by Braun, Adam
Pencils of Promise was beginning to become known in small circles; we had made a name for ourselves through the Chase Community Giving Contest, had newfound connections at Summit Series, and Justin had begun to amplify our work on Twitter and Facebook. But largely, we stayed out of the traditional press. I knew that the Pencils of Promise story I wanted to tell hadn’t yet occurred, so I turned down every interview and media opportunity that came my way.
I cared much more about PoP’s long-term success than its early notoriety. Creating something new is easy, creating something that lasts is the challenge. I modeled my approach after the bands I loved most, since many of them had lasted for thirty or forty years. They didn’t achieve staying power by splashing their faces across highway billboards as soon as they wrote their first three songs. They first built a loyal base of hard-core fans who felt they “discovered” the band and would ardently share their music with others. Over the years, these bands built up credibility and refined their craft, until they were ready to release a major album. What seemed like an overnight success was actually years in the making.
I’d seen the stories of other NGOs appear in minor and major publications, and while the press helped with visibility, many times it didn’t lead to any new funding or support. That’s because the single most wasted resource on earth is human intention. How many times have you wanted to do something but not acted right away and forgotten about it later? People probably read those articles and had a strong desire to help in that moment, but the organization didn’t have easy and effective mechanisms (website, staff, back-end systems) to convert that intention into action.
I decided early on that we wouldn’t share our story through traditional press until we had three pieces in place: (1) what I called a “holy shit” story. You needed to hear about PoP and think, Holy shit! How have I not heard about this? I need to tell someone else about it now; (2) a beautiful website with a back-end system to handle inbound inquiries; and (3) the staff and infrastructure to follow up immediately on any interest in our organization.
I waited nearly two years for us to reach a double-digit school count (our “holy shit” story) and get our website, staff, and infrastructure to a place of excellence. By late 2010, we finally had everything in order. AgencyNet delivered a gorgeous website that not only allowed donors to see the exact locations via GPS of schools they funded, but also to take a 360-degree virtual tour inside the classroom using cutting-edge technology. Tom audited our financials and ensured that the most rigorous standards of financial accountability were in effect across all offices. We even added five “adult” board members to guide us through the next period of expected growth. I was finally ready to go outbound with our message.
* * *
A reporter had emailed me over the summer to say she wanted to write about Pencils of Promise for the Huffington Post. I told her to wait a few months since I still hadn’t done a single interview and was waiting for us to break ground on a slew of new schools that fall. But I kept my word that I would go back to her when we were ready. After we did the hour-long interview, she told me that she’d share the piece with her editor and see if they wanted to publish it. Much to my surprise, the article, titled “The New Nonprofit: Pencils of Promise,” became the cover story on HuffPost Impact over Thanksgiving weekend. The page splashed a huge photo with the catchy teaser “How a Backpacker Built 15 Schools from One Pencil” and was shared nearly twenty-five hundred times, making it the most shared article of its section that month.
This well-timed article put us on the map. The phone started ringing. Emails started coming in. Big brands reached out wanting to work with us. David Yurman’s head of global marketing launched a fundraiser in its flagship store and donated products for us to auction off. AOL, Vogue, Variety, and People magazine all reached out to explore ways to partner with us. CBS and ABC started competing to get an exclusive piece on PoP for their evening news programs. The doors to countless major corporate sponsors were now wide open, and I was ready to jump at the opportunity.
Our early beliefs in the value of social media and the rise of cause marketing were finally paying dividends as we began structuring branded partnerships that led to major dollars. Justin’s support helped even more, as many of his corporate sponsors donated to PoP because we were his favorite charity (along with the Make-A-Wish Foundation). Justin and Scott even structured the North American leg of the My World Tour to donate $1 per ticket to PoP—creating a new generation of young philanthropists among the fans attending his shows.
In addition to building our relationships with the press and major brands, I also started to focus on speaking at events. The Feast on Good was an invitation-only conference held at the TimesCenter for leading advertising and media execs that focused on driving innovation that makes the world work better. It aimed to bring together what they called “innovators, doers and makers” to dig in and address today’s greatest challenges. Brad had been to the event the year before and said it was riveting. “You have to speak there next year,” he’d told me.
At the time, that seemed like a pipe dream. We weren’t legit enough to speak there—among the likes of established institutions like the Economist and Foursquare. But after the Huffington Post article, people became aware of us. Brad helped arrange a meeting with Jerri and Michael, the cofounders of the event. “If breakfast goes well, I think they’ll ask you to speak,” Brad said confidently.
Breakfast at Manhattan’s low-key Grey Dog café went great. At the end of almost two hours together, Jerri said, “We are looking for someone young and inspiring as our closing speaker this year. We’d love for you to be it.”
“Yeah, for sure.” I sounded casual, but I had to restrain myself from getting out of my chair and dancing across the café.
* * *
Hours before the speech I was incredibly nervous and consumed with anxiety. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I listened to the soothing song “That Western Skyline” by Dawes on repeat on my iPhone and tried to calm myself down. I knew that thousands would be watching on a live stream, including our entire office on the Lower East Side.
The speech was fifteen minutes long, and for the first few I could hear my voice shaking a bit. But when I showed the video of Nuth, Nith, and Tamund, I was reminded of why I was up there and began to speak more confidently. When I finished, many audience members stood up in a standing ovation, and it seemed as though I’d nailed it.
A long line of attendees came up to me to ask questions, swap cards, and share stories. My parents were there, but they patiently waited until I’d addressed everyone else, then finally came up to give me a big hug. For the first time in a while, I felt invincible.
My dad and I embraced, and then he said nonchalantly, “You should look down.”
I did and realized my fly was open—it had been open during the entire speech. I couldn’t believe it. “Really?”
He nodded and smiled. “Yup.”
We both laughed it off, but it was an important reminder to never take oneself too seriously, and to never feel too self-satisfied. The only truth about first impressions is that you only get one. The way people perceive you in those first few moments will set the anchor around which all future interactions are based. Fortunately, few people noticed my blunder, but you can’t get those moments back; you can only prepare for making the best possible first impression on those new people you’ll meet in the future.
As I left the TimesCenter, I saw several of our staff members who were at the conference mingling with other attendees. Because the staff were wearing PoP T-shirts, people were seeking them out to see how they could get further involved. I couldn’t help but smile when I overheard the staff confidently tell others to visit our website, where they could gather all the information they needed to educate a child or fund a school.
Most people rush to get their story out, but by waiting until our “holy shit” story, our staff, and our website were in place, we were prepared to convert peop
le’s interest into action. Even though I’d given a full speech with my fly down, PoP was definitely on its way up.
Mantra 22
FESS UP TO YOUR FAILURES
After spending a month in Laos to work with our team and students on the ground, I returned home to focus on the growing movement behind PoP. We had recently expanded to a third nation, Guatemala, working in the same region around Lake Atitlán where I had lived with Joel Puac years earlier. We had raised over $1 million in 2010 (more than a tenfold increase from the year before), and were setting ambitious goals to break ground on dozens of new schools by the end of the new year. Nobel Peace Prize–winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu even sent us a surprise video to endorse our efforts. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I watched him say, “Pencils of Promise . . . keep working, keep learning, the world needs you.”
As I saw that video, I thought back to a phrase my friend had scribbled on my apartment whiteboard months earlier: “The most powerful thing in the world is an idea whose time has come.” It felt as if this was our moment. The students of Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business, the most discerning business minds of the next generation, had just chosen us as one of the select charities they would fundraise to support. We were hitting on all cylinders.
When a cool opportunity presented itself in the form of the British Airways “Face of Opportunity” contest, I knew I had to submit an entry. Two hundred fifty small-business owners would receive a free flight anywhere in the world. All that was required was an essay or a video on how you would use the flight to advance your organization.
With so much going on, I hadn’t had time to work on my application—something I realized one night at 11:40 p.m., twenty minutes before the final entry deadline. With little time, but little to lose, I looked into my iPhone camera and recorded a two-minute video on our work building schools in the developing world and how we would use the flight to bring Lanoy to our headquarters in New York so she could receive an in-depth training from our staff.
The video must have resonated with someone because weeks later we learned that we’d made it into the Top 250 and won a flight. I was elated, and then I was shocked to find out that we’d made it to the Top 10. A weeklong social media voting campaign would determine the top three finalists. Social media? That we could do.
We campaigned hard on Facebook and Twitter, determined to get to the finals to snag the ten free business-class flights that would be awarded to the grand prize–winning organization. I was also eager to garner the publicity for Pencils of Promise that would come along with winning the contest. A few weeks later the ten semifinalists were narrowed down to the final three: a sustainable coffee company called Dunn Bros Coffee, the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, and us.
I had no idea what to expect in the finals, an event held at Manhattan’s giant Marriott Marquis hotel, but it turned out to be a lot more like the TV show Shark Tank than the celebratory event I had anticipated. In a room filled with five hundred attendees, I had two minutes to talk about PoP in the “pitch-off.” I used what I had learned at Summit Series about making a quick impression and talked about our story, model, and vision to improve the lives of children in poverty by providing access to education. I had given the pitch countless times before—and it had worked in nearly every instance.
But this time when I was finished, the three “celebrity judges,” Bill Rancic of The Apprentice, Bethenny Frankel of Skinnygirl fame, and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank, tried to tear me apart. I later learned that they had been instructed to find holes in our companies, although that had never been explained to us before we stepped on the stage.
“How much of the money goes into programs versus overhead?” asked Bill.
“Industry standard would say that any organization that directs over seventy percent toward programs is doing a good job. We try to be as lean as possible, so we’ve historically put eighty-three to eighty-six percent of funds into programs,” I said. The crowd clapped, and Bill nodded his approval.
In between the rapid-fire questions aimed at each finalist, lights flashed and music played loudly; I felt as if I were on a bad reality show. Finally they brought us back together onstage to announce the winner. The first of four votes was the audience favorite, and PoP had received 60 percent of the vote. The second vote was Bill Rancic’s, who cast his ballot in our favor. With two out of four total votes, we just needed one more to guarantee we had won. But Bethenny and Barbara both voted for Indiegogo.
“Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time ever, we have a tie!” boomed the announcer. “We’ll now have a live thirty-second pitch-off, and the audience will decide on the winner.”
I already won the audience once; I hoped I could do it again. Danae, the cofounder of Indiegogo, went first. She immediately appealed to rationality, touting their proven team and sound business model. Then I was on. I knew I had to tell a story that the audience could connect to emotionally. The crowd was all entrepreneurs. We were driven by the same passion, so I went right to our commonalities. “As anyone with a really big dream who started in a really small room knows, you may have poured your heart and soul into your business, but it was the special people who joined you along the way that made the difference. Those are the people I stand up here representing—the men and women who work in the field, educating our children every day, those are the ones I want to use these flights for. They are the real faces of opportunity.”
My thirty seconds were up. The lights started pulsing again, and the clicker votes around the room were counted. This time, I won 85 percent of the audience. Pencils of Promise was announced as the grand-prize winner. Officials from British Airways came out carrying an oversize cardboard check with “10 free business class flights” scribbled in the amount line. Cameras flashed, people I’d never met congratulated me, and interviews commenced. It was an absolute circus, but I was relieved it was over and I couldn’t wait to share the news with the team. Ten free flights would be of great value and we had earned a lot of exposure for the organization.
The next afternoon all 250 of the small-business winners were whisked off on a chartered jet to London, where the CEO of British Airways awaited us for a photo opportunity. At the welcome reception, I peeked down at my phone and saw an email from Noah, who was now responsible for our work in Latin America and doing a terrific job. I opened it, and my heart sank.
Appy and I were robbed at knifepoint last night. . . . They stole my phone and wallet and her BlackBerry and purse. Not sure if we need to file something with PoP.
The night before had been the Super Bowl, and I knew that Noah and Appy (our PoP Guatemala Fellow) had gone to a Peace Corps party in a city several hours away from where we were based hoping to connect with other NGO workers. I had warned the staff to be careful in urban areas. And now this had happened.
I assumed Noah had written because he wanted reimbursement for their stuff. As applause broke out, celebrating PoP’s win, and with little time to focus on this new matter, I dashed an email connecting Noah to Tom in the New York office so he could help. But I was still pissed about the whole thing. How could they let this happen?
Although they’d clearly been through a terrible ordeal, it wasn’t PoP’s fault that they put themselves in a dangerous situation. Connecting to the emotions of the audience had worked onstage, so I figured connecting to the emotions of Noah and Appy could bring about some resolution to this as well. I fired off a reply:
Hey guys,
First off let me say how glad I am that you’re both completely okay and that you weren’t hurt at all given what happened recently.
At this point though it’s clear that there are some inferences being made as to whether PoP will be reimbursing you for the items that were stolen. The truth is that you can make up whatever you want as to what happened. You can describe it or message it however you want, but I’m never going to know. What I do know is that we work extremely hard for every do
llar we raise, and that I value every dollar we spend even more. Also, you guys signed contracts that removed PoP of this liability and you had your own option to get insurance that would cover you in case this happened (which Tom can help you follow up on). So as I understand it, the current policy is that PoP shouldn’t reimburse anything.
But you are the ones that make our Guatemala programs happen, you are the ones that took the leap of faith to make PoP your current life’s path. . . . I also hope that you view this organization as your own, since it truly is the creation of all of us together. Given that, I truly believe that you guys can make the better call on how PoP should handle this than I could. Let me know what you think is an ideal outcome for both PoP and you guys on this, and that’s the course we’re going to take.
—Adam
It was not the right response. When I checked my email next, I found this:
Hey Adam,
I believe we’ve had a misunderstanding. When I asked if I should file something with PoP, I was referring to an incident report. I thought it might be necessary to (1) alert PoP of recent events and (2) help shape future policy for personnel living abroad. Neither Appy or I expect any form of reimbursement.
—Noah
The clarification email was followed by another email, which was more personal, honest, and appropriately critical of my note. Noah explained it wasn’t a matter of two guys who came up to them with knives and looted their pockets:
They strangled me, put knives sharply against both of us, threw Appy up against a wall and wouldn’t stop roughing her up until I was finally able to throw myself on top of her. We weren’t just robbed, we were attacked.
As I continued reading, I couldn’t help but think, This happened because I sent them there. Noah explained how incredibly disturbing it was to wake up to an email rejecting a request he hadn’t made and suggesting dishonesty where there was none: One would expect that an organization such as PoP, where everyone is sacrificing something to achieve a common goal, would be more supportive of its staff. As for Appy, he said she was already quite rattled by the incident, but was even further disturbed by the way I handled it and was now thinking about leaving the organization.
