The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

by Braun, Adam

  After our two weeks together, he headed back to the States, and I met with Agatha Thapa, who in the 1970s founded the organization Seto Gurans, which now delivers early-childhood-education programs in villages across fifty-nine of Nepal’s seventy-five districts. Her programs enable women to use items they can find in their rural villages—fruits, vegetables, string, tire scraps—to create a curriculum for teaching young children. This relationship would be pivotal: a year later Agatha took in our first PoP Fellow, who lived in Nepal for four months observing her holistic education model, which helped lay the foundation for our programs to teach transferable skills within each community where we build a school.

  On my last day in Nepal, protests against the government swept across the entire city of Kathmandu. All transportation, banks, and businesses were shut down. Since no taxis were in operation, I found a Nepali man peddling a bicycle-operated tuk-tuk who agreed to ride forty-five minutes across the city to get me to the airport. After I paid his fee up front, we took off.

  As we got closer to the city’s main intersection, I heard loud chants coming closer and closer. The streets were filled with people shouting with rage. When we tried to cross the intersection, hundreds of men carrying sticks suddenly converged on us from all sides. They surrounded the tuk-tuk, screaming angrily, shaking their sticks and clubs in my direction. My heart raced with fear. A scene from the book Shantaram, which I’d recently read, in which angry mobs beat and dismember people in seconds, played in my head. The tuk-tuk driver turned to me and with panic in his voice said, “Get out.”

  Before I could protest, he said, “You have to get out right now.”

  As I stepped down to the ground, I was surrounded on all sides by an enraged crowd. I did the only thing I could think of: I clasped my hands together and repeated the phrase of respect in Nepal and India, namaste (meaning, “I bow to you” or “the light in me honors the light in you”), over and over. I tried to explain to anyone who would listen that I was only trying to get to the airport.

  As the furious mob surged, the tuk-tuk driver started talking with the ringleader. After they finished, the driver turned and said, “You will walk the rest of the way. Take your bag, they will not let you ride anymore, and leave quickly.”

  Without hesitation I threw on my backpack and walked through the crowd. Walk with a purpose, I told myself. Feigning confidence, I looked straight ahead as if I knew where I was going and followed wherever my legs would take me. When I finally left the swarming intersection unscathed, I let out a sigh of relief, asked a kind woman for directions, and walked several miles on foot to the airport’s barricaded entrance.

  My heart was still pounding, but I felt terrible for not thanking the tuk-tuk driver. His willingness to stand up for a complete stranger had saved me from a potentially fatal beating. He risked his own safety, not for any reward, but because it was the right thing to do.

  In any confrontation, most people focus on the perpetrator and the victim. There is an inherent expectation that had one of these two acted differently, the outcomes of a conflict may have been averted. But the greatest opportunity actually exists within the role of the bystander, the person who neither benefits nor gains from the event itself. When a bystander steps up on behalf of a potential victim, just as that tuk-tuk driver did for me that day on the streets of Kathmandu, he or she becomes the very definition of a hero. We are more often bystanders to conflict than we are victims or perpetrators, and with that comes the recognition that we have a moral obligation to defend others, even when the crosshairs of injustice aren’t pointed at us personally.

  * * *

  When I returned to Luang Prabang, as usual I headed to Rattana Guesthouse, but this time I asked to meet with the young woman Lanoy, who changed the bedsheets and greeted the guests. Since meeting David Booth in Bali, I had been thinking about finding a Lao local to coordinate the builds in-country. Lanoy kept coming to mind. She possessed an incredible work ethic and seemed eager to take on more than her role at the guesthouse asked of her.

  When I had the chance to sit down with her, she told me about how on weekends she volunteered to bring food to families in the countryside, and that she dreamed of one day helping the children of her country. I shared my vision for Pencils of Promise, where trusted local staff would lead all local operations. I then asked her to become our first local coordinator, explaining that we didn’t have any money for salaries at the outset, but I would invest in training her.

  I promised to coach her on public speaking, sending her first email, managing a team, and most important, commanding the respect of men and women in every room she entered. “I would like this very much,” she responded, “but first you have to ask my mom for permission.”

  That night I put on my button-down shirt, tucked it into my jeans, and asked Lanoy’s surrogate mother (the woman who ran the guesthouse and had taken in Lanoy years earlier) for permission to bring her on as our volunteer coordinator. She agreed on a trial basis, but said Lanoy could join me only after she had completed her weekly work at the guesthouse. We were both ecstatic.

  Three days later I invited Lanoy to join me on a trip to visit potential sites for future schools and see our nearly completed one in Pha Theung. I asked her to bring a pad and pen so that she could speak with locals and record data on each prospective community. She nodded her head in solemn agreement and met with me early the next morning for breakfast at Joma.

  As we sat down with the chief of Kok Niew, the first village we visited that day, Lanoy proudly pulled out her new notebook. The inside contained neatly lined graph paper, but my jaw dropped when I saw that on the cover of her notebook was a cartoon picture of the grinning shark from Finding Nemo. This would never have been allowed at Bain, but I wasn’t at Bain anymore. I was in the mountains of Laos, where Lanoy’s “Shark Book” would one day hold the contents that would lead her to educate thousands.

  The long day ended with a visit to Pha Theung, where the school’s construction was in its final stages. The energy in the schoolyard was palpable. I returned several times over the next week, each day taking photos of the progress to share with our supporters back home.

  On my final afternoon, I returned to my roots by passing out pens and pencils. Nith, Nuth, and Tamund accepted theirs gladly, and Can-tong finally emerged from behind a group of friends to take hers as well. At first she was extremely timid, but once she held that pencil in her hand, I could see her begin to transform. As I walked up to the road to take my motorbike back to town, the last thing I saw was Can-tong skipping away, singing loudly. She was headed somewhere fast, and she was moving with purpose.

  Mantra 13

  HAPPINESS IS FOUND IN CELEBRATING OTHERS

  My four months in Southeast Asia had come to an end, but the next leg of the journey was about to begin back home. On Ma’s eightieth birthday my family planned a big dinner in New York City. The night before, I asked her if we could spend some time alone.

  “I want to share something with you,” I said.

  She was curious. Although she was my grandmother, and we were close, I rarely asked to see her alone for private chats. Ma knew that I’d started PoP and had been traveling back and forth to Laos. She was aware that I had taken a sabbatical from Bain, but figured I was just the traveling type in my twenties. Like all Jewish grandmothers, she was prone to worry and was completely opposed to my doing anything that required travel far away from her.

  She would tell me, “Why do this, go to these places where people have so little, when you have such nice things here? Trust me, I know! I lived like one of them, so why don’t you stay here close to your family and be happy with the nice things you have?”

  While I understood where she was coming from, I also understood that she didn’t know what motivated me. On this night, I would make it clear.

  “What is it you want to share with me?” she asked, bobbling as she walked toward me.

  I sat Ma down. She’s small, five feet three,
and was wearing all beige. She always wears matching clothes, all purple, all beige, a monochromatic uniform. And she always says she doesn’t look good, but she does. She grabbed my hand with both of hers and started petting me.

  “I want to show you what I have been doing,” I said. “I want you to know why I went to build a school.”

  I took out what I prepared—three pictures. The first was of Nith, Nuth, and Tamund. I explained the story of how I met them one day while the school was under construction, and how excited they were to attend their first classes. I told Ma about how this school would radically change their lives.

  “Oh, this is amazing.” She nodded, beginning to grasp some of what I felt.

  The second picture was of the completed school in Pha Theung. Its white walls shone brightly against its red roof and blue shutters. “Oh, this is so much. So beautiful. You know something, this looks just like the school I went to! Before they made me stop going to school and sent me to the camps, this is what my school looked like,” she said in her Hungarian accent.

  “Now I want to show you what motivated me. This picture is the reason that I went to all of those foreign places, traveled to all of these communities, and took a break from my job. This is what I wanted to create most in the world.” I showed her the third picture, which was of the large sign above the entrance to the school.

  She squinted to read the sign, but couldn’t without her glasses. “Wait one second, I get my glasses.” She pointed her finger on each word as she slowly whispered them aloud.

  “ ‘Luang Prabang Education Department, Give Children a Choice, Pencils of Promise. 2009.’ ” She paused, looked over at me, and smiled. She then looked back and continued, “ ‘Lovingly dedicated to . . .’ ”

  She covered her mouth with her hands as her jaw opened. Her hands began to tremble. She looked over at me and her eyes welled with tears. She looked back at the picture and continued reading, “ ‘Lovingly dedicated to Eva Braun. . . .’ ” She burst into tears, and so did I. We tried to speak, but neither of us could talk. She just reached over and squeezed my hand. We sat side by side and cried tears of joy.

  “This is so much. Why, why for me?” she asked.

  “You did so much for me, Ma. You have been through so much. I couldn’t get you golf clubs or some gift certificate. I wanted to do the most meaningful thing I could for you, so that you would know that your legacy would last, and your survival will make the lives of others better. I started Pencils of Promise so that I could build a school and dedicate it to you.”

  We cried and hugged, and after composing ourselves, Ma replied, “Adam, I wish I knew the words to describe this feeling. It feels like this is why I survived. I survived for this. It feels like it’s all coming back to me, everything I suffered for is coming back to me, but in good ways. All the bad things I went through were for these good things to happen.”

  I nodded, still unable to speak, digesting the weight of what she had just said. We exist because of the sacrifices of those who came before us, but how often can we make them feel the full value of their impact?

  Through this one school, I was now connected more deeply to my grandmother than ever before. It was only by focusing on creating joy in her life that I discovered the greatest feelings of happiness in my own. I knew that we could enable this same experience of building and dedicating a school for so many others, and in doing so we would give them the chance to honor the people they loved most. The vibrancy that PoP instilled in my daily life was contagious, and I could see it now flickering in Lanoy and Mimi and so many others. We now had to figure out how to get that flame to spread.

  Mantra 14

  FIND THE IMPOSSIBLE ONES

  While I had been traveling throughout Southeast Asia, coordinating the construction of our first school and building the organization on the ground, PoP continued to evolve on the other side of the world in New York. Mimi led our first white party—where everyone wore their finest white attire—which attracted eight hundred people, our largest event yet. As always, all of the party proceeds went toward school projects. Every single contribution, regardless of its size, was tremendously valuable.

  Armed with more knowledge of project costs, we demonstrated the impact of each ticket: $30 could buy fifteen books, $40 could buy bookshelves, $60 purchased teacher supplies. People loved that they were able to see the correlation and impact. The event sold out three days in advance, and afterward my inbox was once again flooded with messages from people interested in getting more involved.

  Although I didn’t drink coffee, I offered to “grab coffee” with anyone who wanted to join our volunteer force. One of my founding beliefs was that even if people didn’t have money to donate, which few twentysomethings during the financial crisis did, they could still add value through other forms of donation. Their time, energy, and skills could help us advance our mission. Every conversation began with the same question: “What do you love doing most?” Once I understood that person’s passion, we could craft a way for him or her to use it to support PoP. Through that approach, our volunteer force expanded rapidly.

  * * *

  At the same time, I was focused on finding a way to make the organization sustainable for the long haul. I called George Stanton, my mentor who had first encouraged me to choose Bain over Lehman, and asked for his advice. His answer was direct: “Listen, Adam, you need to find five pillar donors who will give you fifty thousand dollars each. This way you’ll have a quarter million dollars to start, and from there you can figure things out.”

  His advice surprised me because it was so far from what I’d planned on doing. We had seen that many small acts add up to make a large difference. Ninety-eight percent of our unique donations had been in amounts of $100 or less from people in their teens and twenties. These small donors funded our first school entirely and had put the funds in the bank for several more. I wanted to stay true to this approach until we had a proven track record that would merit our asking for major contributions.

  George told me I was crazy. “In this financial environment, that’ll be impossible.”

  His words stung. It’s hard to hear anyone say that something you believe in isn’t possible. But this burned even more because it came from someone whose opinion I valued so much. It also propelled me forward. It forced me to think more deeply about our fundraising approach and helped me define the type of person that we would need to recruit. I needed to find staff and donors who would get excited about doing something others deemed impossible.

  * * *

  For us to be successful, we had to bet on two early hypotheses. If correct, we would be incredibly well positioned to grow in the years ahead, and to help change the landscape for how a modern organization was built. If I was wrong, we would most likely fold within twenty-four months.

  The first big bet was on the rise of social media. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook as a sophomore in the class of 2006 at Harvard while I was a sophomore at Brown (one of the first ten schools to use the platform). Unlike our parents, we didn’t view social media as foreign; it was woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. It didn’t take a genius to see that social media would one day penetrate almost every facet of popular culture. But few people in the nonprofit world understood this yet because social media was still viewed as the space for college and high school kids. Most people were only focused on courting their major donors. But I didn’t just want donors, I wanted outspoken advocates. I genuinely believed that someone’s Facebook status was a valuable commodity. Viewing an individual’s social media presence as an important form of currency was something we banked on early.

  The second big bet was on the rise of cause marketing. All data suggested that consumers would overwhelmingly choose a product that makes the world better if compared to an equal product that didn’t have an element of social good. As a result, I believed that marketers and major brands with lots of advertising dollars would want to keep those consumers happy by f
inding ways to show them how their purchases benefited others. I figured they would seek out as partners the organizations with the largest and most engaged social media followings. So we focused on building an engaged community online and transparent programs that created tangible good on the ground, making us a perfect fit for cause-marketing campaigns.

  If the world moved in the direction we believed it would, we would be well positioned to springboard forward in the years ahead. But we couldn’t capitalize on either area without top-notch branding and design.

  Because of this, I became obsessed with building “the brand” of Pencils of Promise. I considered everything from the colors and shape of our logo, to the language we used in our print materials, to the imagery and architecture of our website. Branding can make or break a company, and a great brand creates legitimacy and trust, both of which are essential in the nonprofit world. While I could envision our brand in my head, I had absolutely no design skills. Some nights I would open Photoshop or InDesign, but within an hour I’d grow frustrated. If Mimi was the organization’s right hand, I desperately needed a left hand that could design the shit out of things.

  Fortunately, I received a random email from a guy I’d grown up with but hadn’t spoken to in almost ten years. Brad Haugen was working at a leading advertising agency and wanted to use his talents for good. He had been following our progress through social media and was confident that he could leverage the marketing and design expertise of his company, Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), to help us build a world-class brand. A few weeks later, a friend from SAS connected me with a rising star in the commercial photography world, Nick Onken. After a lengthy lunch together, he agreed to fly himself to Laos to shoot stunning photography on our behalf. Suddenly, I had a branding dream team coming together.