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

by Braun, Adam

  “You’re looking at it all wrong,” Dennis said. “Now is the time to take a risk. Twenty years from now you’ll have a family and a mortgage. That’s when you won’t be able to take on risk. You’ll have too much responsibility. Now is the time to take a chance, when we’re young.” He had a point, but he wasn’t stopping there. “Besides, there’s no better time to start something than when the economy is as bad as it is right now. The way I see it, at least I’m taking a shot at creating something great that will also give me executive experience—that has to be better than the guy who’s about to spend twelve months on unemployment.”

  Dennis was right. Now was the time to take a risk.

  * * *

  That evening I was invited to the New York Philharmonic. Though I had grown up so close to New York I had never been to the symphony before.

  The collective sounds of the symphony were mesmerizing, but I became even more intrigued when everyone left the stage to a rousing ovation, and an enormous man sat down alone at the grand piano. The program said that he would be playing Rachmaninoff, one of the few composers I actually knew. I wondered if just one person could stir the same emotional response from the audience that the entire symphony had just evoked.

  The pianist began playing the concerto, starting with soft melodies that soon became soaring harmonies. Thunderous sounds poured from the piano. This man was crushing the keys and swaying with such force that the few hairs on his head flew from side to side. As an audience, we hung on his every note. I closed my eyes and could hear the passion he brought to his craft. I thought, If I could feel as strongly about any one thing in the world as this man feels about his piano, I know that I would be fulfilled.

  I began to contemplate my desire to start something bigger than myself, something that could move others as well. I also thought about the revelation from Jen about creating a volunteer force and Dennis’s words about taking risks while young. People think big ideas suddenly appear on their own, but they’re actually the product of many small, intersecting moments and realizations that move us toward a breakthrough. I thought about the joy I’d felt while sharing those pencils across the developing world, my desire to build a school one day, and suddenly a name shot across my mind.

  Pencils of Promise.

  It felt as if a bolt of lightning went right through me. Pencils symbolized the ability to self-educate that I believed in so strongly, and promise had the dual meanings of making an oath or commitment to another, as well as the untapped potential we all possess. My mind surged with ideas, and my fists clenched with excitement.

  At certain moments in your life you just know that everything after will change. You can ignore these moments by not acting on the new set of possibilities they enable, and your life will stay the same. But if you say yes to their reverberating potential, your life path alters permanently. This was one of those unique moments that was about to change everything. I could feel it in my bones.

  * * *

  I was turning twenty-five the next month, and for the past four years I had thrown my birthday-party fundraiser for the Cambodian Children’s Fund. This year I could ask for $20 per person and raise $5,000, I thought. Then I could organize a holiday party to raise $4,000 to $5,000 more and eventually raise the needed funds to build a full school.

  At that moment the stage at Lincoln Center went dark and the lights turned on over the audience. It was intermission.

  I found my friend Ren in the aisles. “I have to go,” I said.

  “But it’s only intermission,” he replied, completely confused.

  “I know, but I have to leave. Something’s happened and now everything is different. I have to get to my laptop to start writing down ideas.”

  Ren convinced me to stay to the end of the symphony, and I sat through the second half, my mind spinning. I had planned to stop by two parties after the performance, but when I got outside Avery Fisher Hall, I texted my friends, Not going to make it out tonight. Something big happened, I’ll call you tomorrow.

  I texted my parents too: I’m coming home tomorrow. We need to talk. I came up with an idea tonight and I need to make it happen.

  They responded, Calm down. See you in the morning.

  Everything was coming together. I would use the externship to launch the organization, get it going during my six-month leave, then return to Bain and continue running it on the side just as Jen and her friends did theirs. I wouldn’t have to leave my job to start something meaningful, nor would I have to wait a few decades to do so. Perhaps most important, after living selfishly for so long, I would build and dedicate the school to Ma. It would let her know how much she meant to me and ensure that she’d leave a legacy behind that would impact others for generations.

  I rushed back to my apartment and stayed up all night writing a lengthy charter document. It began with a mission statement that included some of the following:

  Pencils of Promise intends to become a nonprofit organization with the goal of building primary education schools in areas of poverty within developing nations. Each community must display an extreme willingness to work in conjunction with the organization, as we hope to be partners in the creation of each facility. The ultimate goal for each school will be self-sustenance by the local community within five years of creation.

  We firmly believe that education is the single most powerful tool in the fight against poverty and disease, and that the point of greatest impact is at the primary education level where simply placing a pencil in a child’s hand is the first step toward unlocking the promise of self-empowerment and a higher quality of life.

  I banged out a list of possible locations for the school, potential fundraising events, and listed:

  Next Steps

  • Website

  • Incorporate

  • Speak with lawyer

  • Speak with accountant

  • Determine location of School 1

  • Hire graphic designer to create logo

  • Business cards

  • Stationery/envelopes

  The sun rose, and I hadn’t slept at all. I took the train back to Greenwich to tell my parents about my epiphany. For years they had shot down my crazy ideas, which made me respect their opinion more than anyone else’s. I knew that they were always looking out for my best interests and would give me brutal honesty. If I could win them over, the idea was a go.

  After I spent twenty minutes explaining everything in detail, my mom was the first to speak: “Oh, this is crazy, but if it’s for your externship, this isn’t the worst idea you’ve had. I guess it actually kind of makes sense.”

  We spent the next several hours pulling the idea apart. Where would this first school be built? How would I rally funds? Who would join the initial team? The questions went on and on, but they were thorough and important. I had a lot on my plate, but the first step was clear. Someone had to put the founding deposit into a bank account.

  Mantra 9

  BIG DREAMS START WITH SMALL, UNREASONABLE ACTS

  With every conversation I had about Pencils of Promise it began to feel more real. After several weeks, it became time to file the paperwork.

  While home on the first day of October, I borrowed my mom’s car and drove to Town Hall. I filled out a DBA (Doing Business As) form, which allowed me to officially represent Pencils of Promise, and then drove to the local Bank of America. It was the same branch where I’d opened my first savings account.

  “I’d like to open a new account,” I said to the woman seated in the Small Business Services area. Her name tag read “Debbie.” “It’s for an organization I just started called Pencils of Promise.”

  “Oh, I like that name,” said Debbie.

  “Me too.” I smiled. “What do I need to open an account?”

  “Well, if you already have the yellow slip for your DBA, you need to start by making a deposit of at least twenty-five dollars.”

  The biggest of dreams often start with small, unreasonable act
s. Most people would have thought it was crazy to start with the minimum amount, but I wanted to prove that you could start something big no matter how small you begin. And since I was turning twenty-five years old that month, I saw it as a karmic sign. I gave Debbie $25, received a deposit slip dated October 1, 2008, and walked out with a checkbook that read, “Adam Braun DBA Pencils of Promise.”

  I bought the domain www.pencilsofpromise.org (along with every similar sounding domain and their .com counterparts), and I went to Gmail to create a free account under the address PencilsofPromise@gmail.com. Using the new account, I emailed every friend and relative I had in the legal industry, asking if they knew someone who could help me fill out my Form 1023, the lengthy government form required to gain 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. I knew it would take months to gain nonprofit status, but the law allows you to start fundraising immediately, and once you are approved, all donations are retroactively treated as tax deductible. Fortunately, a young lawyer who worked with my uncle offered to help me complete and file all forms free of charge. We began to meet after hours, and with her help the required documents started to quickly come together.

  Now with an official bank account, an email address, and the legal process under way, I began planning the first fundraiser: my annual Halloween birthday party. Every one of my mentors told me that there was no way I could raise money for a charity in such a terrible economy. But I was on a mission, armed with an ambitious dream and the practical knowledge that regardless of economic conditions, twentysomethings still went out in New York City looking for a good time. If I could throw a great party with a fun crowd that enabled people to also make a positive difference in the world, I knew that I could harvest many small contributions.

  I discovered a huge space in TriBeCa, M1-5 Lounge, with a large dance floor and central bar so that people wouldn’t have to wait long for drinks. I reached out to the manager about renting the space for Thursday night—the eve of Halloween. In exchange for bringing in so many people, I could charge $20 at the door, all of which would be donated to PoP. He seemed skeptical at first, but after a guarantee that I’d bring in at least two hundred people, he agreed. I had no idea if that many people would come, but I had to take a risk.

  My friend Luke was working as a videographer and offered to put together an original song with a music video called “Halloween Girl” that urged people to come out to the party. Making the video was hysterical. Everyone wore absurd costumes and goofed around. But it was also moving to see how dedicated my friends were to helping raise funds for the school. I started to hear Pencils of Promise mentioned not just in my conversations, but in theirs as well. My friend Dan had always said, “Friends are the family you choose.” He was right, and I couldn’t have been happier with my choices.

  Three weeks before the big night, I created a Facebook event invite and gave each of my friends “host” capabilities. Collectively we invited thousands of people. When we released the “Halloween Girl” video on YouTube a few days later, people began buzzing with anticipation.

  I had expected a big turnout, but even I was shocked when four hundred people came. We raised $8,000—$3,000 more than I expected. The party was a blast, and throughout the event people came up to me saying, “I really want to get more involved in the organization. Let’s get together sometime, I’ve been looking for something just like this.”

  * * *

  Clearly my closest friends would help throw more parties to raise funds, but a small leadership team started to develop as well that was interested in more than just our events. My college friend Richard, a brilliant engineer who worked for one of the world’s leading architects, offered to help with the design and construction of the school. My friend Libbie was working as a consultant at Deloitte, and after we pounded out ideas on napkins during our Sunday brunch, she was in too. My best friend from high school, Mike, a third-year investment banker at Goldman Sachs, asked if he could lend his skills to help manage our financials. I even recruited Jen Williams to provide expertise about running a volunteer staff. Lastly, my friend’s neighbor Mimi had come to the Halloween party and told me she wanted to get more involved.

  When Mimi and I grabbed drinks about a week later, she ran me through a series of ideas about how to take the organization to the next level. She wanted to be more than just a casual volunteer; she wanted to make PoP her true focus. The more we talked, the more we realized how aligned our visions were for the organization. Her energy was infectious, her work ethic was unmatched, and she produced real results. With this group, PoP had a small leadership team that began to meet in the Bain office on late nights and weekends.

  As we started planning for our next major event, a holiday masquerade, I stayed up each night cold-emailing anyone I could find online who had a connection to education in Laos. I’d loved Southeast Asia most in my travels, and the two poorest countries in the region were Laos and Myanmar. Myanmar was still closed to outsiders due to political turmoil, so Laos became the obvious choice. I contacted organizations, professors, tour guides, and anyone I could find, explaining my desire to build one school and asking for their partnership, collaboration, or guidance. Much to my surprise, the first response that came in, an email from the leader of an existing nonprofit in Laos, told me to try elsewhere.

  I think you have selected the wrong country to try this first endeavor. Laos has many challenges for new organizations and projects. It is not easy, he explained. When I wrote back a detailed email asking further questions, he never replied.

  His words were disheartening, and the lack of a response even more so, but something inside me told me to press on. Most ventures fail in the early stages because people stop trying after they’re told no too many times. Someone I reached out to for advice urged me to use my externship to work at a hedge fund rather than squander my resources at a nonprofit, but I refused to give up. At night I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up until three or four in the morning searching for new leads and pursuing them.

  After weeks of frantic networking attempts, an email arrived from a man named Dori, a former banker who lived in the area but fell in love with Laos and founded the organization Give Children A Choice in his retirement. He and his wife had built twenty primary schools there over the past decade. Two weeks later I found myself boarding the N train from my office in Times Square to meet them near Prince Street after work.

  Over the next four hours, and several plates of french fries at the Silver Spurs café, we bonded intensely. We shared a common thread, both beginning in the business sector and finding passion through travel. Dori explained exactly how their organization worked. They asked the local community to invest 10 percent of the funding, which exemplified the same collaboration with communities that I’d come to believe in. Once or twice a year they took donors who had funded full schools to Laos, and the rest of the time their local staff member, Thongchanh, aka TC, managed the projects. With $25,000 they could build a school in three to four months; Dori even offered to send me a line-item budget.

  I had already made plans to visit Laos for two weeks over my Thanksgiving break, and thanks to Dori’s generosity, I now had a partner organization to show me the way, introduce me to the education ministry, and help build the first school.

  Meanwhile, Mimi had found a great venue for our big masquerade party, and throughout our workdays we emailed nonstop, putting together a media kit to pitch event sponsors. I used images I had taken during my backpacking travels and refined the language from my charter document to articulate the vision and mission of the organization. When Jen encouraged me to list an audacious fundraising goal on the final page, I stated, “We seek to raise $250,000 in the next three years.” At the time, that seemed incredibly ambitious.

  Richard, my engineer friend who worked in architecture, joined me on my first trip to Laos over Thanksgiving. We cruised on motorbikes through the streets of Vientiane and tubed down the Nam Song River in Vang Vieng, but when rioters occupied the Bangkok airport, Ri
chard headed back early out of fear that delays could cause him to get stuck in Southeast Asia with an expired visa. Left alone, I hopped a bus for a ten-hour trip north to Luang Prabang to meet with TC and find the village for our first school.

  * * *

  When I arrived at the local bus station in the mountainous region of northern Laos, it was nearly 1:00 a.m. and a starry sky sparkled above. I shared a tuk-tuk into town and found a place to crash called Rattana Guesthouse, which offered me a room with air-conditioning and a hot shower for $12.50 per night. The woman who owned it spoke English well, and the location was perfect, right in the middle of town next to the night market.

  Over the next several days, TC showed me exactly why so many say that Luang Prabang is one of the most special places on earth. Colonized by the French in the late nineteenth century and named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, the charming town sits along two rivers, the Mekong and the Nam Khan. Ancient temples sit next to French colonial architecture. Saffron-robed monks walk the streets each morning at sunrise to collect alms, young children ride bicycles down bumpy streets holding pink umbrellas to shade them from the sun, and time seems to stop altogether. I immediately began to refer to it as “the land of ten thousand smiles.” Never in my life had I met such peaceful, gentle people.

  But beyond the idyllic landscape and wonderful people I met, the harsh reality was that most families in the countryside lived in bamboo huts with little to no education. Many lived on less than $2 per day. The poverty in the surrounding region was tremendous and overwhelming, but I had to start somewhere specific. I had to find one village in which to build the first school.

  Fortunately, TC had a close relationship with many officials at the Luang Prabang Province Education Ministry and took me to meet them. They were kind and gracious, but none spoke English. When they had trouble pronouncing my first name, I decided to make it easier by simply using my initials. “Call me AB, as in A, B, C, D,” I said. TC translated, much to their delight. They provided us with a list of the ten villages of greatest need, including such information as how many classrooms were required, which ages the school would serve, and how far it was from town.