The impact story series reveals the journeys of social entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizers, their ups and downs in achieving different social missions, and potential support they need in order to thrive, especially in measuring impact and getting funding. If you are also an impact maker, hear from them to get inspiration for your own impact journey.
Episode 2: A unique social enterprise founded by a book-lover who believes that the transformative power of reading should be accessible to all children, regardless of their background, economic status or ability.
#SDG4 #SocialEnterprise #ReadingAccessibility #Hong Kong, Written by LilSeed
“The ability and interest to read is like a key — it unlocks the vast world of knowledge and collective intelligence. How do we inspire and enable children from different backgrounds to access it?”
With the mission to enhance reading accessibility and to re-connect people through shared knowledge, Rolling Books, founded in 2018, is a social enterprise that uses reading as a tool to address various social issues such as resilience building, poverty, ethnic minorities’ Chinese language learning barrier, and visual disabilities. Partnering with different organizations, Rolling Books brings interactive and engaging reading activities to schools and communities through mobile pop-up libraries and events. Their signature projects include collaborating with Audio Description Association (Hong Kong) to publish multi-sensory picture books tailored to visually impaired children and reading promotion and books provision for asylum-seeking children, supported by CUHK The Campus Planning and Sustainability Office’s Sustainable Development Goals Action Fund.
Funding journey and challenges
James Chong, founder of Rolling Books, is a book and culture lover with prior experiences of starting an independent bookshop as well as working in an international NGO’s education team. The first funding that he obtained for Rolling Books was HK$100,000 (around US$12,800) from The SIE Fund through Good Seed of the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong. The seed funding was used to develop a mobile book van, which brought pop-up library reading experience to 10 schools within one year. To further expand the program, Rolling Books received an additional HK$300,000 (around US$38,400) from the same fund to develop innovative book- promoting events.
James reflected that the seed capital significantly helped him kick-starting and developing Rolling Books’ revenue model based on customizable reading promotion services using mobile vans. These mobile vans bring pop-up reading and theater experiences to more schools.
One challenge that James encountered is the limitation in funding options. He reflected that previous successful funds were mainly project-based grants instead of impact investment due to Rolling Books’s service-based nature. Project-based grants tend to be one-off, making it hard for the social enterprise to reach sustainability after the funding period ends.
Another challenge is on the operational level. His service delivery is very labor-intensive. Pop-up events require frequent set-up and dismantling as well as a lot of liaison and admin work. Not all funds are able to accommodate a relatively larger proportion of manpower cost.
How is Rolling Book’s impact being measured?
Rolling Books measures its impact using various metrics. For example, in terms of enhancing Chinese language proficiency of Ethnic Minority children, Rolling Books tracks “increased number of words learnt” (benchmark reference), “EM children’s increased confidence in speaking Chinese” (pre/post survey), and “number of Chinese residents interacting with EM members during community showcase” (counting). In school reading promotion programs, through pre and post surveys, Rolling Books found that more than 80% of teachers who participated in the programme reflected that students have significant increase in interest in reading, self-learning ability and self-confidence.
Impact measurement and management (IMM) is a topic that James is very keen on learning, as it provides a framework to evaluate whether their work creates value to their beneficiaries, i.e., children, students, schools and the general public. Since different funders have their own requirements when it comes to impact measurement, as a social entrepreneur James feels the need to proactively learn the ins and outs of IMM.
He has had the privilege to study impact measurement from various professional programmes over the past years, including , the Global Launchpad training program organized by Chicago Booth, the NGO Leadership Programme sponsored by UBS -, Operation Santa Claus, and the American Express Leadership Academy. These programs provided insights about impact measurements from global and local academies as well as business leaders.
What kind of support is needed in terms of fund seeking?
In order to successfully match a fund, James thinks the organization’s founder or fundraising staff’s own capability is important. Starting from its mission and vision, the organization needs to be clear and well-versed about its own theory of change and its impact measurement framework, in order to appeal to new funding sources such as impact investors.
James recommends fellow social enterprises or NGO leaders to check out resources such as Outcome/ Impact Indicator Bank provided by the Jockey Club MEL Institute and the Jockey Club Fullness Social Impact Measurement Coaching Scheme.
He also thinks that publicity opportunities are important such that their work and impact can be seen, securing Rolling Books as a key player of the sector. Having more channels to showcase their services and display their profiles will help the social enterprise gain visibility.
Going forward, James would like to further develop technological or even AI-enabled reading promotions. He hopes to find like-minded funders to realize these ideas, and at the same time, join hands with the education and social services sector to equip younger generations with literacy skills fit for our digital future!
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