The rest of Room to Read's story may not yet be corporate legend, but "the business," as Wood calls it, has certainly broken plenty of new ground since he quit his job and launched a new career. "Microsoft didn't need me," he explains, "the children of Nepal did." In just five years, the charity has built more than 100 schools, assembled some 1,000 libraries, stocked them with almost half a million new books, put more than 500 girls on long-term scholarships, and opened 45 computer and language rooms. And not just in Nepal: Room to Read now operates in Cambodia, India and Vietnam. "Wood has brought to the charity world the best practices of the corporate world," says Marc Andreessen, Netscape's founder and one of Room to Read's biggest donors. "He tracks results like Microsoft tracks results. It's a pragmatic charity."
Much of that pragmatism Room to Read owes to the 38-year-old Shrestha. It was the Nepali, Wood says, who decided he didn't want to work for a charity that "dropped into town, built a bridge and left it to fall down." From the start, Room to Read asked for community participation—either muscle or money, usually 50% of the total cost. During a recent visit to Cambodia, Wood received a phone call from a school headmaster complaining that his new computer center was adding $100 to his monthly power bill. Wood was delighted. "When they feel a little bit of pain, they feel more involved, a bigger sense of ownership of the project," he says.
Back in San Francisco, Wood works the phones and e-mail to raise funds. Money has flooded in, most of it from the titans of tech in the U.S. "[Bill] Gates and [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer taught me not to rest on my laurels. I want to be the Microsoft of the charity world, a trusted global brand."
Click on this website, and think more about the other illiterate children in the developing worlds... May you take your action as well.
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