Logo of Big Brother Mouse, publishing books in Laos
 

FUNDING

Sponsorship credit in a book. We've taken what may be an unusual approach to funding. We've set our goals based on what we feel is needed here in Laos: Producing good, varied books; and making them widely available. We spend very little time on fundraising. That usually falls on me, since I'm the only native English speaker, and I'm quite protective of the time I spend teaching skills, making books, and developing distribution.

Instead, we've taken the approach that we'll do what we believe is needed, and hope that enough people will see that, and value it, and want to help without spending unnecessary time writing proposals.

Does that approach work? I often look ahead six months or a year, and wonder ... but so far, we've generally had the funding to do as much as we're able to do well. Occasionally books go on the slow track as they wait for a sponsor, but nthing has had to wait too long.

We were fortunate, in that I had enough funds from sales of a previous business to fund all our overhead (relatively minor costs) and printing (major) for the first year. You may not have that resource. But if you've acquired enough experience and skill to start a literacy or reading project, you probably do have resources, friends and associates along the way who believe you can do it and are ready to help.