The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change (18 page)

After a bit of research, I allocated a budget of $20,000 to build our website. I agonized over spending that amount on anything besides a new school, but this was an investment in our future and one that could pay off exponentially. Unfortunately, Brad told me the minimum for a good site would be $100,000.

Alex and I arranged a lunch to catch up, during which I gave him the refined pitch on what PoP was doing. In the past year we had worked with local partners to break ground on five schools in Laos and two in Nicaragua. We aimed to break ground on ten more while building a movement of over one hundred thousand supporters before the year ended.

The conversation just flowed and I could tell Alex was interested in what we were doing. By the end of the hour he said, “I’m in. I’d be more than happy to help. If you have twenty thousand dollars to spend, it’ll be tight, but maybe I can get some guys to work pro bono and others to commit at reduced fees.”

I was ecstatic. As we walked to the door, he mentioned one other idea that came to mind. “Our CEO is a really philanthropic
guy. I think you’d get along well. There’s even a chance we could take this project on at the agency level, but let me talk to Rich. He’s based in Fort Lauderdale but comes to New York City often, so maybe I can get you a meeting. In any case, count me in.”

That was promising news, but we wanted the website up and running by summer. It was already April.

I let two weeks go by and emailed Alex:
Any word from Rich?

Still working on it,
he replied.

Several more weeks went by. Jocelyn and I moved into our one-room space in Norman’s office, but I still hadn’t heard back from Alex about getting a meeting with Rich. Worse, we hadn’t made any progress on our freelancer search because we were holding out for the small chance that AgencyNet would take us on.

I knew that although his intentions were good, Alex didn’t have the authority to mobilize AgencyNet on our behalf. You’ll often hear people say, “I’m sorry, I wish I could.” That’s code for “I don’t have the authority to give you the answer you want.” Never take no from someone who can’t say yes. Rich was the only person who could give me the answer I was looking for, so I had to do whatever it took to meet with him in person or catch him on the phone.

After twenty-two emails with Alex to set up an in-person meeting with Rich on a Tuesday afternoon, Rich had to cancel and return early to Fort Lauderdale. Drastic measures were in order. Sometimes you have to show someone that you’re willing to run through a wall before they’ll open the front door.

I emailed Alex to tell him that if Rich was anywhere close to a major airport in the next two weeks, I would fly there to meet him. I figured a flight would cost $300—a big expense in my mind—but I knew the website was the most important thing to PoP’s growth going forward.

Less than two hours later Alex wrote back,
Rich will be calling you at 4:30 p.m. today.

At 4:00 p.m. I got a text:
This is Rich from AgencyNet. Can we speak at 5?

Sure,
I replied. I was not accustomed to talking to CEOs, let alone texting with them. But I realized his approach was genius—if it didn’t go well, I still didn’t have his email address so I would never contact him again.

Just before 5:00 p.m. I walked into a spare room in Norman’s office and brought a three-foot-tall photo of Nuth that we had printed on poster board for our events. It showed the world’s most adorable child sitting barefoot on the steps of the Pha Theung school, tilting her head to the side and looking straight into the camera lens. She seemed to be looking out from the photo, asking playfully,
Whaddya got?
Before I called Rich, I put the photo on the chair across from me in the empty, dimly lit conference room. I would look at Nuth while I was talking. She would help me stay focused on what mattered most.

He picked up on the first ring. “Hey, Adam, it sounds like you are doing pretty cool stuff.” Rich sounded much less formal and much more authentic than I anticipated.

I spent the next forty minutes walking Rich through what we did. Instead of asking the usual questions about the logistics of each school, such as “How do you find the teachers?” (the education ministry provides them and we help train them), he asked probing, insightful questions about organizational health: “What’s your biggest fear?” “What’s your board makeup?” “What are your biggest challenges to growth?”

Rich seemed genuinely interested in what we were doing, and he seemed cool as hell. We were getting along great. But I knew he’d already given me a lot of time, and I had to get to the point.
“Rich, part of the reason why I wanted to talk to you is that we need to build a website. I wanted to know if maybe you guys would be able to build it”—I could hear myself nervously stumbling over my own words—“at a reduced rate of twenty thousand dollars?”
I can’t believe I just asked that,
I thought. This was my first outright big ask on behalf of Pencils of Promise. My heart was beating out of my chest.

“Well, Adam, to tell you the truth, I am not involved in the production side, so I’ll have to talk to the VP of production.”
Damn
. “But I’m already thinking bigger. Give me a few days. Maybe we can chat on Monday.”

What was he thinking?
He texted me his email address, and I followed up with a thank-you note the following night, which was a Thursday. He responded Friday afternoon:
Loved our convo. You around this weekend for a chat?

Yup, I’m around all weekend. Just let me know what works best for you,
I wrote back right away. But as the hours crept toward Friday night, I had to decide whether I would check my email for his response throughout the weekend and break my new policy or keep the policy in place. Should I make an exception? Or stick to what I’d determined? Would he think I was rude if I ignored his email, or would he consider me lazy if I told him about my recent decision to go off email once a week? I decided to preempt the conflict and lay out the honest truth. I called him just before sundown Friday night:

“I just want to be open with you. I recently put a practice into place where I go off email from sundown Friday to Sunday morning, to make sure I stop working and spend quality time with my loved ones. I also find it makes me more energized for the next week ahead if I’m not on email over the weekend, and it helps to avoid burnout.”

I held my breath. Would he think I was a slacker who didn’t work hard? So many people wear their 24-7 work hours like a badge of honor.

“Adam, I respect that. If I could do that, I would do it too. I’m glad you told me. Let’s chat next week.”

Sure enough, Rich texted me Monday at 9:30 a.m.:
Can we chat? I’ll give you a call in 15 minutes.

I put my earbuds in and paced back and forth throughout the apartment. Finally, the phone rang.

“Listen, I thought a lot about this over the weekend and I also spoke to my VP of production. There are three things I’d like to offer you. First, we are not going to do your website for twenty thousand dollars.” My heart sank. “Instead I’ve already approved one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in pro bono resources for us to build you a top-notch website free of charge.”

I couldn’t believe it. My frantic pacing turned into psychotic sprinting and fist pumping in my tiny apartment.

“Second, I’d like to join your board of directors, if you’ll have me. And third, one of my friends, Jay, is the president of another leading digital agency and is looking for something to help him find more meaning in his life. Will you speak to him? He might want to join your board too.” While Rich spoke, I was still running the length of my apartment silently screaming,
Yessssssss!
over and over.

I composed myself before responding, mainly because I was completely out of breath. The board was still informal, just me and five of my friends in their midtwenties who had helped start and build PoP: Mimi, Brad, Mike, Libbie, and Jen. I was hoping to bring on Hope and a director at Bain, Karen Harris, who had read my farewell email and reached out about getting more involved. I imagine most people would jump at the chance to have Rich and
his friend on our board as well, but I couldn’t just say yes without consulting the team.

“First off I can’t thank you enough for all three of your offers. There are six of us on the current board, and I would need to talk with the others before I could make any commitments. But I’m definitely very interested in you joining. In terms of the website, though, count us one hundred percent in.”

“I’m glad you take the others on your board into account. I’ll be in New York next week. Let’s go out to dinner so we can meet in person.”

“Absolutely, I’d love that.”

As soon as we hung up, I called Brad and then Alex to tell them the great news. We had started in hopes of getting a group of freelancers to build our site for $20,000 and now had one of the top digital agencies in the country putting its full weight behind us at no cost. The feeling of elation was extraordinary.

The next week, Rich and I grabbed dinner together, and Alex joined us for a celebratory drink. It was too early to know then, but Rich would not only build our website and join our board of directors, he would guide me in the months ahead through one of the biggest decisions of my life.

J
ohn Nolan, a friend of my father’s who had known me since I was a child, was one of the wealthiest people I had ever met. After launching a successful Wall Street brokerage house in the 1980s, he moved to Greenwich to start a series of investment funds. We’d always hit it off, and when I was nineteen, I spent the summer working for him as he launched a fund of funds. “You’ll go on and do big things,” he’d said.

A few months after I left Bain and was working on PoP full-time, John called me out of the blue. “I have an idea for a business. I want to meet with you.”

This was a curveball, and an intriguing one, but I was set on what I was doing. “Thanks for thinking of me, but I’m working on the nonprofit I started.”

“Just come out and meet with me,” boomed John in his husky voice.

I always liked and respected John as a person, and as a successful
financier and businessman. So I took the train out to Greenwich. When I remarked to the receptionist how nice the office looked, she told me to tell John. He owned the entire building. As soon as I sat down with him, he asked me an unexpected question. “What do you know about the e-commerce auction business?”

“Nothing.”

He tossed a thick, printed presentation across the mahogany desk to me. “You need to learn it fast,” he responded emphatically.

I skimmed through the pages. Websites were auctioning off items, usually coveted electronics like iPads, flat-screen TVs, and cameras. Customers actively bid online at below-market prices, but through clever auction and pricing mechanisms, companies could find ways to make huge profits while selling goods at a huge discount. Dozens of companies were rapidly entering this new space, each pursuing a uniquely competitive path.

“Adam, I don’t know about technology or modern branding, but I know this seems like a great business with an incredible financial model. These companies are practically printing money! I’m going to start one of these companies, but I need someone young and ambitious who understands the Web to build it. You’ll be the cofounder and CEO.”

“I’m working on Pencils of Promise right now.”

“Do it on the side. I run my kids’ baseball program on the side. I’m fine if you work on your charity after hours, but you need to work full-time out of my office here in Greenwich.”

“Even if I did take this on, it would require a reverse commute from the city.”

“I’ll have a black town car take you to and from your apartment every day. You’ll have a six-figure salary and you’ll get equity. Of course you’ll have full health insurance too.”

It was all incredibly attractive.

“Put together a budget for the capital you’d need to launch the company. Staff, travel, expense account, whatever you need. I’ll personally arrange financing for the whole thing,” John continued.

“What range are you thinking to start?”

“Make it around a million dollars,” he replied without hesitation. “Plus, I’ll give you the entire floor upstairs.”

I thought of my Pencils of Promise team made up entirely of volunteer interns at our tiny one-room space in Norman’s office sitting around a used IKEA table. John was describing a very different operation.

“Let me have a few days to think this all over. But there’s one more thing: I only want to work on businesses that create social good.”

“No problem, as long as it makes a lot of money. And you’ve got to remove all those damn strings from your wrists.”

*  *  *

In Laos, special occasions are celebrated through a beautiful tradition called a
baci
(pronounced
ba-see
) ceremony. Laotians believe that thirty-two spirit guardians watch over and protect each person. Occasionally these spirits wander away from us, leaving us vulnerable and imbalanced, so in times of significance and celebration Laotians tie white thread around each other’s wrists to bind the protective spirits to each other and to bring peace, harmony, and good fortune. Baci ceremonies celebrate weddings and births, and, as we found out, school openings.