Open Hearts Big Dreams Fund

OHBD is designed to take on hard challenges that needed to be solved but haven’t been solved yet. We didn’t just want to be one more small NGO. We wanted to have an outsized impact by choosing “white space” challenges which if solved would 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 could be applied to other parts of the world with similar challenges but design. We also provide support to the Diaspora in promoting black stories, African culture and language preservation.

We believe in the power of collaboration so we a key goal is driving collaboration with other NGOs who share our mission and approach. We collaborate directly and also use our programs to introduce NGOs and encourage collaboration between NGOs. Our pillars of focus are Literacy, Innovation, Inclusion and Leadership.

We chose each because they provide children, and adults, a way to problem solve and reimagine their future. We believe education is more than formal education and that teaching leadership is critical.

We set big, bold goals and hold ourselves accountable to achieve them. We use experiments and pilots to test before making a larger investment. We identify game changers, reimagine, reinvent and innovate.

We also identify areas where there is no organization currently focused on solving a key challenge. We want to supplement or support the good work already being done, not reinvent the wheel. Our projects search for gaps that need to closed and then design and implement a solution.

We developed tenets, borrowing an approach used by leaders at Amazon, to guide our strategic decision making. Tenets represent our aspiration as well as help us make tough trade-offs and choices. We decide priorities and make decisions based on these tenets.

One: Our scope is 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.

Two: We run like a business
We set big, bold goals and hold ourselves accountable to achieve them. We use experiments and pilots to test before making a larger investment.

Three: 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.

Four: Our projects close important gaps
Our projects search for gaps that need to be closed and have a need for us to design a results-oriented solution.

Five: We design to scale and include measures of success
Many NGOs stay small and don’t focus on scaling. We want to take the business approach to building scale into each project over a period of years.

Six: We partner with NGOs and organizations who build local capacity
We know our limitations. Working in Ethiopia requires unique skills, knowledge, and relationships. Many organizations are already doing great work. We want to work with those who are innovating, willing to collaborate, have bold goals, and are focused on increasing local capacity.

Seven: 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 want to ensure we honor that trust by measuring and disclosing the impact of our projects and programs as much as possible. We also share stories of our impact, the impact of those we collaborate with, and those we learn about, to amplify and elevate their efforts.

Eight: Our results inspire involvement and encourage collaboration
We want game changers and results that inspire others to get involved to help. NGOs currently don’t have many incentives to collaborate. We want to change that by using our Model Projects to take the best of organizations we vet and help them teach other organizations so they can move faster in challenging areas.

OHBD is an innovator in STEAM and Literacy. OHBD (with Lebawi in Addis) piloted a 6 week girls coding school in 2018, piloted Train the Trainer (ToT) and virtual coding class (with Q.Me) programs with American corners and Ethiopian universities and Tech leaders from leading companies, and won a US Embassy grant to lead Computer Science, Business/Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Communication training in their 6 American Corners in Addis, Jimma, Dire Dawa, Bahir Dar, and Mekelle. OHBD published over 125 colorful, culturally appropriate dual language early reader titles in seven Ethiopian languages, distributing 300K+ copies locally since 2017 with plans more another 100K+ in 2022. We also added French with support from Amazon in 2021.

All 47 titles submitted to Ministry of Education in Ethiopia in 2019 were approved. OHBD is well positioned to deliver cutting-edge instruction, increase connection between Tech and Academic leaders in the US and Ethiopia, build knowledge sharing and collaboration through publishing capabilities, and increase the visibility of talent pipeline for tech employment in Ethiopia and the US.

Many NGOs stay small and don’t focus on scaling. 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 focused on smaller languages requested by individuals or organizations that provided small amounts of funding. The printing was done with local resource in Portland. We redesigned to scale with on-demand printing on Amazon and focused on the top 3 languages which would cover 80% of the local population and set the bold goal of 200 titles since research said that was the number needed to have the chance to improve the literacy rate. We are now a mid-sized publisher on Kindle Direct Publishing and are adding new languages as well as focusing on STEM training manuals for teachers.

Another example relates to our STEM efforts. We piloted three different STEM training efforts and are now working on expanding to more locations and engaging more volunteer and supporting organizations as the US Embassy training partners. We also built both a science building for a innovative teacher and two community libraries to model for communities the impact of these types of investments.

We continue to grow the number of individuals and organizations we collaborate with to build local capacity each year.

OHBD Bilingual READYSETGO Books-- Literacy Focus.
We have created over 125 unique titles so far in seven different local languages (more coming) and English with more than 300 people involved in the creation. They are available on Amazon in North America and Europe and in assorted selection in WA, CO, MN and CA Public Libraries. We have versions in Amharic, Tigrinya, Afaan Oromo, Somali, Dizin, Anuak, French and a few Greek. With collaboration organizations, we locally printed and distributed over 300,000 copies of our books. The Ministry of Education in Ethiopia reviewed and approved the all our Amharic versions titles we submitted to practice reading. We trained 300+ educators to use our books to teach kids how to read. We are working on another 100,000+ printing run in new languages and have developed two local printing approaches to continue to make affordable books available in country. We are piloting a Model program focused on illiterate moms called Read 2 Mom to increase literacy of two generations. We also conducted writers and artists workshops to increase the number of local content creators. We launched an artist in residence program for a local artist to teach kids in Ethiopia and plan to expand to more artists and schools in the coming years. We provide coaching and support for new writers and illustrators to develop more own voices for our books.

INNOVATION and LEADERSHIP

We piloted a number of Model programs, a six week girls coding camp in Addis, well transition scholarship for talented high schoolers to attend local universities, and STEM intro and train the trainer classes. We also built two Model Libraries and Science building. Each program is documented and shared so other organizations will be able to learn and use. We are now working on expanding our STEM offerings to more students and organizations with a gender balance focus, we are creating and publishing STEM focused teacher training manuals, expanding the library to model how it can support the community and adding a disability focus to all our projects in addition to the gender and economic lens we currently have in place.