The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change (20 page)

The final play in building the team was to hire someone who could handle all legal and financial matters—something we needed to ensure trust and accountability across our staff, board, and supporters. Brad had reconnected me to Tom Casazzone, whom I only
remembered as my brother’s best friend in kindergarten. He now had a legal degree along with experience in nonprofit accounting. Tom began handling the organization’s finances, and we soon made it official with a real position and salary.

I was no longer on my own. We had people across the globe who could deliver on our new goal to break ground on our fifteenth school by the end of the year. Our entire leadership team was made up of individuals whom I had known not just as colleagues, but also as friends. Creating a company means you’re going to go through hell and high water along the way. You need to know the character of the people at your side. Trust is everything.

*  *  *

While I was building PoP, my brother, Scott, had also changed course and was embarking on a new path as well. He had moved to Atlanta to attend Emory University, where he adopted the nickname I had jokingly given him in high school, Scooter, and quickly built up a business as the biggest nightclub promoter in the city. He transitioned from nightlife to the music industry by working for music mogul Jermaine Dupri at So So Def Recordings, then left college and the label to start his own company managing artists he discovered. His first breakout act was Asher Roth with the number one single “I Love College.” One day Scott called me to tell me about his newest act: “He’s just a kid, he’s only thirteen years old. I found him on YouTube, but he’s unbelievable. I’ll be in New York next week, so I’ll bring him by your apartment so you guys can meet.”

One week later, a tiny kid with shaggy hair walked into my apartment carrying a guitar that seemed way too big for his body. “Hey, I’m Justin. Can I play you a song?” he asked right away.

“Sure,” I said, and over the next twenty minutes he belted out
song after song. His voice was absolutely incredible, but his infectious energy won me over even more. You just couldn’t help but love this adorable kid. That night when I saw Brad for drinks, I gushed about my brother’s new artist.

“He just signed this kid, and he’s going to be huge. His name is Justin Bieber.”

*  *  *

Because Justin was so young, Scott wasn’t just his manager; he also helped raise him. As a result, over the next few years Justin became a part of our extended family. He’d spend days off at my parents’ house playing in the pool, practicing dance moves in the mirror, and challenging us to games of one-on-one in the driveway.

I’ll never forget the summer afternoon when we were teaching him how to wakeboard, and his first single, “One Time,” came on Z100, the largest radio station in the country. It was the first time we had heard it on air, and we all jumped out of our seats, celebrating the moment while Justin sang along at the top of his lungs.

By the time we got back to the house, we had settled down a bit and Justin asked me what I was working on lately. It was the first time we spoke in depth about PoP. Much to my surprise, the mission resonated with him right away.

“This is awesome. I’ve always wanted to build schools for kids. Scooter, we should do something with Pencils of Promise!” he shouted.

“I think you need to figure out your career first,” I said in all seriousness. One song on the radio was great, but he wasn’t a global star quite yet. “If you become big, I have no doubt we’ll all be able to build many, many schools together.”

From the start, Scott stressed the importance of giving back in everything he and Justin did, but Scott purposely didn’t pressure
Justin to support PoP just because his brother had started the organization. But the organization was focused on empowering young people to realize the changes they could make in the world, and that message was something Justin believed in deeply. He soon became one of the first members of our growing youth movement by helping raise money for the organization and advocating for us on social media. Part of that was due to the closeness of our relationship, but an even bigger part of it was due to the natural alignment of our mission with what he cared about most—helping children.

He was so invested in our work that when the father of one of his fans asked what it would cost for his daughter to meet him before a show, Justin turned to Scott and asked how much it would cost to build a new classroom. Scott replied, “Ten thousand dollars.” Justin said, “I’ll do it, but only if he donates that money to Pencils of Promise.” Later that night, he texted me,
Just built a new classroom for the kids!

Toward the end of 2010, we planned a family vacation to Africa to meet the families of Sam and Cornelio, our adopted Mozambican brothers. Justin had become a major celebrity by then and was considered one of the biggest pop stars in the world. He wasn’t exactly living the life of a normal teenager, so my parents and his mom, Pattie, figured a family vacation without extensive security dictating his every step would be good for him. Scott roomed with his girlfriend, my sister roomed solo, and that left Justin and me as roommates for the two-week trip.

PoP had finally secured the group health insurance coverage needed for me to get shoulder surgery, which I had done as soon as the paperwork allowed, but it left me pretty immobile throughout the trip. Although the pandemonium around Justin wasn’t quite as crazy as it was stateside, even in Africa it was still tough
for him to walk in the streets without being recognized. Our solution was to spend a lot of time hanging out in the room. We were already close, but with so many hours together we bonded over music, girls, and conversations about how young people like us could help other young people around the world. We also shared plenty of laughs while pranking one another (he’d hack my Twitter account in the morning, and I’d put grapes in his pockets in the afternoon) and trying to avoid the attention drawn by his famous Bieber haircut.

One day in the hotel elevator, two Mozambican women in their midthirties recognized him. They were beside themselves, asking for pictures and autographs.

“You’re him!” they exclaimed.

“Who?” he asked calmly.

“You’re Justin Bieber!”

“No, I’m not. We just look similar,” he insisted, trying to avoid their hysterics.

“Look at your hair. I know that hair. You’re you!”

“No! I’m not me!” he exclaimed. Right away, all four of us cracked up, laughing at the blunder. He graciously took a picture with the two women and we headed back to our room. We talked about how excited they were to meet him and started to contemplate how we could use that desire to do some good. A few days later, we got into a serious brainstorming session.

“Let’s do something big,” Justin said. “Something that’ll raise a ton of money and build a bunch of schools.”

“How about we create a fundraising contest. Students could compete against each other to see who can raise the most for PoP. Whoever raises the most would get a big grand prize. Maybe you would go visit their school or something?” I asked.

“Nice, let’s do that.”

“You’re sure? You’d have to be willing to fly anywhere in the country to visit the winning school.”

“For Pencils of Promise? One hundred percent.”

*  *  *

Later that night we recorded a grainy video on my Flip cam. We described a new campaign that we would launch early the next year called Schools4All, which encouraged students to fundraise on behalf of children without access to education, with a chance to win a school visit from Justin. Although the official video we released wouldn’t be made until the following April, putting together our first attempt in our room that night was a blast. It didn’t feel like some contrived celebrity integration, because it wasn’t. The idea came out of a real relationship where both people cared about each other—and the cause.

When we shared the idea the next morning with Scott, he was all for it. “I’m proud of you guys, we can definitely make this happen,” he said. You cannot fake authenticity, and since he’d spent his whole life setting the example for both Justin and me to give back to others, on that morning I think he could see his influence taking effect. PoP had its first flagship campaign in the works, we had a trusted team in place, and an inner circle had been established of those who genuinely cared about our work. Now it was finally time for me to let down my guard and start sharing our story with the world.

P
encils of Promise was beginning to become known in small circles; we had made a name for ourselves through the Chase Community Giving Contest, had newfound connections at Summit Series, and Justin had begun to amplify our work on Twitter and Facebook. But largely, we stayed out of the traditional press. I knew that the Pencils of Promise story I wanted to tell hadn’t yet occurred, so I turned down every interview and media opportunity that came my way.

I cared much more about PoP’s long-term success than its early notoriety. Creating something new is easy, creating something that lasts is the challenge. I modeled my approach after the bands I loved most, since many of them had lasted for thirty or forty years. They didn’t achieve staying power by splashing their faces across highway billboards as soon as they wrote their first three songs. They first built a loyal base of hard-core fans who
felt they “discovered” the band and would ardently share their music with others. Over the years, these bands built up credibility and refined their craft, until they were ready to release a major album. What seemed like an overnight success was actually years in the making.

I’d seen the stories of other NGOs appear in minor and major publications, and while the press helped with visibility, many times it didn’t lead to any new funding or support. That’s because the single most wasted resource on earth is human intention. How many times have you wanted to do something but not acted right away and forgotten about it later? People probably read those articles and had a strong desire to help in that moment, but the organization didn’t have easy and effective mechanisms (website, staff, back-end systems) to convert that intention into action.

I decided early on that we wouldn’t share our story through traditional press until we had three pieces in place: (1) what I called a “holy shit” story. You needed to hear about PoP and think,
Holy shit! How have I not heard about this? I need to tell someone else about it now
; (2) a beautiful website with a back-end system to handle inbound inquiries; and (3) the staff and infrastructure to follow up immediately on any interest in our organization.

I waited nearly two years for us to reach a double-digit school count (our “holy shit” story) and get our website, staff, and infrastructure to a place of excellence. By late 2010, we finally had everything in order. AgencyNet delivered a gorgeous website that not only allowed donors to see the exact locations via GPS of schools they funded, but also to take a 360-degree virtual tour inside the classroom using cutting-edge technology. Tom audited our financials and ensured that the most rigorous standards of financial accountability were in effect across all offices. We even
added five “adult” board members to guide us through the next period of expected growth. I was finally ready to go outbound with our message.

*  *  *

A reporter had emailed me over the summer to say she wanted to write about Pencils of Promise for the
Huffington Post
. I told her to wait a few months since I still hadn’t done a single interview and was waiting for us to break ground on a slew of new schools that fall. But I kept my word that I would go back to her when we were ready. After we did the hour-long interview, she told me that she’d share the piece with her editor and see if they wanted to publish it. Much to my surprise, the article, titled “The New Nonprofit: Pencils of Promise,” became the cover story on
HuffPost Impact
over Thanksgiving weekend. The page splashed a huge photo with the catchy teaser “How a Backpacker Built 15 Schools from One Pencil” and was shared nearly twenty-five hundred times, making it the most shared article of its section that month.

This well-timed article put us on the map. The phone started ringing. Emails started coming in. Big brands reached out wanting to work with us. David Yurman’s head of global marketing launched a fundraiser in its flagship store and donated products for us to auction off. AOL,
Vogue
,
Variety
, and
People
magazine all reached out to explore ways to partner with us. CBS and ABC started competing to get an exclusive piece on PoP for their evening news programs. The doors to countless major corporate sponsors were now wide open, and I was ready to jump at the opportunity.

Our early beliefs in the value of social media and the rise of cause marketing were finally paying dividends as we began structuring branded partnerships that led to major dollars. Justin’s support helped even more, as many of his corporate sponsors donated
to PoP because we were his favorite charity (along with the Make-A-Wish Foundation). Justin and Scott even structured the North American leg of the My World Tour to donate $1 per ticket to PoP—creating a new generation of young philanthropists among the fans attending his shows.