For over 40 years, BookSpring has worked tirelessly to close the literacy gap in Central Texas. Promoting a love of reading from infancy is our objective, in order to make book sharing and reading aloud an integral part of daily family activities.
Building on this history, BookSpring continues to redefine our organization’s identity and increase long term financial stability while deepening our client impact across Central Texas.
David La Piana’s Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World was the methodology used to adapt our latest business model or “strategy road map.” The innovative process allows nonprofits to make strategic choices, in real time, to carry out their desired impact. The results were formally adoped by the Board of Directors on June 24, 2016.
La Piana’s method establishes the importance of setting goals for incremental change. The approach establishes three levels of strategy: organizational, programmatic, and operational.
The organizational strategy prompted us to succinctly identify our mission: who we serve, how we work, how we are funded, where we work, and what are our competitive advantages.
Through a year long process, board members and volunteer stakeholders determined that BookSpring will continue to serve the children, families, and expectant parents in Travis County or other surrounding areas (within a 100-mile radius) to ensure they are allotted every opportunity to become fully literate adults.
The programmatic strategy calls for an approach in which we partner with other like-minded organizations while exploring new clinical approaches to meet client needs.
Our ongoing partnerships with more than 150 agencies, nonprofits, schools, and healthcare organizations allow BookSpring to act as a community catalyst, in which we prompt collaborations for systematic change in the world of literacy.
On the operational level, a strategy screen—a set criteria in which new ideas can be vetted against—was developed to facilitate focused discussion and ensure that decision making is consistent and rational.
BookSpring’s competitive advantage certainly sets it apart from other nonprofits and literacy based organizations.
Not only do we have expertise in selecting age, language, and culturally appropriate books for kids, but we have the ability to obtain high quality books at large quantities from various vendors. This allows us to distribute the right books to the right child at the right time in their lives.
Our systematic approach to early childhood literacy, strong relationship with the pediatric healthcare community, and strong partnerships with dozens of local and national organizations gives us a competitive edge.
