Filling the Void

In nearby Cotacachi, Luis Alfredo Haro, 77, and his wife, Rosa, 63, have received Heifer loans and technical training to expand and improve their small farm. They have bought guinea pigs and materials to build a pen. In return they agreed to plant alfalfa to feed the animals, then use their manure for fertilizer. The guinea pigs are sold at the local market. The bargain has worked out well. The increase in crop yield is crucial in helping the Haros feed themselves, their daughter, and her 12 children. Rosa describes Heifer's role in her family's survival succinctly: "We never thought we could get this kind of help," she says. "If it weren't for Heifer, we'd have nothing at all."

Trafficking in books rather than livestock, First Book has built a similarly elegant model that has put more than 35 million children's books into kids' hands since its founding in 1992. Its technology-driven distribution channel uses donated warehouse space and exploits inefficiencies in the publishing industry to deliver cheap or free children's books to more than 15,000 community-based literacy programs, while delivering real value and even profits to its corporate partners.

The organization's most recent innovation is First Book Marketplace, a Web site that connects publishers to the buying power of its network of nonprofits. First Book arranges and purchases whole press runs of children's books, which it then sells at discounted rates--and earns between 20 and 50 cents per book sold. Publishers get both access to new consumers and guaranteed sales up front. "There's profit, the books are nonreturnable, and it gives us market penetration in a market that we hardly touched before," says Susan Katz, president and publisher of HarperCollins Children's Books, who says she anticipates selling several hundred thousand books through Marketplace each year. "What's not to like?"

First Book cofounder and president Kyle Zimmer expects that Marketplace will eventually generate 30% of her organization's total revenue. She's planning expansion on other fronts as well. First Book is reaching out to the rest of the 300,000 literacy groups not already in its network through an online registry in hopes of expanding its customer base. It's all about filling more of that void. "Eighty percent of preschools serving this population of children do not have age-appropriate books," Zimmer says. "It's a whole new pie in terms of consumer market for us to serve and connect with our corporate partners."

Tuning a Social Change Engine

If there is one thing social entrepreneurs know, it is the power of entrepreneurship to unleash human potential. New Community Corp. was founded in Newark, New Jersey, in the wake of the 1967 riots, which killed 23 people, caused $15 million in damages, and left the city's central ward in tatters. Originally focused just on providing low-income housing, New Community has extended its reach to virtually every aspect of life: education, housing development, job training, senior services--it even runs a popular jazz club. Teaming up with local businesses and universities, New Community is the city's ninth-largest private employer.

Homeless with a 4-year-old daughter in 1998, Renee Wilson, 44, initially came into New Community's fold through Harmony House, a transitional program providing shelter, job training, and child care. About three years ago, she became interested in nursing while reading up on diseases when a friend who was HIV-positive became progressively sicker. "That's when my heart really went out," she says. Starting off as a certified nursing assistant for New Community's nursing home, she realized she eventually wanted to become a registered nurse.

Now living in her own apartment with her daughter, Wilson admits that through the nursing program, she has become a different person. "I was a spoiled brat. I grew up in one of the best homes, went to college for two and a half years, but somewhere along the line, I got sideswiped. Thank God I made it back."

ACCION International, a founder of the microfinance movement, helps the poor become entrepreneurs. It has built a network of microlending institutions, many of which it founded. These self-sustaining lenders provide poor clients with loans as small as $100 to start businesses.

In Los Olivos, a suburb north of Lima, Peru, rapid change is under way. On a hot day in October, the sun beats down from a bleached-out sky. Unpaved roads are lined with cement block houses in various stages of construction. People build as they have money to buy supplies, so unfinished buildings stand as testaments to their ambition.

Edelmira Epifania, 55, is a resident of Los Olivos and a customer of Mibanco, a microfinance institution in ACCION's network with more than 135,000 active borrowers. She has worked all her life, often juggling more than one job. But it wasn't always enough to support her four children, and her husband's construction work wasn't always steady.