I’VE ALWAYS BELIEVED THAT AN ENTREPRENEUR WILL ONLY SUCCEED IF he surrounds himself with talented and passionate people. I was fortunate enough to meet Dinesh Shrestha and Erin Keown Ganju during the critical early years of Room to Read, and they both deserve full credit for their roles in building out the organization.
Thanks to Dinesh, and also to his wonderful wife, Shobha, for being so supportive of his passion for education for Nepal’s children. Thanks also to Pankaj Pradhan for being Dinesh’s partner-in-crime during the early years.
To those who work in our San Francisco office, thank you for your fierce dedication to our cause, and for keeping the place running while I’m out on my usual peripatetic travel schedule. I love returning to our office full of smart and funny people, with laughter and good ideas bouncing off the walls. Emily, Kara, Bella, Lisa, Shauna, Jayson, Matt, Jay, Meera, Kelly, Stacey, Dustin, and Pam—each of you has been an incredible addition to the team, and it’s now up to you to perpetuate the GSD attitude, the passion, and the focus on results.
Our in-country teams are the true unsung heroes of Room to Read. They ride local buses for a dozen hours to visit villages, they work with communities to determine the best method of coinvestment via our Challenge Grant program, and they pilot motorbikes along rutted dirt roads to visit girls whose parents can’t afford school fees. To the Room to Read teams in Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and South Africa, I say thank you.
Room to Read’s Board members—Marc Andreessen, Christopher Beer, Alastair Mactaggart, Muneer Satter, and Hilary Valentine—have been generous with their strategic direction and financial support. Jenny Stein was a partner in every key decision I made during our formative years. Christine Boskoff, Wynne Leon, Alison Levine, and my father served admirably and with dedication during the organization’s early years.
A special thanks to Don and Rachel Valentine and their family for being our first multiyear grant, which underwrote the launch of the Room to Grow scholarship program. I want to recognize the Skoll Foundation for being visionary funders who have encouraged the Room to Read management team to focus on scaling, and for backing up this advice with large-capacity building grants. Thanks to the team at Accenture for being our first significant corporate grant, and for the world-class advice you give to us. Thanks to the team at the Draper Richards Foundation for my fellowship, the seed funding, and all the great advice over the years. Finally, thanks to Marc Andreessen for being willing to invest in a venture run by a Microsoft alumnus!
Our most significant early funding came from Jim Kastenholz and Jennifer Steans, Hilary Valentine, Stuart Kerr, Dena Blank, Sarah Leary and Patte McDowell, and the team at the Cloud Nine Foundation. Our first significant partnership was with the Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia program. TAF is an older foundation, and we did not expect them to bet on a new NGO like ours. We’re glad they did, and we hope to be partnering together for decades to come! Thanks also to the Brother’s Brother Foundation, Charles-bridge Publishing, Chronicle Books, HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Reader’s Digest, Scholastic, and Zaner-Bloser for your generous donations of English language books to our libraries and to Riverdeep and Microsoft for software donations. And kudos to the team at Better World Books for inventing a business model under which university students can sell their used books online and donate the proceeds to Room to Read.
To all of our chapter leaders, past and present, thank you for constantly inspiring me with your passion for and dedication to our cause. You prove that one does not need to quit a job in order to change the world, but instead have to simply be good at multitasking and not be afraid of hard work. I hope you realize that the spirit of volunteerism you exhibit permeates this book.
I also want to recognize all the volunteers. The work is not always glamorous, which means you should be even more proud of having done it. When I attend Room to Read events in various cities, I am always blown away by the quality and the passion of our volunteer fund-raising teams.
I owe thanks to the friends who encouraged me to write this book. The biggest cheerleader for this book was my mother, who did not listen when I said, “Well of course you think I am a good writer, you’re my mother!” She eventually convinced me that the market for this book was bigger than just the two copies I’d sell to my parents. To her I now say those seven words that few people ever hear me utter: “You were right, and I was wrong.”
A number of close friends also believed in this book before I did: Andrew Perrin of Time magazine, Kim Anstatt Morton, Martina Lauchengco, and Chris Jones. Michael Lindenmayer read every chapter I wrote at least three times and stayed up until the late hours to quickly turn around editorial passes. Friends like Amy Eldon, Nancy Horowitz, and Bill Lederer were constant cheerleaders for this book while it was still on the drawing board. Other friends who provided critical editorial assistance and a fresh perspective on my work include Cheryl Dahle, Julie Gildred, Tina Sciabica, and Stacy Strazis. Theresa Park gave me advice that stayed top of mind and influenced many of the key decisions I faced as a writer. Lesly Higgins helped me to find a literary agent.
From the moment I first talked to my agent, Jim Levine, I knew his ability to coach me as a writer was surpassed only by his business acumen. Herb Schaffner and the team at HarperCollins were enthusiastic supporters of this project from the moment they met this nervous wannabe author. Joe Tessitore opened our meeting with a booming voice by instructing us, “Quit talking to other publishers. We want this book!”
Thanks to Kathleen and Michael Hebert for allowing me to be the first “writer in residence” of your Seattle boathouse, to Gary and Meryanne for the respite at Jnane Tasmna (stunning—see www.jnanetamsna.com) in Marrakech, to Mike and Chris McHugo for inspiring views of the Atlas Mountains and surprisingly delicious Moroccan wine at Kasbah de Toubkhal (www.kasbahdutoubkal.com), to Gillian Munson for the cabin in the Adirondacks, to Julie Gildred for the beach house in San Diego, to Clarissa Rowe for the Paris apartment, and to Robin and Chris Donohoe for the stunning digs in Sonoma. If this book had a passport, all of you would have a stamp!
A number of friends have kept me sane during this journey. Mike McSherry was a critical sounding board while trekking in the Everest region. The Friday night dinner group—Angela Hanke, Brett Galimidi, Caitlin Stevens, Elizabeth Cooper, and Jen Dailey—provide a life-affirming amount of laughter on a regular basis. Tim Wood (no relation) has always been full of good advice as the organization grew. And no salute to my friends would be complete without thanking Eric Olsen and Kent Brown.
To close, I want to thank my family for being there for me, even at times when I did not reciprocate. I was fortunate to have a grandmother, a sister, and a mother who all read to me, and for that I am forever grateful.
The final expression of gratitude is to my parents—for all those times that you clipped coupons and stretched budgets to take our family on holidays, to buy us books, and to teach us the joy of skiing, camping, and hiking. I love you, and equally important, I so deeply respect you.
My hope is that many readers will get involved with our continued growth by checking out www.roomtoread.org, or e-mailing me at wood@roomtoread.org. Millions of children in the developing world are waiting for us to bring them the lifelong gift of education.