The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change (17 page)

That was the final sign I needed. I got on the flight knowing that my mind was made up—I would leave Bain the next week to pursue PoP full-time.

*  *  *

The following week I drafted the scariest email of my life. It began,
To my Bain family, it’s been real. It’s been great. It’s been really great
.
I knew that the moment I sent it out, the four-paragraph email would be delivered to more than four hundred employees across the system—the entire NYC office, international partners, managers, mentors, and friends. I would be notifying them that I was leaving the company, and there would be no turning back.

Nearly everyone I knew, including my own parents, thought I was an idiot to do this. We didn’t have a single full-time employee or major institutional donor. Every part of my rational brain told me to stay and finish out my time. It was safe, it was lucrative, and it was easy. But I couldn’t ignore the voice somewhere deep inside that knew what I needed to do. In some ways it felt like a choice, and in other ways it felt as if I was simply following the path I was meant to take. The signs were clear. I took a deep breath, packed up my desk, and pressed send.

N
orman’s office space would not be ready for a few months, so until the summer arrived, I lived and worked in my 350-square-foot East Village apartment. When people asked, “My office or yours?” I always responded with “Let’s go for a quick bite instead.” I’d then suggest a café within three blocks of my apartment so I could pop out and then return to my workstation, also known as my couch. Sometimes you have to fake it until you make it, and this was definitely one of those times.

After removing my TV and other distractions, I nailed a huge whiteboard to the wall to map out any ideas that came to mind. I was as single as it gets, but it felt like I was in a relationship with Pencils of Promise. From the moment I woke up until my head hit the pillow at night, 99 percent of my time and mental energy was spent on the organization. Failure was not an option, so I made
sure I was always connected via my phone or computer, in case that next big email was about to come through.

Not long into my new round-the-clock work regimen, a compelling opportunity came up. On an international flight, I sat next to some of the founders of Summit Series, a company that hosted exclusive retreats for young entrepreneurs, artists, and activists. They focused on business practices, tech innovation, and networking. The idea was to mash up the greatest group of multidiscipline world changers—entrepreneurs, scientists, venture capitalists, entertainers, and media people—and see what good they can do.

Throughout the flight, I talked with Josh and Jeff from the Summit founding team. By the time we arrived, Jeff told me confidently, “We are going to change your life.” They invited me to attend their next major event in Washington, DC, which came with the hefty price tag of $3,600.

We definitely couldn’t afford that, but when I looked at the website, I saw that the list of speakers and attendees was incredibly impressive. Not only were luminaries such as former president Bill Clinton and Ted Turner speaking, but many of the nonprofit founders I admired most would be there as well. We needed to add some firepower to our board of directors, and this event would be attended by hundreds of the types of people I was looking for. “I’ll come if you can give me a significant nonprofit discount and introduce me to three people who will join my board,” I said.

“Done,” Josh replied. “Also, flights are cheap.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be taking the bus,” I said. No way would I spend the extra money on a plane ticket. I didn’t even take money out of PoP to get myself health insurance—something that would later prove to be disastrous.

*  *  *

I knew that we didn’t have the money to pay a second employee, but I also knew that without a team the organization couldn’t scale. My plan wasn’t perfect, but I started to recruit a small army of high school and college volunteer interns to work on PoP all summer for free. With the economy in such bad shape, I figured I could even find someone between jobs who might volunteer as a full-time intern manager as well. After posting these positions on several message boards, I started to get a few decent résumés.

One applicant in particular really stood out, Jocelyn Kmet, a former recruiter at McKinsey & Company, who began her letter, “Dear Hiring Manager.” As I sat alone in my apartment reading that header, I couldn’t help but laugh. If only she knew how small our organization really was.

Although I had to fly to Laos the next day for the opening of three new schools, I decided to meet with her at my corner Starbucks a few hours before heading to the airport. Spunky, stylish, and smart, she was clearly qualified for the job. She had personality and passion, but I left believing that I should wait to interview a few more candidates before pulling the trigger. I thanked her for her time, then rushed off to the airport.

When I arrived in Luang Prabang, I was welcomed at Rattana Guesthouse with big hugs from Leslie and Lanoy. After catching up briefly, I headed to Joma to check emails. The cashier rang up the freshly squeezed orange juice that I ordered, and when I asked for the Wi-Fi password, she handed me a thin, one-inch-wide piece of paper. It looked like the scrolls used inside fortune cookies, and when I read the password printed on the back, I could barely believe what I saw.

The password was
jocelyn9
.

The signs couldn’t have been any clearer. I decided to follow the fates, and the first email I wrote was to Jocelyn offering her
the job. She accepted right away and started recruiting the team that would become our first intern class.

*  *  *

When I returned stateside, I met with Jocelyn to outline a work plan and then headed down to Washington, DC, to attend my first Summit Series event. A collection of 750 of the nation’s leading young entrepreneurs had come together to connect and trade ideas. I recognized many names and companies on the attendee list, but had never before met a single person there.

I was committed to making the most of every second, so I signed up for both of the optional “speed networking” sessions offered as part of the preconference programming. I was used to having hour-long coffee chats where I told my story in twenty minutes, but suddenly I was forced to explain PoP in less than sixty seconds. In those two sessions I met the founders of eighty emerging start-ups who were just as eager to get their name out there, including the entrepreneurs behind Airbnb, a company now worth billions. All of these founders demonstrated one thing in particular: they could tell their story fast.

Later that night I went to a party where I met Jason Russell, Laren Poole, and Bobby Bailey, the three cofounders of Invisible Children, an organization I revered. They had won the $1 million grand prize in the Chase Community Giving Contest. When I introduced myself to Laren at the bar, he pulled in Jason right away, shouting, “This is the guy from Pencils of Promise. When you were in second place, right away we were so scared, everyone in our organization was asking, ‘Who the hell are these guys!’ ” PoP had never paid a dollar to advertise itself, but its social media presence was clearly paying off. I couldn’t believe three guys I admired from afar actually knew who I was.

Leaders from every red-hot start-up were in attendance, and whether people were onstage or in the audience, they clearly all shared the same general path. Most had been told no, but they refused to give up. They were confident and unflappable, but they weren’t afraid to ask for help. And they had all failed at times. But they learned more from their mistakes than their successes.

Those I met defined themselves by what was on their mind, not on their business card. And although I felt like the new kid on the block, I was glad to be around people with so much accumulated experience and wisdom to share.

*  *  *

Ironically, the one person I didn’t have much time to connect with was my assigned roommate, Adam Witty, who founded and ran a publishing company in South Carolina. We barely crossed paths until the final morning as we were both packing to go. When he asked me what I did, I hit him with my newly refined sixty-second pitch.

“That’s really great,” he replied. “Our company’s five-year anniversary is coming up in a few months. How about we ask all of our authors to donate to Pencils of Promise and build a new school together? I’ll put you in touch with Brooke from my team now; we’ll make this happen.”

Through this one quick conversation, I had locked in my first full-school commitment. Over the next several months and years, members of the Summit community would fund many, many more schools. Some of them used their companies to build a school, a few wrote checks from their personal accounts, and others simply put me on an email with someone they knew was interested in our work. And through that community, I met three people who would ultimately join our board of directors.

As I rode the bus back to my cramped East Village apartment, I thought about how important it was for me to occasionally and deliberately separate from my normal routine. The meaningful connections I’d had over the previous few days didn’t happen when I was staring at my computer, banging out emails, but when I focused on being present with the people right in front of me. I began to think,
How many times have I missed an incredible connection that could have been made because I had my face in my phone instead of paying attention to those around me?

I also thought back to my college basketball days, and remembered that muscles are not strengthened as you are lifting weights. In fact, lifting heavy weights actually creates small tears that slightly damage your muscles. But through the act of recovery, your body repairs these small tears in ways that help your muscles grow in size and strength. In other words, the recovery period is just as essential as the working period if you want to be a peak performer.

This realization led me to institute a personal policy of going off email from Friday night until Sunday morning. I would use my weekends to rest, rejuvenate, and reconnect with those I cherished most. For one day a week, it’s important to allow yourself to be a human being, rather than a human doing.

Little did I know that three weeks later, my new policy would be tested by a man in Fort Lauderdale who could potentially provide the biggest donation in the history of Pencils of Promise.

And he wanted to talk through the weekend.

T
o grow and scale we needed to craft a unique digital presence, but we still didn’t have a website. For over a year we had a placeholder that read,
Website coming soon.

We simply didn’t have the resources to invest in a website. It would have taken a significant amount of time and money to do it right, and I decided to wait until we could afford it. Your website is your storefront, your billboard, and your calling card. It’s the focal part of any modern business, and I was determined to create one that stood out.

One of the biggest challenges of the nonprofit space is the false perception that “overhead,” or anything other than your core programs, consists of inefficient, careless spending. But investment in your infrastructure is essential for growth. A strong website should be the flagship asset of a good organization, especially one like ours that works in remote parts of the world. Still, donors want to
see a high ratio of spending on programs to overhead (traditionally 80 percent is considered very good), so I had to anxiously wait for a miracle before I could justify spending real money on a website.

Brad was still working at BBH but was functioning as our de facto chief branding officer. He reached out to our mutual friend Alex. We used to play basketball together growing up, and now he worked at AgencyNet, one of the top digital agencies in the country. Considering they built Bacardi’s site and the Clinton Foundation’s, it seemed like a joke that they would even talk to us. We’d never be able to pay for the services. But maybe Alex could provide some advice or volunteer some time to recruit and quarterback a team of freelancers to build our site. At least that’s what I hoped for in my wildest dreams.