In 2008, twenty-four-year-old Adam Braun walked into his local Bank of America with the requisite deposit of $25 needed to start a business. That business was Pencils of Promise, and at that time Adam had no idea that, over the next six years, his fledgling nonprofit would grow to be an extraordinary organization that would build over 200 schools and impact the lives of students, teachers, community members, and donors around the world. This story is recorded in Braun’s new book, The Promise of a Pencil.
Pencils of Promise is an organization that builds schools in communities of need around the world, trains the teachers, and changing entire regions through the gift of education. By partnering with the communities and local governments for labor and resources, as well as taking a grassroots approach to fundraising and spreading the word, Pencils of Promise has catapulted into extreme success and impact in just a few short years thanks to celebrity endorsement (Justin Bieber, Sofia Bush, Sir Richard Branson), affiliate marketing, and founder Adam Braun’s personal passion for solving the education problem.
The kind of growth experienced by Pencils of Promise is outstanding, but it was no accident. While Braun may have had no idea just how far his drive would take him, it was his business acumen that got the organization to where it is today. A former employee of Bain & Company and a graduate of Brown University, Adam Braun was no novice to the world of business, and it was his innate ambition and intentionality that drove (and continues to drive) Pencils of Promise’s success.
But finance isn’t the only area in which Braun demonstrated good instincts. His intuition regarding marketing trends and customer behavior proved to be vital to his company’s growth, especially in regard to social media and cause marketing. And who better to explain the connection than Braun himself? Here’s an excerpt from The Promise of a Pencil’s chapter 14: “Find the Impossible Ones”:
“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 the first 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 finding 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.”
And it worked.
As we all know, social media did indeed take off. This blog likely wouldn’t be around without it. Braun’s instincts were spot-on regarding the intrinsic nature of social media in our society, as well as the notion that any company looking to create a passionate following would need to create a top-notch online community.
And of course Braun was right about the second thing as well. Cause marketing is a huge generator of not only fans but also revenue for companies that choose to participate, not to mention the funds raised for the nonprofits with whom these companies partner.
The Promise of a Pencil is an incredible book for more reasons than those discussed here. It’s intriguing, inspiring, and practical. Click here to view the book on Amazon. 100% of the proceeds from the book go to benefit the organization and to help build schools, train teachers, and make a lasting difference in a community of need.
You can make a difference. Whether through Pencils of Promise or your own passions, it is possible for you to have a personal impact on the global community. Adam Braun’s story demonstrates that, and now it’s your turn to prove it.
About the Author: Samantha Gale is a social media and content marketing specialist working for 60 Second Communications, a full-service marketing agency working with brands around the globe.