Combining Social and Commercial Logic: Creating a Sustainable Stream of Books

This study seeks to answer the research question of what is the optimal design for a not-for-profit that builds home libraries in the Phoenix Metropolitan area, ultimately preparing children for successful school entry, promoting parent-child engagement, and increasing literacy rates. A relationship between concentrations of poverty in neighborhoods and low achievement in public schools proves that characteristics of the home environment, including lack of access to books, significantly hinders a child's success in learning to read. The average 5 year old from a middle-income home recognizes 22 letters of the alphabet while an average 5 year old from a low-income home recognizes only 9 (Hart and Risley 1995). The development of early literacy skills through at-home experiences with books is linked to a child's success in learning to read (Snow and Ninio 1986). In direct contrast to the high value of children's books, two thirds of low-income families own no books for their children (Dickinson 2006). Further, low-income households are disproportionately comprised of communities of color and English language learning households (Milem 2016). Additional resources on this topic depict that discrepancy in reading level and language development related to families' socioeconomic statuses are present even before children enter school. One potential method of addressing socioeconomic gaps in academic achievement is to provide children from low-income families access to high-quality, age-appropriate books. This strategic marketing plan analyzes the factors influencing reading comprehension and child literacy in Arizona to determine the method best suited to providing access to reading materials for children from impoverished homes in the Phoenix area. Primary research was conducted via interviews to analyze example business models. Gaps unfulfilled by existing organizations that seek to improve literacy rates led to the design of an organization called Bookshelf. Bookshelf mirrors a non-profit structure, which operates with a small team and large community involvement to deliver new and gently used books to children enrolled in Head Start, an early childhood education program for children from impoverished homes. Bookshelf is designed to work with the existing structure of the Head Start classroom, utilizing both the teacher-parent and parent-child relationship to deliver books into the hands of the target market and promote long-term reading and learning. By accessing the educational environment in each classroom Bookshelf can both enjoy multiple points of contact with the consumer while they attend Head Start, and provide resources for existing reading development programs.