Pillars
Maximizing Impact
OHBD is designed to take on important, hard challenges that haven’t yet been solved. We didn’t want to be just one more small NGO: We want to have an outsized impact by choosing “white space” opportunities which if successful, will be game changers. We also wanted to use the best of business and technology to help drive faster progress.
Our focus is K-14, education and Ethiopia but everything we do can be applied to other parts of the world with similar challenges.
We believe in the power of collaboration. A key goal is driving collaboration with other organizations, NGOs and individuals who share our mission and approach. We collaborate directly and use our programs to introduce organizations and individuals to encourage collaboration between them.
Our pillars of focus are literacy, leadership, innovation and inclusion. We chose each of these because they provide children, and adults, a way to reimagine their future. We believe education is more than formal schooling. We also believe teaching leadership is critical to helping communities solve their own challenges. We elevate innovative work being done for kids in Ethiopia.
Core Tenets
1
Scope
Ethiopia, K-14, and education
Although our approach is applicable to other regions with similar challenges, we need to focus our efforts to be successful. We believe education is broader than formal schooling.
2
Improvement
Our projects close important gaps
Our projects search for gaps that have a need for us to design a results oriented solution. For example, our OHBD Ready Set Go Book Project is designed to close the key gap that exists in the lack of sufficient engaging early reader content.
3
Operations
We operate like a business
Having been a business executive for more than a decade, our founder wanted to take the best of a business approach to drive accountability as well as to generate faster and more impactful results. We set big, bold goals and hold ourselves accountable to achieve them. We use experiments and pilots to test before making a larger investment.
4
Curiosity
We identify game changers, reimagine, reinvent and innovate
We look for efforts that, although they may present uniquely difficult challenges, if solved, will have a disproportionate impact. We also identify areas where there is no organization currently focused on solving a key challenge
5
Impact
We design to scale and include measures of success
We want to take the business approach to building scale into each project over a period of years. For example, when the Ready Set Go Books project came to us, it was in the experimental (or “development” or “start-up”) stage with a few prototype books and one successful field testing in a rural area of Ethiopia. We redesigned to scale by developing publishing, printing and distribution capacity.
6
Transparency
Supporters trust us because we measure and disclose our impact
We know trust is critical if we are asking people to donate their precious time, talents and funds. We honor that trust by measuring and disclosing the impact of our projects and programs as much as possible. We also share impact stories since they show what is possible and have power to inspire people
7
Involvement
Our results inspire involvement and encourage collaboration
We want game changers and results that inspire others to get involved.
8
Collaboration
We collaborate with those who build local capacity
We know our limitations. Working in Ethiopia requires unique skills, knowledge and relationships. Many are already doing great work there. We want to work with those who are innovating, willing to collaborate, have bold goals and are focused on increasing local capacity