Theory of Change:

Aligning Mission,
Vision, & Values

Prepared for: Promising Pages

Student name
removed
CSCS 345
Spring 2019 (Gaddis)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Organization & Program Profile _____________________________________ Error!

Bookmark not defined.

Theory of Change: Books on Break __________________________________ 5

Analyzing Root Causes of Social Problems Related to Books on Break ______ 6

Environmental Scan: Books on Break _________________________________ 8

Aspirational Theory of Change ______________________________________ 10

Appendix A: Infographic ___________________________________________ 12

Aspirational Theory of Change ______________________________________ 13

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ORGANIZATION & PROGRAM PROFILE

Promising Pages: The Organization

Established in 2011, Promising Pages is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization serving thousands

of elementary school-aged children in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district (CMS) in
Charlotte, North Carolina. It strives to “provide ownership of books to underserved children and
cultivate a lifelong love of reading through innovative literacy programs and partnership.”

To prevent widening gaps in educational achievement and opportunity, Promising Pages

facilitates book distributions to social service organizations, runs a cutting-edge multi-sensory
reading program in partnership with Charlotte’s Title I schools, and facilitates free book fairs for
underserved children to take home before the summer vacation. The latter program, Books on
Break, was piloted in 2016 as an initiative partnership with another early literacy-focused
foundation, Read Charlotte.

Books on Break: The Program

Many of Promising Pages’ stakeholders—children—have little to no access to age and subject-
appropriate books during the summer. Books on Break (BOB) was created as an intervention
to sustain reading proficiency and prevent loss of reading skills over the summer holiday. At
the end of the school year (May-June), BOB hosts free pop-up book fairs for pre-k to third grade
students within CMS’s Title I and charter schools. Each participant is given a drawstring bag
and gets to pick five books to keep and read over the summer.

On a scale from 1-5 in terms of mission impact, Books on Break deserves a 5 for fostering a
love of reading in underserved youth. The program has been well-received by several key
stakeholders, including school districts, children, and their families. Thousands of community
members have gotten involved with the organization, either through direct volunteering or
donation.

Since the program’s inception in 2016, Books on Break

has served over 8,000 students in 15 CMS schools and
distributed over 56,000 books. Those numbers are
expected to keep growing steadily.
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Books on Break: Stakeholders, Staff, & Budget

Promising Pages and Books on Break serve students attending Title I schools, many of who
live in low-income households. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district encompasses all
Charlotte-Mecklenburg county, so the racial and ethnic background of students served is very
diverse.

Promising Pages has 3 paid staff members who all contribute to Books on Break, a dozen or
so volunteers who work with the program on a weekly basis, and hundreds of short-term
volunteers.

The organization’s most recent budget information is from 2015, before the formation of Books
on Break, so there is no public data for its budget. A volunteer who has worked with the
organization for several years estimated that approximately 25% of Promising Pages’ overall
resources were spent on Books on Break.1 Program overhead costs include staff wages, rent
and utilities for the organization’s office and warehouse where books are stored, and new
books. Thanks to several partnerships with businesses in Charlotte’s financial district, however,
Promising Pages receives many sponsorships to offset these costs.

With Books on Break and its other programs, Promising

Pages provides over 100,000 free books annually,
making it the largest and most effective distributer of
upcycled books in Charlotte!

1 I consulted with my mother, who has volunteered with the Promising Pages since 2016 and works closely with
the staff, for an estimation about the percentage of resources diverted to the Books on Break Program
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THEORY OF CHANGE: BOOKS ON BREAK

Definition & Explanation
Theories of change are foundational to nonprofit strategic planning, as they provide a very “big
picture” way of analyzing an organization’s programming strategy. Essentially, a theory of
change is a basic summary of how an organization strives to achieve its mission, either through
programming or other methods. Even nonprofits which excel at centering their mission among
organizational activities benefit from having a “check-up” to inventory what is successful and
what needs fine-tuning. Here are our findings for Promising Pages:
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ANALYZING ROOT CAUSES OF SOCIAL

PROBLEMS RELATED TO BOOKS ON BREAK
Definition & Explanation
Another crucial skill for successful strategic planning is the ability to examine an organization’s
mission and identify the causative agents that necessitate the organization’s mission. This type
of analysis identifies the “causes” of a social issue, not just the “symptoms.” Based on a careful
review of Promising Pages and its stakeholders, KVB Consultants has identified some of the
major underlying causes of lack of reading comprehension:

Political Climate & Barriers

• Political & economic disinvestment in public education
• Eradication of school libraries and school librarians
• Poverty & school district funding

Book Deserts
• Access to libraries: transportation, fines/fees, etc.
• Distance to bookstores
• Affordability of age & content-appropriate children’s books

Individual Barriers
• Overcoming lack of confidence/motivation to read, learning disabilities, language barriers
• Systemic illiteracy
• Having role models in a child’s life to foster love of reading and that they can read to

Analysis of Strengths: Removing Individual Barriers to Reading

Promising Pages and Books on Break have done an excellent job in removing financial barriers
for accessing books. BOB understands that going to a library is very difficult when
transportation, fines, and incompatible work schedules become barriers for families.
Furthermore, children’s books are very expensive: many of the families involved with Promising
Pages cannot afford to purchase age and content-appropriate reading material regularly for
their children. These financial burdens are lessened when children take home books for free.
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This model is also strong because research shows physical ownership of books increases
reading rates and academic achievement.2

Another of BOB’s strengths is targeting internal, individual barriers to reading comprehension.

To encourage students who are disinterested in reading, BOB staff re-frame it as a fun activity
instead of a chore and help students pick books which interest them. This approach aligns with
recent academic research, which shows that being literate and able to read at grade level
dramatically interrupts the school-to-prison pipeline.3 BOB also actively includes students with
learning disabilities and who do not read/speak English by providing books meant for children
with dyslexia and other disabilities as well as stories written in other languages.

Targeting Root Causes Perpetuating Bigger Social Issues

Promising Pages does not have the capacity or expertise to fight poverty or lobby against
educational disinvestment, which are two huge drivers of literacy gaps and overall educational
inequity. However, there are smaller actions which BOB could incorporate to address root
causes and achieve its mission of cultivating a love of reading.

The biggest weakness in the Books on Break model is the assumption that children read the
books they select over the summer. This does not account for systemic literacy and the fact
that some parents are not able to read with their children. Brainstorming solutions to this issue
with families, schools, and students would be good first step to addressing this issue.

Currently, Promising Pages has no community representation on its board of directors in terms
of families served. Incorporating stakeholders in the upper levels of administration is seemingly
simple yet crucial way for organizations to truly understand the community they are trying to
serve and the problems facing it.4 The sitting board members have plenty of experience in
nonprofit board management, fundraising, and other business skills; few have the lived
experience of knowing what literacy challenges face the Charlotte community. Community
representation helps the board avoid mission drift and truly serve its stakeholders.

2 Scholarly Culture and Academic Performance in 42 Nations (2014)

3 The Right to Be Literate: Literacy, Education, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline (2011)
4 Strategic planning for nonprofit organizations: A practical guide for dynamic times (Third ed.) (2015)
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ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN: BOOKS & BREAK

Definition & Explanation
Environmental scans are used in strategic planning to consider how external conditions—
political, economic, social, etc.—affect an organization’s activities. This process helps nonprofits
make informed choices about budget, programming, staff, and more. This report will give a brief
overview of the population Books on Breaks serves, and a description of other nonprofit
organizations’ successes in the field of fostering youth literacy to provide suggestions for BOB’s
future.

The Community: CMSD

Books on Break serves the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, which enrolls nearly
150,000 K-12 students in 170 schools. According to the school’s website, the student body
“…represent[s] more than 160 different countries and various cultural and ethnic backgrounds.”5
With the county’s population increasing dramatically, the number of children entering the CMS
system and participating in Promising Pages’ programs will rise in tandem. Public education
funding has not grown to match these rates, so overall need for BOB is expected to grow.
Furthermore, the diversity among students in race, ethnicity, class, etc. means Books on Break
should expand offering culturally appropriate books in a variety of languages. Furthermore,
BOB should consider how to include the non-English speaking families in their future
programming, as those students are most vulnerable to falling behind in English reading
proficiency.

Trends Within Other Organizations

BOB’s model has worked successfully since its inception in 2016, but methods in other
organizations dedicated to youth literacy and beyond have been very successful. In preparing
for the future, Books on Break might consider adapting to strengthen its programming.

The Read Charlotte Initiative

Read Charlotte (RC) is an early literacy initiative that seeks to improve reading proficiency not
through direct programming, but “…coordinat[ing], integrat[ing], and align[ing] people,
resources, and data to improve children’s literacy.”6 Read Charlotte’s activities range from

5 Background, History, and Facts (2019)

6 Read Charlotte—Our Model (2019)
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engaging families to state-wide systems improvement, and Books on Break could learn from
their work to empower families. RC uses technology to communicate reading reminders and
strategies to families through free text messaging, offers online and printed resources in several
languages, and educates families on how best to support and foster stronger reading skills from
their children. Books on Break does wonderfully with interacting with children and schools but
falls short when communicating with families and supporting read-aloud at home. Like the Read
Charlotte model, Books on Break can better support reading at home and curb barriers to
success by further incorporating families in their programming. For example, creating a simple
“For Parents & Families” resource (printed, online, etc.), inviting family members to offer
suggestions for improvement, etc. are easy ways to improve BOB’s programming and better
execute Promising Pages’ mission.

Other Methods to Consider

Because Books on Break has limited staffing and resources to tackle efforts for sweeping
systematic change, it is important to think creatively about how to tackle root cause issues. One
way to consider how best to support its stakeholders is to simply ask: gathering stakeholder
feedback and engagement helps an organization grow. Thousands of nonprofit organizations
all over the country do this process in multiple ways; the key to success is finding a method
which works for Promising Pages. While surveying families may not be logistically feasible for
BOB, simply taking the time to get to know parents and teachers in the community increases
the program’s visibility and while alerting it to real-time challenges and its own blind spots. This
could be achieved by hosting an “open house” event at the Promising Pages office and
warehouse where parents and children could meet the staff and learn more about the program
and brainstorm events. An event with food, games, volunteers, door prizes, etc. might draw in
community members and generate valuable information for Promising Pages and Books on
Break.
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ASPIRATIONAL THEORY OF CHANGE

Introduction & Explanation
To help incorporate addressing root causes necessitating Books on Break’s programming, KVB
Consultants has prepared an aspirational theory of change. Like the theory of change outlined
earlier, this document is meant to help Books on Break examine how its activities enact the
mission. However, this model has been updated to suggest inputs, processes & strategies, and
results to further the mission and strive for social change. New and edited suggestions have
been bolded and highlighted.

KVB Consultants suggests addressing “root cause” issues related to literacy as best as Books
on Break and Promising Pages are able: doing so increases credibility with community
members and stays true to the mission of fostering children’s love of reading.
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Infographic
KVB Consultants has also prepared an infographic to illustrate and help visualize this
aspirational theory of change (see Appendix A). This document is meant to help both internal
and external stakeholders understand why and how Books on Break does what it does; it can
be used for anything from internal training to external promotions. If Books on Break chooses
to implement suggestions from KVB Consultants, this infographic could be used as a helpful
starting point for re-designing any programming.

A Word on Design
This aspirational theory of change is intentionally simple in design. It is meant to resemble a
reading log or assignment notebook, in order to reflect Books on Break’s mission of
encouraging a love of reading among elementary school students. The balance of white space
to color is to prevent the reader from feeling visually overwhelmed. The colors are bright and
child-like, moving chromatically through the colors of the rainbow to draw the eye downward.
The background is an off-white color so the text would be easier to read, especially for those
who are visually impaired. The text itself has a mix of stylistic font choices to mimic handwriting
and printed directions of a worksheet, which is meant to further reflect the theme. The text
boxes are also aligned perfectly between rows to help with balance, flow, and drawing the eye
through the document. Finally, the page concludes with a PNG image of the Promising Pages
logo (so the image was transferrable to a non-white background) in order to remind viewers of
its relationship with Books on Break.
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APPENDIX A: INFOGRAPHIC
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WORKS CITED
Allison, M., & Kaye, J. (2015). Strategic planning for nonprofit organizations: A practical guide
for dynamic times (Third ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. (2019). Background, Facts and History. Retrieved April 29,
2019, from http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/mediaroom/aboutus/Pages/default.aspx

Evans, M. D., Kelley, J., & Sikora, J. (2014). Scholarly Culture and Academic Performance in
42 Nations. Social Forces,92(4), 1573-1605. doi:10.1093/sf/sou030

Promising Pages. (2019). About Us. Retrieved April 24, 2019, from
https://promisingpages.org/about-us/

Promising Pages. (2019). Books on Break. Retrieved April 24, 2019, from
https://promisingpages.org/get-involved/booksonbreak/

Read Charlotte. (2019). Improving Children's Literacy | The Read Charlotte Model. Retrieved
April 29, 2019, from https://readcharlotte.org/our-model/

Winn, M. T., & Behizadeh, N. (2011). The Right to Be Literate. Review of Research in
Education,35(1), 147-173. doi:10.3102/0091732x10387395