Saturday, September 19, 2009

8 Ideas for Book Donations to Support African Nonprofits


One of our BETF supporters recently requested support in his effort to obtain book donations for an African nonprofit organization. BDPA Orlando chapter president Pablo More provided him with eight remarkable ideas. Our blog shares these tips with our readers for posterity:
  1. Get in touch with your local member of Congress both U.S Representative and U.S. Senators. Make them aware of what you are working and ask for guidance and assistance.
  2. Seek out the U.S. Ambassador where the nonprofit is located. The embassy may help with transporting of the books to that country at no cost to you. to the specific African country
  3. Reach out to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have partnerships with Alkebulan.
  4. Visit your local Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Public Libraries to pick up books that are being disposed.
  5. Visit your local state college or university libraries and speak with the librarian about when do they dispose of their books. College Libraries tend to keep a copy of text books in their shelves which they get rid of after new editions become available. There is only so much shelf space in a library. This tends to occur over the summer and winter recess.
  6. Contact the major publishing companies below. Seek out the sales rep in your district explain your initiative and if your organization has a 501c3 non-profit status with a good track record and a good education program you "might" get a shipment of books at little to no cost.
  7. Seek out other NGOs that operate in Alkebulan with offices in the United States.
  8. Make sure your renew your BDPA membership and pre-register for the 2010 BDPA technolgy conference.
The major textbooks publishers are:
I hope that this information helps anyone seeking to donate books to African nonprofits. If you are looking for similiar programs in the United States ... you might check out the First Book program.

4 comments:

Martin Lindsey said...

This is a very timely post. My wife is in need of books for her classroom. I'll pass this along to her.

Unknown said...

Martin - I'm very grateful to Pablo for allowing us to re-post his research and information on book donations...

DNLee said...

Another recommendation related to local colleges and universities:
Make friends with a secretary (or more) from an academic department of interest. Professors (and grad students) routinely get text books to review from publishers and don't keep them all. Plus as grad students/post docs move away or professors retire they usually discard alot of books. No sense in these great resources going to landfills.

DNLee said...

BTW - I have a stack of Science Magazines from 2006 to present. If anyone in the Mid-west wants them I am happy to drop them off. They can be a great primary resource for a school library.