Room to Read
World Change Starts with Educated Children
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Girls' Education
Room to Read’s Girls’ Education Program ensures that girls build the skills to succeed in school and make key life decisions.We support girls as they strengthen their power as positive change agents by providing life skills classes, mentorship and peer support, and family and community engagement. Through the program, girls will be supported with resources to self-advocate and chart a successful life path that they choose for themselves. Essential to our program are teachers and social mobilizers, who are trained to work with girls and their families to ensure that girls stay in school, participate in life skills activities, and navigate the challenges of adolescence with the ability to make their own life choices, both personally and professionally. Our program goes further by supporting young people of all genders to build knowledge and skills with which they can create a gender-equal world and tackle some of the world’
Literacy Program
Room to Read’s Literacy Program supports children as they develop into independent readers and lifelong learners who are breaking the cycle of illiteracy within their own families. Our Literacy Program trains and coaches teachers, creates quality books and curricular materials and establishes libraries filled with diverse children’s books in local languages that can be enjoyed at school or home. We partner with local communities, governments, and the publishing industry to test and implement innovative models that help children establish foundational literacy skills and develop a love of reading. We combine the science of learning to read with the magic of loving to read. We sustain students’ reading skills development by creating child-friendly libraries and quality children’s books.
Where we work
External reviews
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of groups/individuals benefiting from tools/resources/education materials provided
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Since our founding, Room to Read has benefited more than 32 million children and has worked in 21 countries around the world to help young learners unlock their full potential through education.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
We envision a world in which all children can pursue a quality education, reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world.
We are achieving this goal by helping children in historically low-income communities develop literacy skills and a habit of reading, and by supporting girls as they build skills to succeed in secondary school and negotiate key life decisions. Room to Read collaborates with local communities, partner organizations and governments to test and implement innovative models that can be integrated into the education system to deliver positive outcomes for children at scale.
Room to Read has benefited more than 32 million children and has worked in 21 countries and in more than 49,000 communities, providing support through remote solutions that facilitate learning beyond the classroom. Room to Read aims to benefit 40 million children by 2025.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Room to Read’s innovative model focuses on deep, systemic education transformation during the two most critical time periods in a child’s learning: early primary school for literacy acquisition and secondary school for girls’ education.
Room to Read’s Literacy Program supports children to develop reading skills and a love of reading, helping young readers become lifelong learners. Our Girls’ Education Program, centered on a multi-year life skills curriculum, supports adolescent girls as they improve learning and life outcomes, helping them graduate with the ability to think critically and find solutions to address day-to-day challenges as independent problem solvers.
We establish partnerships with local governments, public school systems and local NGOs to reform education systems at the national level, integrating our proven interventions to deliver outcomes at scale.
Alongside working within schools, we implement accessible learning solutions such as remote mentoring, virtual training, TV and radio broadcasts, as well as tips for parents and teachers to support learning continuity. Through appropriate technology channels, Room to Read facilitates human connectivity and learning both in the home and the classroom.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Our theory of change is rooted in an evidence-based design, optimized for a public school system that integrates reading instruction and learning materials with libraries that offer children a print-rich environment, filled with culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate reading materials. We offer gender-transformative life skills instruction as well as gender-sensitive learning resources. During the course of the global pandemic, we adapted many of our program components for home learning environments.
We use data to evolve and improve our programs each year. Room to Read is committed to measuring our results and reporting these results to our stakeholders as we consider transparency central to our success. This includes developing rigorous methods for determining results through regular data collection against key indicators.
As an organization recognized for its transparency and financial excellence, we work to ensure that each dollar invested is maximizing the impact on each child and school we benefit .
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
A quality education remains out of reach for millions of children around the world. Approximately 17% of the world’s children and youth are not in school. Room to Read is committed to supporting children in communities experiencing deep educational and economic inequities, where investments in education accelerate positive change for children, families and communities.
Since our founding in 2000, Room to Read has benefited more than 32million1 children and has worked in 21countries around the world to help young learners unlock their full potential through education.
Our reading skills evaluations show that children in our Literacy Program read more fluently than their peers in comparable schools. By the end of second grade, students tested in program schools read twice as fast as their peers on average and, in some countries, nearly three times as fast. When asked reading comprehension questions about the passages they had just read, children in Room to Read programs gave, on average, 87% more correct answers than children in comparison schools.
As of the end of 2021, Room to Read has published more than 6,100 original and adapted children’s titles in 57 local languages and distributed more than 36 million books, providing primary school students with the resources and guidance they need to build a strong foundation in literacy.
Each year, more than 95% of Girls’ Education Program participants who remain enrolled advance to the next grade. Among those who graduate, over 70% go on to tertiary education or employment.
Room to Read aims to benefit 40 million children by 2025.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Room to Read
Board of directorsas of 11/29/2022
Yusuf Alireza
ARP Global Capital Limited
Term: 2022 -
John Wood
Microsoft
Scott Kapnick
Highbridge Capital Management, LLC
Yusuf Alireza
Goldman Sachs
John Ridding
Financial Times Group
Susan Wojcicki
YouTube
Luis Crouch
RTI
Mary Byron
Goldman Sachs
Frank van Veenendaal
Salesforce
Geetha Murali
Room to Read
Andrew Balls
PIMCO
Carl Huttenlocher
Myriad Asset Management
Dr. Elizabeth M. King
Brookings Institute
John Lindfors
DST Investment Management
Vicky Tsai
Tatcha
Mike Cannon-Brookes
Atlassian
Sabine Chalmers
BT Group Plc
Lydie Hudson
Credit Suisse
Stasia Obremskey
RH Capital
Najoh Tita-Reid
Logitech
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? No -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? No -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? No -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? No -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
Transgender Identity
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data