The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change (21 page)

In addition to building our relationships with the press and major brands, I also started to focus on speaking at events. The Feast on Good was an invitation-only conference held at the TimesCenter for leading advertising and media execs that focused on driving innovation that makes the world work better. It aimed to bring together what they called “innovators, doers and makers” to dig in and address today’s greatest challenges. Brad had been to the event the year before and said it was riveting. “You have to speak there next year,” he’d told me.

At the time, that seemed like a pipe dream. We weren’t legit enough to speak there—among the likes of established institutions like the
Economist
and Foursquare. But after the
Huffington Post
article, people became aware of us. Brad helped arrange a meeting with Jerri and Michael, the cofounders of the event. “If breakfast goes well, I think they’ll ask you to speak,” Brad said confidently.

Breakfast at Manhattan’s low-key Grey Dog café went great. At the end of almost two hours together, Jerri said, “We are looking for someone young and inspiring as our closing speaker this year. We’d love for you to be it.”

“Yeah, for sure.” I sounded casual, but I had to restrain myself from getting out of my chair and dancing across the café.

*  *  *

Hours before the speech I was incredibly nervous and consumed with anxiety. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I listened to the soothing song “That Western Skyline” by Dawes on repeat on my iPhone
and tried to calm myself down. I knew that thousands would be watching on a live stream, including our entire office on the Lower East Side.

The speech was fifteen minutes long, and for the first few I could hear my voice shaking a bit. But when I showed the video of Nuth, Nith, and Tamund, I was reminded of why I was up there and began to speak more confidently. When I finished, many audience members stood up in a standing ovation, and it seemed as though I’d nailed it.

A long line of attendees came up to me to ask questions, swap cards, and share stories. My parents were there, but they patiently waited until I’d addressed everyone else, then finally came up to give me a big hug. For the first time in a while, I felt invincible.

My dad and I embraced, and then he said nonchalantly, “You should look down.”

I did and realized my fly was open—it had been open during the entire speech. I couldn’t believe it. “Really?”

He nodded and smiled. “Yup.”

We both laughed it off, but it was an important reminder to never take oneself too seriously, and to never feel too self-satisfied. The only truth about first impressions is that you only get one. The way people perceive you in those first few moments will set the anchor around which all future interactions are based. Fortunately, few people noticed my blunder, but you can’t get those moments back; you can only prepare for making the best possible first impression on those new people you’ll meet in the future.

As I left the TimesCenter, I saw several of our staff members who were at the conference mingling with other attendees. Because the staff were wearing PoP T-shirts, people were seeking them out to see how they could get further involved. I couldn’t
help but smile when I overheard the staff confidently tell others to visit our website, where they could gather all the information they needed to educate a child or fund a school.

Most people rush to get their story out, but by waiting until our “holy shit” story, our staff, and our website were in place, we were prepared to convert people’s interest into action. Even though I’d given a full speech with my fly down, PoP was definitely on its way up.

A
fter spending a month in Laos to work with our team and students on the ground, I returned home to focus on the growing movement behind PoP. We had recently expanded to a third nation, Guatemala, working in the same region around Lake Atitlán where I had lived with Joel Puac years earlier. We had raised over $1 million in 2010 (more than a tenfold increase from the year before), and were setting ambitious goals to break ground on dozens of new schools by the end of the new year. Nobel Peace Prize–winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu even sent us a surprise video to endorse our efforts. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I watched him say, “Pencils of Promise . . . keep working, keep learning, the world needs you.”

As I saw that video, I thought back to a phrase my friend had scribbled on my apartment whiteboard months earlier: “The most powerful thing in the world is an idea whose time has come.” It felt as if this was our moment. The students of Harvard Business
School and Stanford Graduate School of Business, the most discerning business minds of the next generation, had just chosen us as one of the select charities they would fundraise to support. We were hitting on all cylinders.

When a cool opportunity presented itself in the form of the British Airways “Face of Opportunity” contest, I knew I had to submit an entry. Two hundred fifty small-business owners would receive a free flight anywhere in the world. All that was required was an essay or a video on how you would use the flight to advance your organization.

With so much going on, I hadn’t had time to work on my application—something I realized one night at 11:40 p.m., twenty minutes before the final entry deadline. With little time, but little to lose, I looked into my iPhone camera and recorded a two-minute video on our work building schools in the developing world and how we would use the flight to bring Lanoy to our headquarters in New York so she could receive an in-depth training from our staff.

The video must have resonated with someone because weeks later we learned that we’d made it into the Top 250 and won a flight. I was elated, and then I was shocked to find out that we’d made it to the Top 10. A weeklong social media voting campaign would determine the top three finalists. Social media? That we could do.

We campaigned hard on Facebook and Twitter, determined to get to the finals to snag the ten free business-class flights that would be awarded to the grand prize–winning organization. I was also eager to garner the publicity for Pencils of Promise that would come along with winning the contest. A few weeks later the ten semifinalists were narrowed down to the final three: a sustainable coffee company called Dunn Bros Coffee, the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, and us.

I had no idea what to expect in the finals, an event held at Manhattan’s
giant Marriott Marquis hotel, but it turned out to be a lot more like the TV show
Shark Tank
than the celebratory event I had anticipated. In a room filled with five hundred attendees, I had two minutes to talk about PoP in the “pitch-off.” I used what I had learned at Summit Series about making a quick impression and talked about our story, model, and vision to improve the lives of children in poverty by providing access to education. I had given the pitch countless times before—and it had worked in nearly every instance.

But this time when I was finished, the three “celebrity judges,” Bill Rancic of
The Apprentice
, Bethenny Frankel of Skinnygirl fame, and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran from
Shark Tank
, tried to tear me apart. I later learned that they had been instructed to find holes in our companies, although that had never been explained to us before we stepped on the stage.

“How much of the money goes into programs versus overhead?” asked Bill.

“Industry standard would say that any organization that directs over seventy percent toward programs is doing a good job. We try to be as lean as possible, so we’ve historically put eighty-three to eighty-six percent of funds into programs,” I said. The crowd clapped, and Bill nodded his approval.

In between the rapid-fire questions aimed at each finalist, lights flashed and music played loudly; I felt as if I were on a bad reality show. Finally they brought us back together onstage to announce the winner. The first of four votes was the audience favorite, and PoP had received 60 percent of the vote. The second vote was Bill Rancic’s, who cast his ballot in our favor. With two out of four total votes, we just needed one more to guarantee we had won. But Bethenny and Barbara both voted for Indiegogo.

“Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time ever, we have a tie!”
boomed the announcer. “We’ll now have a live thirty-second pitch-off, and the audience will decide on the winner.”

I already won the audience once; I hoped I could do it again. Danae, the cofounder of Indiegogo, went first. She immediately appealed to rationality, touting their proven team and sound business model. Then I was on. I knew I had to tell a story that the audience could connect to emotionally. The crowd was all entrepreneurs. We were driven by the same passion, so I went right to our commonalities. “As anyone with a really big dream who started in a really small room knows, you may have poured your heart and soul into your business, but it was the special people who joined you along the way that made the difference. Those are the people I stand up here representing—the men and women who work in the field, educating our children every day, those are the ones I want to use these flights for. They are the real faces of opportunity.”

My thirty seconds were up. The lights started pulsing again, and the clicker votes around the room were counted. This time, I won 85 percent of the audience. Pencils of Promise was announced as the grand-prize winner. Officials from British Airways came out carrying an oversize cardboard check with “10 free business class flights” scribbled in the amount line. Cameras flashed, people I’d never met congratulated me, and interviews commenced. It was an absolute circus, but I was relieved it was over and I couldn’t wait to share the news with the team. Ten free flights would be of great value and we had earned a lot of exposure for the organization.

The next afternoon all 250 of the small-business winners were whisked off on a chartered jet to London, where the CEO of British Airways awaited us for a photo opportunity. At the welcome reception, I peeked down at my phone and saw an email from Noah, who was now responsible for our work in Latin America and doing a terrific job. I opened it, and my heart sank.

Appy and I were robbed at knifepoint last night. . . . They stole my phone and wallet and her BlackBerry and purse. Not sure if we need to file something with PoP.

The night before had been the Super Bowl, and I knew that Noah and Appy (our PoP Guatemala Fellow) had gone to a Peace Corps party in a city several hours away from where we were based hoping to connect with other NGO workers. I had warned the staff to be careful in urban areas. And now this had happened.

I assumed Noah had written because he wanted reimbursement for their stuff. As applause broke out, celebrating PoP’s win, and with little time to focus on this new matter, I dashed an email connecting Noah to Tom in the New York office so he could help. But I was still pissed about the whole thing. How could they let this happen?

Although they’d clearly been through a terrible ordeal, it wasn’t PoP’s fault that they put themselves in a dangerous situation. Connecting to the emotions of the audience had worked onstage, so I figured connecting to the emotions of Noah and Appy could bring about some resolution to this as well. I fired off a reply:

Hey guys,

First off let me say how glad I am that you’re both completely okay and that you weren’t hurt at all given what happened recently.

At this point though it’s clear that there are some inferences being made as to whether PoP will be reimbursing you for the items that were stolen. The truth is that you can make up whatever you want as to what happened. You can describe it or message it however you want, but I’m never going to know. What I do know is that we work extremely hard for every dollar we raise, and that I value every dollar we spend even more. Also, you guys signed contracts that removed PoP of this liability and you had your own option to get insurance that would cover you in
case this happened (which Tom can help you follow up on). So as I understand it, the current policy is that PoP shouldn’t reimburse anything.

But you are the ones that make our Guatemala programs happen, you are the ones that took the leap of faith to make PoP your current life’s path. . . . I also hope that you view this organization as your own, since it truly is the creation of all of us together. Given that, I truly believe that you guys can make the better call on how PoP should handle this than I could. Let me know what you think is an ideal outcome for both PoP and you guys on this, and that’s the course we’re going to take.

—Adam

It was not the right response. When I checked my email next, I found this:

Hey Adam,

I believe we’ve had a misunderstanding. When I asked if I should file something with PoP, I was referring to an incident report. I thought it might be necessary to (1) alert PoP of recent events and (2) help shape future policy for personnel living abroad. Neither Appy or I expect any form of reimbursement.