids’ Books and How to Fix It appeared first on First Book Blog.

At First Book, we want to see all kids become strong readers, the critical step to succeeding in school and in life. But all too often the children we work with have books with characters and stories that aren’t relevant to their lives. And that makes it harder to turn them on to reading.*

So today we’re taking an extraordinary step toward remedying this problem: The Stories for All Project.

We are not the first people to complain and worry about this issue. So we knew if we were actually going to make a difference we needed a market-driven solution. In short, we needed to put our money where our mouth is.

We reached out to the publishing industry with the offer to purchase $500,000 worth of books featuring voices that are rarely represented in children’s literature: minorities, characters of color, and others whose experiences resonate with the children we serve. The response was overwhelming. In fact, we received so many great proposals that we decided to double our commitment, purchasing $500,000 worth of new titles from both HarperCollins and Lee & Low Books — $1 million worth of books altogether. We’ll be able to offer hundreds of thousands of new books to the kids we serve.

With these major purchases, First Book is continuing to harness market forces to create social change; by aggregating the untapped demand for books and resources in thousands of low-income communities, we’re helping to create a new market for the publishing industry. When that happens, they respond by publishing more titles with more relevant content. Everyone really does win, and that’s how you make real, systemic change both possible and sustainable.

This is an exciting step! But it’s just the beginning. The Stories for All Project will include more titles reflecting diverse communities, including minorities, LGBTQ and special needs populations. We’re also convening a leadership council of noted authors, illustrators and other leaders to help us create content, and reach out to even more schools and programs so that we can reach the children and teachers who are waiting for us..

Join us! If you work with children from low-income neighborhoods, or know someone who does, sign up with First Book today. We have books for you too.

* In a recent survey of more than 2,000 educators from First Book schools and programs, 90 percent of respondents agreed that the children in their programs would be more enthusiastic readers if they had access to books with characters, stories and images that reflect their lives and their neighborhoods.

Kyle Zimmer is the president and CEO of First Book.

At First Book, we do everything in our power to make sure that kids from low-income families are getting the books they need. So we don’t just drop a box of used books off at the door. We work hard to make sure we offer Newbery and Caldecott winners, popular titles, books that kids want to read. The books are always brand-new, and we let the educators closest to the children make the decisions about which titles their kids will respond to.

But all too often, kids from low-income neighborhoods — if they have books at all — have books with characters and stories that aren’t relevant to their lives. And that makes it harder to turn them on to reading.

So today we’re taking another big step to make sure we’re doing everything we can to turn those kids into readers. We’ve reached out to our friends in the publishing industry with an extraordinary offer.

As the centerpiece of our new OMG Books (Offering More Great Books) initiative, we’re stepping up with $500,000 to purchase hundreds of thousands of new books featuring voices that are rarely represented in children’s literature: minorities, characters of color, and others whose experiences resonate with the children we serve, characters and stories that are relevant to their lives.

We already work closely with leading publishers to provide new books for teachers and program leaders serving children in need. Last year we purchased three million new books from major publishers, which we made available – at significant discounts – to the 50,000 schools and programs in our national network, through the First Book Marketplace.

At first, this approach seems unusual to some people. Why are we selling books to programs? Why aren’t we just giving them away?

Actually, we are giving books away — millions of them every year — through our National Book Bank program. But the First Book Marketplace is a different kinds of innovation.

Through the First Book Marketplace, we’re aggregating the buying power of tens of thousands of Title I classrooms, after-school programs, homeless shelters and others serving the most vulnerable children. Those classrooms and programs may not have the funds to go into a bookstore and buy books at retail prices, but when they come together through First Book, they represent a real market for the publishing industry. Which, in turn, benefits by reaching new customers they wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach.

This new initiative is a big deal, and we’re excited! The offer is out to every leading publisher, and we’re already getting back proposals. We’ll share more news as soon as we have it.

NOTE: If you work for a publisher, or are just interested in fine print, check out the request here. All proposals welcome!

“There is a great deal of noise on the stairs but nobody comes into the room.”
– John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy was referencing a Chinese proverb when he said that, making the point that it was easy to talk about problems, but much more difficult to fix them.

Kyle Zimmer, First Book’s president and CEO, is in China herself this week, addressing the World Economic Forum’s ‘Annual Meeting of the New Champions’ in Tianjin, the foremost gathering of business and nonprofit leaders in Asia. She’s there to talk about subjects near and dear to our hearts – social entrepreneurship and social impact investing.

Social entrepreneurship is a new way of doing business, a hybrid of traditional nonprofits and for-profit companies that uses market forces to create social change. (Click here to read a recent blog post by Kyle where she explains what social entrepreneurship is and how it can change the world.)

Social impact investing is a related concept; the idea of channeling investment toward mission-driven businesses and entrepreneurial nonprofits that are working to solve social problems.

As Kyle says in a piece published today in the Huffington Post and on the World Economic Forum’s blog:

Fundamentally there are holes on both the investor side and the social entrepreneur’s side of the aisle.

On the investor side, there is far more talk than there is traction. Certainly, a few funds have been established that focus on social investment, but it is difficult to see these as more than traditional charity, dressed up as investment.

Creative new designs in the financial category to address this need have been discussed for years, but few have made it to market. This lack of significant innovation by the investment community has been a major roadblock to the expansion of the social sector. Enterprises reach a certain level of growth and then choke from the lack of capital.

Like any new idea, there’s a lot of work to be done. But Kyle is hopeful about the future, saying: “There we were all in a room at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions – financial institutions and representatives of the social sector — talking about the challenges, which is a great step toward a cure.”

At First Book, we’re working towards a new kind of solution to an old and intractable problem – how to ensure that the 30 million kids in the United States living in low-income families get the books and resources they need to succeed. Click here to learn some ways you can get involved.

Over twenty years ago I was volunteering every week at a soup kitchen in Washington, D.C., where I met the most amazing children and families. As I got to know them, I saw how much they had to struggle, but I also saw how bright they were and how motivated they were to succeed.

I also learned that most of them didn’t have a single book to call their own, and that broke my heart.

So, along with two good friends, I started First Book, to make sure those kids, and kids like them all across the country, would have brand-new books of their own, and to make sure that the teachers and program leaders working with these children every day would have the books and resources they need to do their jobs.

Twenty years later, First Book has distributed over 90 million books to kids in need, we work with a national network of over 25,000 schools and programs and we have local volunteers raising money in over 150 cities. Volunteers, corporate partners and publishers, working hand-in-hand with teachers, librarians and local nonprofit leaders … it humbles and amazes me how much we’ve been able to accomplish together, and how many lives we’ve been able to change for the better.

But we’ve only just scratched the surface. There are 30 million children living in low-income households in the United States, and we’re only reaching a fraction of them. They’re waiting for us, and they can’t wait any longer.

So we’ve got some big plans to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Before this year is over, we’re going to distribute another 10 million new books, recruit local volunteers in 30 additional cities, and double the number of schools and programs that are connected to First Book’s resources, from 25,000 to 50,000.

We’ve come so far together, and have made so much progress, but there’s more to be done. Join us!

• Donate: Every $2.50 pays for a brand-new, high-quality book for a child in need.
• Volunteer: Work with other members of your community to get books to local schools and programs.
• Spread the word: If you know a teacher, librarian or volunteer who works with kids from low-income families, in any kind of program, help get them signed up with First Book. We’ve got books for them!

A social entrepreneur is someone who sees a social problem — like hunger, homelessness or lack of access to clean water — and looks for ways to solve it. Unlike more traditional business entrepreneurs, who are trying to generate profits, social entrepreneurs are trying change society. Long-term change is important, not just solutions to the immediate problems.

At First Book, the problem we’ve been working on for twenty years is the unbelievable lack of books and other educational materials faced by children from low-income families. Books are painfully scarce for many of these kids; one study that never fails to shock showed that there is only one book available for every 300 children in some of the lowest-income neighborhoods in the country.

First Book works by giving the teachers, librarians and local program leaders that work with these kids ongoing access to the new, quality books they need to do their jobs. Giving a child a new book of their own is a powerful thing, but the real impact comes from making sure they have books throughout their lives, from before they enter kindergarten until they graduate — with honors — from high school.

So we were pleased to see ourselves listed as one of the five examples of nonprofits around the world providing “innovative yet pragmatic approaches to solving social problems” in a new report from the respected financial services company Credit Suisse.

The report, “Investing for Impact: How social entrepreneurship is redefining the meaning of return”, was just released at the World Economic Forum in Davos. You can learn more about it, and download a copy for yourself, online here.

In it, the Credit Suisse analysts have this to say:

[T]he potential of growing efforts to deliver entrepreneurial solutions to global problems is bigger than ever before – as are the opportunities to channel private capital toward social and environmental issues.

The report also quotes Mark Kramer, the co-founder and managing director of social impact consulting firm FSG:

Many investors and philanthropists are turning to impact investments as equally valid and in some cases even more effective vehicles for social change than pure charity. To complement this growing interest, a number of new innovations are emerging in the field, ranging from new financial tools to better metrics for social impact to new impact investing funds.

All that may sound a little dry, but it’s actually really exciting stuff. First Book, and groups like it around the world, are charting the way to better and more equitable societies.

But doing so requires support and funding on a large scale, so it’s a big deal that the international investment community is paying close attention to the work that we’re doing and the impact that we’re having.

Learn more about First Book and our work at firstbook.org, or sign up for monthly updates about ways you can get involved.

At First Book, we work hard to make an impact: we put over 8 million new books into the hands of kids in need across the country this year. And we’re mindful of how many amazing organizations there are out there, both nationally and locally, that could use your support.

So we were pleased to see the New York Times Opinionator blog list First Book today as a nonprofit that is making a major difference while staying on the difficult path towards self-sufficiency, describing our work as a “particularly good use of charitable dollars” (we agree) and “proven to work” (also true).

Commenting on the way First Book’s model marries “altruism and profit”, Tina Rosenberg writes:

If you give books to children who don’t have them, good things happen — they become interested in reading, and they read more. Having lots of books in the home is as good a predictor of children’s future educational achievement as their parents’ educational levels.

But good things also happen to the publishing industry: First Book has harnessed its large network of education programs to create a guaranteed market and persuade publishers to make low-cost versions of some 2,000 titles — allowing publishers to reach the 42 percent of American children who were not in their market before. Fifty dollars buys 20 books for a child who has none.

We hope you’ll support First Book this holiday season. Every $2.50 you give provides one new book for a child in need. It’s a great way for you to make sure your hard-earned and well-considered donation goes to support something that works.

“The First Book Marketplace is trying to do for publishing what micro-finance did for banking: crack open a vast potential market that is underserved at significant social cost.” — David Bornstein, The New York Times

We’re excited to announce a major upgrade to the First Book Marketplace! As of today, schools and programs who rely on First Book to get new books for the kids they serve will be able to do so more quickly, easily and effectively.

The teachers and program leaders we work with do amazing things every day, and we’re always working to find new and better ways to help them in their important work.

We’ve listened to feedback from many of the 27,000 programs in our national network, and made some big changes, including things like easier log-ins, a friendlier account management system, improved search capabilities, wish lists and an easier system for spending grant money. We’ve also added tons of great new books; we’re up to 2,000 titles and adding more all the time.

If you work with kids from low-income families, or know someone who does, check out the new and improved First Book Marketplace, and sign up with First Book today to get great new books for the kids you serve.

From everyone at First Book, a hearty welcome and a sincere ‘thank you’ to all our new followers on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, and an equally heartfelt ‘thank you’ to all our supporters and partners who shared last week’s social media message far and wide.

Thanks to all of you, we gained over 33,000 new followers on social media, and – true to their word – our friends at Random House Children’s Books will be donating 33,000 new books to First Book to distribute to kids in need all across the country. Outstanding work! Gold stars all around!

But many of you might be wondering “So what?”

30 Million Kids in Need

It’s a fair question. Is that a lot of books, in context? Where do they go? Do they have a meaningful impact? What about used books, e-books, library books, reading programs and a thousand other things?

At First Book, we recognize the complexity and intractability of the problem. There are 30 million children living in low-income families in the United States, and those kids don’t have a lot of things that other kids do. Economic security, physical safety, adequate food, shelter and healthcare … the list is long, daunting and hurts to think about.

One thing we know is that a solid, comprehensive education is the best chance many of those kids have at succeeding in life. Another thing we know is that there are hundreds of thousands of unbelievably dedicated teachers, volunteers and community program leaders working their hearts out every day to provide those educations. It’s not an easy job, and there are no guarantees.

But without basic tools, that hard job is a lot harder. Which is where First Book comes in.

Books to Kids Who Need Them

We work with great publishers, like Random House, to get books. Some are donated, and some we buy, but the critical thing is that they are high-quality, and there are a lot of them; last year we distributed 8 million new books. (There are lots of great programs that deal with gently-used and donated books, and we support and applaud them, but for what we’re trying to do, we need to be able to offer educators large quantities of new books. It’s important.)

Those books go to schools and programs all over the country. They’re used in classrooms and in libraries, at after-school programs and tutoring programs, at food banks and homeless shelters, church groups, Head Start programs and public charter schools. First Book works with 27,000 programs, but we know we’re just scratching the surface.

So that’s what. You did a little tiny bit of good when you clicked that button or shared that Twitter message, and lots of little tiny bits of good can add up to something real. It’s a big effort, and the stakes are unimaginably high, so we’re glad you’re here.

If you’d like to learn more about First Book’s mission and the amazing people we work with, visit firstbook.org and sign up for our monthly email newsletter.

We’re excited to announce that we now have over 2,000 titles available on the First Book Marketplace! Our award-winning online store carries books for children of all ages, from board books to college prep guides, from The Very Hungry Caterpillar to To Kill A Mockingbird.

The First Book Marketplace is available to teachers and program leaders who serve children from low-income families, and we work hard to make sure that we’re able to offer high-quality titles that those teachers and program leaders tell us their kids want to read.

We’re proud of the Marketplace, and the diversity of quality books we’re able to offer our programs. David Bornstein wrote about the Marketplace recently in The New York Times:

The First Book Marketplace is trying to do for publishing what micro-finance did for banking: crack open a vast potential market that is underserved at significant social cost. The organization’s goal is to democratize book access, but along the way, it may end up reinvigorating the book business.

(If you’re curious about how the Marketplace works, why it’s so important, or why a nonprofit organization has an online bookstore, we recommend reading Bornstein’s piece, as well as his follow-up piece that addresses some specific questions about First Book’s model.)

We’ll be announcing some exciting new changes later this year that will make it even easier for the programs we work with to get books for the kids that need them, so keep in touch, and let us know what books the kids in your life are most excited about reading.

Check out the recent New York Time’s article, The D.I.Y. Foreign-Aid Revolution, which focuses on women who have found innovative ways to solve some of the world’s most challenging social issues.  Among the social entrepreneurs mentioned is our very own president and CEO, Kyle Zimmer.

Read the whole article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/magazine/24volunteerism-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kyle%20zimmer&st=cse

Check out FOX News’ recent report on First Book and Martha’s Table, the soup kitchen where our president and CEO, Kyle Zimmer, first realized the incredible need for books in low-income communities.  The report focuses on how these two organizations are navigating the nonprofit world and continuing to make a difference despite a significant decline in charitable donations.

Read the full report at: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/money/charitable-donations-at-all-time-low-101810

I was thrilled to recently join other social entrepreneurs speaking with a group of 63 Fulbright Scholars from 47 countries around the world.  The US Department of State brought the Fulbright Enrichment Seminar participants to Washington to explore social entrepreneurship in the areas of environmental sustainability, public health, education, and economic/social equity. As part of this seminar, the Fulbright students met with Washington area social entrepreneurship experts who took part in an interactive panel discussion, which included First Book.

As a panel expert I was thrilled to share what First Book is doing in Washington D.C. and across the United States, but I was especially excited to join Shari Berenbach, President and CEO of the Calvert Social Investment Foundation (www.calvertfoundation.org) and Maya Ajmera, Founder and President of The Global Fund for Children (www.globalfundforchildren.org).  This experience reminded me that the world of social enterprise truly is a small one — the First Book Marketplace received expansion funding from Calvert several years ago and we already offer a number of wonderful books from The Global Fund for Children.

Although the seminar was only for a few short hours, I spoke with amazing young people doing poverty work in Africa, women’s rights work in Asia, and innovative education work in Europe. I look forward to working more with both Shari and Maya and, who knows, perhaps one day even working with one or more of the Scholars I met to provide new books to children in need around the world…needless to say, I returned to First Book more excited than ever about what we do, working to inspire our world’s future generation of leaders every day.

Build-A-Bear Workshop®, a long-time First Book supporter, is excited to announce the launch of the 2010 Huggable Heroes® program.

This initiative highlights dedicated, hard-working young people ages seven to 18, who are a part of incredible efforts to make the world a better place. Now through February 26, Build-A-Bear Workshop is accepting entries for its seventh annual Huggable Heroes^® program.

Ten Huggable Heroes from the United States and Canada will be selected and each will be awarded with a $7,500 educational scholarship and $2,500 in the form of a donation to the 501 (c)(3) charity of his/her choice, as well as a celebration trip to St. Louis in July. Entry forms are available at all Build-A-Bear Workshop stores in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada, and online entries are being accepted at buildabear.com/huggableheroes.

Our own social entrepreneur and founder, Kyle Zimmer, joined world leaders in Davos for the World Economic Forum last week. She presented an IdeasLab primer on the First Book Marketplace, in a session moderated by J. Gregory Dees, Professor, Practice of Social Entrepreneurship, Fuqua School of Business, Duke. Watch the presentation below and read more about Kyle’s inspiration for First Book after the jump.

Kyle’s mission is not to fight illiteracy but to end it. She began First Book in 1992 in Washington DC when she realized that children in low-income situations have little or no access to books or reading material. In fact, studies show that in middle-income neighborhoods the ratio of books to children is 13 to one, but in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is 1 book for every 300 children.

According to esteemed researcher, Susan Neuman, Ph.D. University of Michigan, “Access to books and educational material is the single biggest barrier to literacy development in the United States and beyond. If we can solve the problem of access, we will be well on the road to realizing educational parity – a goal which has eluded this country for generations.”

The First Book Marketplace (FBMP) is designed to aggregate an untapped market to provide a steady stream of high-quality books at an affordable price for the first time ever to programs serving children in low-income situations, revolutionizing the way teachers and program leaders can educate these underserved children. At scale, the FBMP becomes self-sustainable and poised to deliver educational books and materials, including digital resources, globally.

Kyle didn’t rest after she found one way to deliver millions of books to children in need through the First Book National Book Bank; she created a true social innovation in the First Book Marketplace and she aims to deliver access to educational resources to the world.

We congratulate Kyle on her success at the World Economic Forum and on delivering nearly 70 million books to children in need.

Guest Blogger Mike Cowan is the Director of Marketing at Demand Studios, an online community of freelancers and copy editors who produce articles for several online outlets. Demand Studios is partnering with First Book this December to provide thousands of books to children in need.

I believe you are a lucky child if you grow up in an environment surrounded by books.  Considering that my mother is a librarian, I feel that I truly hit the jackpot in this regard.  In our family room we had a huge wall unit filled with hundreds of books and before my brother and I could read we had already chosen our favorites based on their size and colors.  I was a huge War and Peace fan due to its sheer enormity while my brother was a fan of a book called Trinity by Leon Uris because of its green color.  When we were actually able to read these books my brother was drawn to the fantasy of books like The Hobbit while I seemed to gravitate towards non-fiction titles like The History of Hockey and The Guinness Book of World Records.   Safe to say that his choices won him a little more credibility with my mother.

Now that I’m all grown up, I’m lucky enough to work with the thousands of creative, literary people every day at Demand Studios. As one of the world’s largest communities of freelance writers and copy editors, we bring together more than 5,000 talented creators to produce top-quality articles for sites like LIVESTRONG.com and eHow.com.  And just like me, they all have a story about how they first fell in love with the wonder of the written word.

That’s why we decided to reach out to First Book to create a program that would inspire our freelance community to take action and support childhood literacy.  Our “Write for a Cause” program is simple: For every eight articles written and approved by Demand Studios during the month of December, we’ll donate a book on behalf of our writers and copy editors.  We’ve challenged our creators to contribute their talents to the cause, and we’re targeting a total donation of 20,000 brand new books this holiday season.

We’re excited to put our scale to excellent use, by mobilizing our freelance community to play an active role in increasing childhood literacy.  In partnership with First Book, we hope to rewrite the future for thousands of kids. Please visit our “Write for a Cause” information page to learn how you can help!

Happy holidays!

At First Book, we love good news! And we just got some great news from Charity Navigator, the nation’s leading charity evaluator. We’ve received a 4-Star rating for the third year in a row! Only 13% of the charities rated by Charity Navigator have received at least 3 consecutive 4-star evaluations. This rating indicates that we consistently execute our mission in a fiscally responsible way and that we outperform most other charities in America.

In a letter from Charity Navigator, President Ken Berger wrote, “This ‘exceptional’ designation from Charity Navigator differentiates First Book from its peers and demonstrates to the public it is worthy of their trust.”

Jane Robinson, our own CFO, said “We are particularly pleased to receive this 4-star rating as Charity Navigator is well-known for the rigor of its careful analysis of the financial stability and efficiency of the nation’s top nonprofits.”

Charity Navigator, which does not endorse nonprofits, uses an objective, numbers-based rating system to assess the financial health of more than 5,500 of America’s best-known charities. Last year alone, more than four million donors used the award-winning site.

Check out the First Book listing at Charity Navigator’s Web site.

Our fearless leader, Kyle Zimmer, gave a presentation last week to a bright group of students at the University of Pennsylvania-Wharton School of Business. Her speech entitled No Margin, No Mission: My Life as a Social Entrepreneur highlighted her journey and determination to bring over 60 million new books to children in need across the United States and Canada.

In her speech, Kyle also challenged the students to follow four rules to becoming a social entrepreneur. So now we pose the same test to you:

1. Pick something that matters to you. In almost every category of humanity there is a need. Choose the one that makes you want to stay up late because it is both your vocation and your avocation. Nothing great gets accomplished in the private or public sector without enthusiasm and commitment.

2. Talk to everybody. Make a list of 10 people that you want to talk to and seek them out. Gather wisdom from those who know and those you’d like to know. 9 times out of 10, they are happy to share what they know with a willing disciple.

3. Passion will take you far…but a well-thought out business plan will get your farther. There are those that believe in luck. If you’ve laid the groundwork, leap, and don’t be afraid of failing.

4. Just do it. You will never know everything needed to start a business. Take risks, and work hard. You don’t know what you are capable of until you try.

Not everyone has to be a social entrepreneur, but we all have the power to be change-makers. So, ask yourself: What will I do today to change the world?