Friday September 7, 12:20 PM
Charity Inc: Ex-executive wants giving "corporations" |
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By James Pomfret
HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - Charities need to be run more like corporations with ambitious growth and cost targets if they're to match the rising trend of billionaire philanthropy, says the founder of an innovative and fast-growing welfare group.
John Wood, a former Microsoft executive, quit a senior job in Microsoft to start the charity "Room to Read" in 2000 which has since won plaudits for its blend of compassion and corporate acumen that has seen the creation of some 5,000 children's libraries in countries like Nepal, Laos and India.
"You gotta have one part Mother Teresa, one part Jack Welch, and mix those two things together," said Wood, the CEO and founder of Room to Read, referring to the renowned social worker and the former chairman of General Electric.
Wood, a 43-year-old American, set up the charity after visiting schools during a trek through Nepal and being dismayed at their meagre resources.
He prefers to call himself a "social entrepreneur" and his outfit a "social enterprise". Room to Read aims to provide books for poor children through building libraries, schools and offering scholarships to girls otherwise denied an education.
The foundation aims to build 10,000 libraries by 2010, or around 30 a week.
Wood says he keeps costs low by hiring local staff whenever possible and by teaming up with corporate benefactors. He flies around the world for free -- using the air miles of a Goldman Sachs executive -- and Credit Suisse provides his Hong Kong staff with free office space.
Room to Read spends just 12 percent of its donations on administrative and fund-raising costs compared to an average of round 35 percent for U.S. charities, Wood said.
"We are run like a business, very transparent, and I think that has an appeal (to donors)," Wood told Reuters.
He says the donation of tens of billions by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffet have "upped the ante for the world's billionaires", making it an exciting time for philanthropy. He urges charities to think big, and improve their management to take advantage of this boon.
"If we just throw billions of dollars at the charity world, and the charity world's not being run efficiently ... then that's going to be a huge issue," Wood said.
"A lot of people who run charities tend to think small ... (But) if you look at all the problems in the world today and the problem with AIDS orphans, you need to have people who think about not just having one orphanage, but figure how to do thousands of orphanages ... how to get scale."
Wood was in Hong Kong to set up a partnership with airline Cathay Pacific and publisher Scholastic to fly 400 thousand books to poor children across Asia. "I just hope I'm doing a little bit of an example, and a little bit of a catalyst for the business leaders to say, let's all turn together and do a lot more and have fun doing it," he said.
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