Zimmer Kyle
Organization: First Book
Year Founded: 1992
Country: USA
Website: www.firstbook.org
Geographic Area of Impact: United States.
Model: Hybrid Non-Profit ,Social Business
Focus: Children and Youth,Education.
Social Entrepreneur of the Year, USA, 2006 Schwab Fellow of the World Economic Forum Video Video Interview Audio Interview The Innovation Research in this field confirms that the single most important predictor of high reading scores is the number of books in the home. Countless studies have pointed to these results. First Book has created a highly innovative, leveraged and successful nationwide effort to provide children from low-income families with books that they can take home and keep. The children served by First Book are found in existing literacy programs in youth centers, housing projects, pediatric clinics, migrant worker camps, daycare centers and other community-based initiatives serving children in need. In this process, First Book has engaged the corporate sector in cause-related marketing campaigns, which fund more than 80% of its operating budget annually. It has set up a national network of 285 Advisory Boards, groups of local leaders upon which First Book relies to select the most effective programs in their community as First Book grantees. Those grantees — the various types of child-oriented centers — select and order books from specially discounted catalogs co-branded with First Book’s publishing partners. New books chosen by program leaders working directly with the children are incorporated into program lessons and then given to the children to take home and keep. All the books are brand new, and cost nothing to the child or to the program. Today, First Book provides over 8 million books annually to more than 3,000 communities and over 16,000 programs are registered with the enterprise. Background In the USA, 61% of low-income families have no age-appropriate books in the home. This percentage translates to 28.8 million or 39% of U.S. children. Moreover, 80% of preschool and after-school programs that serve this group have no books at all for these children. And there are 181,500 such programs in US cities with populations exceeding 50,000 alone. The results achieved by First Book are compelling. A 2002 Louis Harris evaluation found that when First Book works with a local organization serving the most disadvantaged children, the number of children who previously had “low interest” in reading fell dramatically from 43% to 15%, while those with a “high interest” in reading more than doubled, from 26% to 55%. Moreover, 92% of children stated that they “love” receiving books with their own names on them and 80% specifically reported “it means a lot to receive something new and not used.” Most importantly, 63% of children report a marked improvement in their interest in reading: 63% are “not unhappy to have to take time away from play to read and 80 percent “really like to read books on their own.” Strategy The children’s book market is a $27 billion industry with over 460 million books sold annually. However, despite the size of the market, publishers have historically competed over the same pool of customers. In 2002, just 34.5 % of US households purchased at least one children’s book. The past few years have been especially tough for the children’s publishing industry. The trade hardcover publishing market is down 27%, due mainly to increases in the retail cost of books and consolidation of the marketplace. Yet First Book is routinely overwhelmed by requests for books and unable to meet the demand. Within 48 hours of announcing a 400,000-book distribution, all books are gone and thousands of programs are turned away. To meet both the demand for books from its intended beneficiaries, and the downturn in the children’s publishing industry, Kyle and her colleagues have created the ‘First Book Marketplace’ (FBMP). This innovation meets the need for affordable high quality books by offering a broad selection of children’s books in unlimited quantities at a price level that is not available to programs serving disadvantaged children. They do this through a user-friendly online ordering process with no complex procedures. They use the revenues generated from FBMP to scale up First Book’s operations so that more low-income children can get free books. To conduct the market test, First Book conducted a survey of 10,000 programs focused on low-income children. Would they be willing and able to pay something for the books? They found that programs have an annual estimated book buying power of $ 86.6 million. Of the organizations surveyed, 68% have money available for the purchase of low cost new children’s books. In 2004 they launched a FBMP pilot study and generated over US$366,000 in sales of 209,000 books to 320 programs. With a current market size of 181,500 preschool and after-school programs serving this population, including 2,500 Head Start programs around the country serving disadvantaged youngsters, the market is significant. The FBMP works as follows: FBMP purchases selected inventory and customized reprints from publishers in carton quantities on a non-returnable basis — every publisher’s dream! Books available for purchase are then posted on the FBMP website. Inventory is stored using the donated, excess warehouse space already provided to First Book. Customer programs register and order through a simple on-line system. The price per book averages $1.85 and generates a margin to the FBMP of 50 cents per book. Publishers embrace the strategy because they are able to guarantee that they will have no returned books. Purchases are pre-paid with credit card or electronic check. Orders are delivered within one to four weeks. FBMP issues no invoices and no accounts receivable accrue. The Entrepreneur A lawyer by training, Kyle also has a strong streak of political activism and worked with then US Governor Richard Celeste from Ohio, going on to serve as an advisor in Walter Mondale’s Presidential campaign. But the turning point for her was working at “Martha’s Table,” a community-based center in the heart of Washington D.C.’s downtown area, home to many African American and Latino families and far from the capital’s affluent suburbs and wealthy neighborhoods. There, she worked as a volunteer tutor to youngsters coming to the center as part of the early childhood programs. During this work, she discovered a gigantic chasm. Children had no books. In fact, it turned out that the majority of low income families in the USA have no age appropriate books for their children. Kyle put her private sector head to work, and thought of Henry Ford and the Model T. If you want to put a car in everyone’s driveway, you need to price it right. Kyle and two other lawyers, Peter F. Gold and Elizabeth Arky, founded First Book in 1992. They began in three communities and distributed 12,000 books in the first year. After three years, Kyle became its President and, with the help of the other founders, First Book took off. By the end of 2008, the organization will have distributed more than 60 million brand new books through a network of more than 3,000 communities. First Book is now operating in Canada and has taken early steps in Mexico and Colombia. The group is also investigating expansion options in India and throughout Asia.
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