A Home Built on Books - Atom

Background

Ideas often hit you at the oddest moments. This one started at a party when Ed Prichard met Chris, a counsellor who worked at Centrepoint.

Chris mentioned he had ambitions to build a library for the kids who sought shelter there. So far he had managed to get seven books.

Ed looked him in the eye and said, “I think I can help.”

Idea

From the start, Ed and Cassandra believed that social media were the key to getting a lot of books quickly. Working on the principle that like-minded friends had like-minded friends and a network of just 200 people could connect Centrepoint with over 900,000, a website, www.ahomebuiltonbooks.org, was created in just half a day.

A logo was drawn. And the team began sending out letters and emails and blogging wherever they could, asking one simple question. Which book changed your life?

Bookshops and publishers were also approached through direct mail as were authors and journalists.

Results

People from around the world joined the Home Built On Books group on Facebook and spread the word. Penguin, Faber & Faber, Bloomsbury and Little Brpown among other publishers all pledged boxes and boxes of books.

Around 5,000 books have been collected, covering every subject under the sun. The total costs of the campaign were under £200 leading to a library of books valued at £35,000.

That’s a return on imagination of about 7,000%

Our Thoughts

To be honest, I’m quite sceptical of charity jobs these days. Sure, I’ve done my fair share of stuff back in Aus, but I increasingly feel creatives are doing this sort of work more for their own ends than those of the group they are supposed to be helping. Not so this piece. No shock, fear or revulsion. It’s just a solid piece of work that has generated some outstanding results. It doesn’t feel like a piece designed to impress an award jury. Rather it’s a piece designed to get people thinking and to make a difference to benefit disadvantaged youth. Thank you for restoring my faith.