Charity Navigator, America's largest and most-utilized independent evaluator of charities, has awarded Room to Read its coveted 4-star rating for sound fiscal management for the fourth consecutive year in a row. Only 8 percent of their rated charities can claim what Charity Navigator says demonstrates to the public a charity that is "worthy of their trust."
Charity Navigator uses a unique method of applying data-driven analysis to the charitable sector – focusing on accountability, transparency and measurable results – to help savvy donors evaluate which charity is going to make the most effective and efficient use of their philanthropic dollars. According to Ken Berger, Charity Navigator President and CEO, "Room to Read consistently executes its mission in a fiscally responsible way, and outperforms most other charities in America." That’s a bold statement coming from a charity evaluator that assesses ten times more charities than its competitors and which influenced an estimated $10 billion in charitable gifts last year alone.
"Receiving this honor for the fourth year in a row places us in an elite class and goes a long way in reinforcing the confidence our donors have in their investment in our work," said John Wood, Room to Read Founder and Executive Chairman. “From our beginning in 2000, we have taken an entrepreneurial and creative approach to running a tight ship. I have used over 4 million donated frequent flier miles to travel the world, and in numerous cities hotels provide free rooms. Credit Suisse provides no-cost office space in Hong Kong, London and Tokyo, and over 3,000 volunteers run fund-raising chapters in 45 cities around the world. Room to Read’s consistent four-star rating is a reflection of this commitment to putting our investors’ money where it is most needed: into quality and scalable education programs in over 10,000 cities across the developing world.”
This news comes on the heels of our recognition as a “high-impact giving” organization in Barron’s 2009 “25 Best Philanthropists” issue, ranking 11th on the list.
Click here to visit the Room to Read page on the Charity Navigator website for more information.
For those of you on our email newsletter list, this message hit your inbox today. But in keeping with our efforts to communicate our work to as many of our supporters as possible, we are cross-posting this message on our blog to make sure you are up-to-date on our exciting plans for Room to Read's second decade.
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Dear Friends:
It’s hard to believe that this year Room to Read celebrates its ten year anniversary!
Last year, knowing we were about to mark year ten, we embarked on a global strategic planning process to chart the roadmap for our second decade and to reflect on our strengths and key learning’s from the past ten years. It was a collaborative and comprehensive process that involved input from our country, regional and global offices, our advisory and board of directors, our donors, and experts in the field of international education.
We are excited to share with you the outcome of that process -– our vision for our second decade that focuses our mission and our work in two key areas: literacy and gender equality in education. In the past ten years, we have built and scaled an organization that is working with thousands of communities across nine countries to provide enhanced learning opportunities for millions of children in Asia and Africa. Our future goal is more ambitious than ever: to enable more than 10 million children in over a dozen developing world countries to maximize their educational experiences by 2015.
We’ll accomplish this through evolving our programs to better focus them on developing literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children, and supporting girls to complete secondary school with the relevant life skills to succeed in school and beyond. As we like to say, “this is an evolution, not a revolution” for our already successful programs; we will continue to implement our library, school, and local language books programs as well as support girls’ education but now these programs will have even more defined goals and outcomes. We encourage you to read more about it in our plan Envisioning Our Future: A Roadmap for Learning.
Room to Read has always believed that “World Change Starts with Educated Children” and that every child has the right to a quality education in order to reach their full potential. We are confident our strategic vision outlines a clear roadmap to continue our progress towards this goal. We are in awe of all that we have achieved together and excited about the future direction for the organization. We hope you are as well and that you will continue on this journey with us.
This week Room to Read announced its latest cumulative results numbers from year one (2000) through year nine (2009) and we're excited to report it all out to you here.
As many of you who are familiar with us know, Room to Read is a results-focused organization and we take great pride to set ambitious goals just like any other global corporation would do, and we work hard to meet them. Each year, our nine country offices work closely with our Regional and Global office teams to set their program goals for the year ahead and this year is no exception. As 2010 begins, our Asia and Africa teams have already started working on their program targets –- whether that means establishing libraries, publishing new children’s titles, building schools, or accepting more girls into our Girls’ Education program.
At the same time, through our database system (and thanks to the Salesforce Foundation), Room to Read tracks each program project and monitors its progress. It is this same tracking system that allows us to accurately report out to our investors at the end of the year what their donor dollar helped us accomplish.
Without further ado, we are proud to share that through the end of 2009 Room to Read has…
Established: 9,220 libraries Constructed: 1,129 schools Published: 433 local language book titles Printed: 4.1 million local books Donated: 3.3 million English language books Supported: 8,707 girls’ educations Benefitted: 4,066,775 children!!
We had an incredible first decade and we thank you all for being such a significant part of our success.
As we always say around here, onward and upward and…just you wait…there is definitely more to come!
The new year is bringing new (and great changes) to Room to Read and to start our announcements, we’re thrilled to welcome Barclays Capital president Jerry Del Missier and Harvard education professor Fernando Reimers to our board of directors. Last but not least, we’re excited to report that Dr. Cory Heyman will be joining our management team as strategic advisor.
For those that don’t know these gentlemen's distinguished backgrounds, we’ll tell you about some of their many accomplishments below:
Jerry Del Missier is Barclays Capital President and Co-Chief Executive of Corporate and Investment Banking. Jerry joins the Room to Read’s board of directors after serving as a founding member of our U.K. advisory board and with a distinguished background in international finance. Most recently, Jerry was appointed to the Barclays Group Executive Committee at Barclays Capital, where he is responsible for the firm’s global markets businesses, encompassing the trading, sales and research functions globally. Before joining Barclays Capital in 1997, Jerry was the senior managing director of derivatives products for Bankers Trust in London.
Fernando Reimers is Ford Foundation Professor of International Education and Director of International Education Policy at Harvard University. Like Jerry, Fernando also is joining the Room to Read board after having previously served on its advisory board. Prior to joining the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Fernando was a senior education specialist at the World Bank. He has extensive experience in the area of international development assistance with the United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank, the Inter American Development Bank and other development organizations. Fernando is best known for his theory of 'Informed Dialogue', an approach to bridge scientific research and education policy through the mapping and mobilization of social networks.
Dr. Cory Heyman is joining the executive team of Room to Read as strategic advisor supporting the organization’s Girls’ Education program and monitoring and evaluation units. Cory has acted as a close advisor to Room to Read since 2004 when he assisted in developing the organization’s first monitoring and evaluation study. He has also been an active member of its advisory board since 2008. Cory will be starting full time with Room to Read in March and bringing along his extensive experience in international development and education, having recently served as the vice president and deputy director of the Academy for Educational Development’s Center for Gender Equity. Cory has worked at the nexus of public, private, and non-profit sectors for nearly two decades and brings with him great experience in managing large-scale educational projects in the United States, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
"We are thrilled and honored to have such talented, smart, passionate and well-connected people joining the leadership team of Room to Read. Each will provide his incredible insight and extraordinary talent to help Room to Read to 'grow with quality' as we begin our second decade," said John Wood, Founder and Executive Chairman. “All three of these amazing individuals will bring such a wealth of knowledge and experience that will make us even more effective as we pursue our goal of bringing educational opportunities to 10 million children across the developing world. I can say with complete confidence and pride that a strong team just got stronger."
This is only the start to what we have in store for Room to Read in 2010. Watch this space for more to come!
To read the press release about this announcement, click here.
Room to Read's Board of Directors also includes Hilary Valentine (Chair), Christopher Beer, Craig Bruya, Scott Kapnick, Kim Anstatt Morton, Dambisa Moyo, John Ridding, Muneer A. Satter and John Wood. Click here for full bios of our board.
As we conclude another successful year at Room to Read, I would like to thank everyone in the Room to Read family -- staff, donors and volunteers -- for all of your support. Your commitment to our work has allowed us to reach new heights each year and has helped change the lives of millions of children throughout Asia and Africa.
I encourage you to take a minute to meet some of the children we have impacted through the video below.
Inspirational images like these remind me how much our work means to our partner communities and our students and how excited I am, with your help, to reach further in the year ahead.
We have big dreams and I hope that you will continue your support and join with us in 2010 and beyond as we open the doors of opportunity for children throughout the developing world.
Thank you again and Happy New Year,
Erin Ganju Co-founder and CEO, Room to Read
P.S. Inspired by the images of children enjoying
their first book or library? If so, please consider Room to Read for your end of year giving.
