SEED Fall 2014

Project Director: Tianyuan Hou

Project Leader: Shamika Mehta
Consultants: Annie Wattenmaker
Christina Fondren
Schyler Pa
Will Muller

Introduction
Kilimanjaro College of Professional Studies (KCPS) was recently
established in Moshi, Tanzania. KCPS curriculum focuses in on
developing skills to allow people to become professionals. The
courses are practical, aimed to cultivate a workforce that can
further develop Tanzania as a whole. KCPS teaches people to be
professionals by teaching classes that focus on accounting,
secretarial studies, entrepreneurship, computing, computer
programing,
web
design,
computer
repair,
database
management and PowerPoint presentation skills. Other longer
and more expansive courses include sales and marketing, front
office operations, office management, and tourism. KCPS
struggles to obtain a steady stream of books and resources. They
need assistance-providing resources to equip their students with
practical skills that will allow them to join the labor force and
work for a better future.

Objectives (incomplete)

1) Marketing and outreach strategy to gather funds in the US for the purchase
or solicitation of educational materials and supplies that KCPS needs to
continue its operation.
2) Strategies on a list of sustainable sources of books from corporate as well
as individual sources and how to build and maintain these relationships going
forward.

3) Funding is the main restraint to transfer of books so use the last part of
your deliverable to say what are some potential sources of funding and
strategies that KCPS can implement to obtain these sources of funding.

Within an university
Professors
Professors are a significant source of used textbooks to donate
to KCPS. Many professors have their own copies of textbooks or
additional copies of the text which they use while teaching the
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course. However, because information is constantly being

updated and newer textbooks are being published, there are
many copies of old textbook additions that are left unused after
the transition. Not only are professors a good source for
donating textbooks, but they are also a good mode of
communication in order to reach out to their students who may
have textbooks they would be willing to donate after completing
the course.
We pursued this source of donation by reaching out to professors
in related fields asking for donations from them as well as their
students. We received several donations from Professor Kemp, a
COMM 1800 professor with books about introduction to
Commerce.
Our suggestions are to reach out to University professors who
teach courses related to the KCPS textbooks needed to attempt
to establish a sustainable and continuous connection between
the professors and KCPS for current and future donations.

Students
Students are a prime source of used textbooks, given that on
average, each student uses 4 or 5 textbooks per semester. We
attempted to capitalize on all of the students we are surrounded
by but found that no matter the method, there was a lack of
response. Below are a few of the methods that we utilized in
order to solicit donations:
1. Contacting individual teachers who would either donate their
personal books and/or notify their current students of this
opportunity to donate their used textbooks
2. Reaching students through the McIntire School of
Commerces weekly newsletter
3. Making announcements to peers during class
4. Reaching out to personal networks
We attribute the lack of response to a few factors. First and
foremost, students typically try to sell their books at the close of
the semester and if they do not succeed in doing so, they will
usually bring them home each year. The timeframe of this
project was not optimal because many students do not have their
old textbooks here at school and they are still using their current
textbooks. Conducting this project would be more effective in
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the spring semester or even having a memo go out right before

students move back to school in the summer.
Secondly, it is difficult to get a response from teachers and peers
unless there is some kind of personal connection. For example,
one team member contacted a professor whom she had never
taken class with and there was no response. Another team
member contacted a professor whom she had taken class with
and he was excited to help with our project. Although this may
just be dependent on who is contacted, it is recommended that
personal connections be used rather than reaching out to a
professor for the first time about book donations.
Our recommendation for a creating a sustainable source of
books directly from the professors and students would be to
develop relationships with our various schools within the
university. For example, the McIntire Student Services office was
very open to our request to include an announcement in the
weekly newsletter, so communicating with them to send out a
similar announcement at better-timed points throughout the
academic year would be preferable. As mentioned above, these
points would be the end of semesters, as well as at the end of
the summer.

Bookstores
One of our first ideas to acquire books for this project was
reaching out to the Universitys bookstore. The bookstore sells
and buys back thousands of books to students every year.
Because the bookstore accommodates tens of thousands of
students and teachers in an array of fields, we knew that the
bookstore could be very resourceful in terms of variety and
quantity of books. We reached out to the bookstore and asked if
there were any books that were no longer being used that they
could donate to this cause. Unfortunately, the bookstore did not
have any books that they can potentially donate until the end of
the semester, which is when they do their big buyback program.
Our recommendation for receiving donations from the
Universitys bookstore and creating a potential partnership with
them is to work with the bookstore on their timing. There are
many logistical factors throughout the semester for the
bookstore. They need to ensure that there are a sufficient
number of books for each class and that the students have the
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text resources they need for their classes. Thus, our suggestion
is to reach out to the University bookstore in the middle of the
semester so they can have time to prepare for the end of the
semester. Suggest a program where any books that are returned
to the bookstore that will be deemed outdated for the
following semester be donated to KCPS. It is important to make
it clear that many of the books in the bookstore are not used
frequently (or at all), and that KCPS would benefit greatly from
having access to these books.

McIntire School of Commerce

We figured that the McIntire School of Commerce would be a
great resource to use due to its wide variety of practical
business related books. We decided to target fourth year
students who had completed their ICE projects as well as the
McIntire honor bookshelf. We began by advertising our cause
through Facebook groups, emails and word of mouth.
Unfortunately, many of the fourth years no longer had their
books and we could not gather books from third years since they
needed them for exams. We sent out the majority of reminders
right before fall break, hoping that the students would gather
their books from home. We found that no matter how much we
tried, students either no longer had their books or just forgot.
After realizing that this idea would not work, we emailed Comm
Council to ask about the McIntire Honor Bookshelf. This is a
place where students can drop off and donate their unused
books. After emailing the council a few times, we received one
response. The bookshelf was no longer running but they liked
the idea of revamping it and using that as their service project.
While we really struggled to get responses from them, we think
that this bookshelf could be a potential source for project
members in the future. A partnership with the McIntire School
of Commerce could potentially lead to a sustainable and steady
source of books for KCPS (or any other school.) Because we
decided that the best approach was no longer gathering as many
books as we could, harassing Comm Council to make this
happen did not seem like the best plan but we do believe if
communication had begun earlier, it would have worked better.

By reaching out to students in a particular school, we learned

the difficulty of relying on distracted and busy students who may
not even have books anymore.
POSSIBLE FUTURE SOURCES

Used Book Companies (incomplete)

Companies that deal with selling used books

Charitable Organizations
It would be beneficial for KCPS to contact charitable
organizations who are also involved in gathering book donations
for the underprivileged population. One organization that we
researched is World Vision. One facet of World Vision is that they
collect used books to be donated to certain underprivileged
communities. Because they are already so established, it would
be worth a try to ask them to partner with KCPS. However, it
would be more valuable to seek a relatively new organization
who is looking to establish relationships with communities to
support.

More Options Involving University Students

Another option within universities to explore would be to ask
university bookstores to not donate textbooks, but have them
advertise. At least here at UVA, the bookstores buy back certain
books from students. However, if a textbook is an old edition, the
bookstore will refuse to buy it. If this is the case, then students
will have trouble selling the book through another vendor, so a
book drive should be set up through the bookstore. For example,
if a student comes in with a book and the bookstore cannot buy
it back, the bookstore can tell the student that the book can be
donated and either give them a flyer with more information, or
actually have a donation box set up there. The best time to do
this would be at the end of semesters when there is more traffic
for the buy-back program.
Many times, there are organizations and small companies who
compete with the bookstore in buying used textbooks back at a
higher rate. They begin advertising a couple of weeks before the
semester ends. It would be worth reaching out to them to see if
they would be willing to set up a relationship in which say, for

every certain number of books they buy back, they donate one to
KCPS. There are also other modes of selling used textbooks and
a popular way is for students to simply reach out to each other
via Facebook or through a mediated site (ie. TJs Library used by
UVA students). In order to acquire used textbooks for free, KCPS
could have someone create accounts on websites such as TJs
Library and contact students trying to sell textbooks that way.
Although this would not be the most effective mode of
marketing, oftentimes it pays to personally contact individuals
when it comes to fundraising and soliciting donations.

Publishers
In searching for a sustainable connection of book donations to
KCPS, we researched publishers that might be willing to donate
books. One particular publisher we reached out to was Barnes &
Noble. Unfortunately, they were unable to donate to KCPS
because of their focus on local community donations.

Amazon (Amazon Smile and Amazon Wish list)

Amazon does do charitable work that KCPS could take
advantage of. Amazon is an especially attractive source of book
donation and funding since it can efficiently send books to KCPS
(which is something we really struggled with). Amazon operates
a website called Amazon Smile where customers can shop on
smile.amazon.com. Whenever they make a purchase, the
foundation will donate 0.5% of the price to a charitable
organization of the customers choice. On this website, one still
finds the same prices and a wide selection of items; the only
difference is that Amazon donates a portion of the price to an
organization of your choice. Since most of the organizations on
Amazon Smile are large organizations such as Charity Water and
Doctors Without Borders, there is a way that KCPS could
perhaps register themselves to receive donations. On
org.amazon.com, there are clear directions for how an
organization can register. It may be that KCPS is too small and
would not be eligible to register in which case it would perhaps
partner with another organization that does receive donations
from Amazon Smile. If they were able to register, then a task of
future project members could be to advocate students at UVA to
buy from amazon using Amazon Smile. While this is not a way of
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directly sending books to KCPS, it creates a sustainable and safe

way for KCPS to receive funding to in turn buy books of their
choice.
Another idea is the use of Amazon Wish List which can expand a
nonprofits donor pool, opening it up to amazon customers. This
ensures that organizations receive exactly what they need.
Customers can search a Wish List by using a link Find a Wish
List or Registry on the customer service page of Amazon Wish
List. The name or e-mal address for the person whose list youd
like to find can be entered in and you can then see everything on
their wish-list. KCPS could use this as a way to reach out to
customers who can use the list and buy exactly what KCPS may
need. That way, Amazon is completely in charge of having the
books and shipping them to the location. Future project
members could use this by advertising KCPS wish list and those
who wanted could donate a book. Madison House does a
program called Adopt a Family where people raise money to
buy a family presents. In a similar way, this could be done for
KCPS. Perhaps the next group could find creatively incentivize
students to raise money to purchase these books on amazon.
We also sent an email to customer service about potential
charitable partnerships regarding book donation and KCPS.
They responded with an email asking for a business plan. We do
not know if Amazon would agree to some sort of partnership
with KCPS but we believe that KCPS could reach out to Amazon
and submit some type of business plan. KCPS has a wonderful
goal and with all of the charitable work that Amazon does,
perhaps they would be willing to assist KCPS as well as project
members in the future.

Through CIOs in Universities

There are several Contracted Independent Organizations (CIO)
within Universities. They exist completely independently from
the University. These organizations can be used to advertise,
promote, and raise money for KCPS. For example, aCappella
groups at UVa garner a lot of attention and support. They put on
many shows where they raise money for a specific cause. The
aCappella group can have a performance to benefit KCPS by
donating a portion of their revenue to KCPS. This would work
well because people would already be spending money on tickets
for the show. Another example is to host benefit dinners for
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KCPS. The dinner would be sponsored by a particular CIO to

raise money for KCPS. There are many types of fundraisers
through a University that can be put on to donate money for
KCPS: auctions, performances, dinners, sports games, etc.
Partnering with CIOs of a University works well because people
are much more likely to donate money for a cause if they are
going to receive something in return.

Facebook
Facebook is a useful tool in order to reach out to university
students and encourage them to donate their used textbooks.
Facebook would help raise awareness for the book drive and it
would reach many students because students are so active and
connected on social media sites such as Facebook.
FUNDING

FedEx
One possibility that could be explored as a method of shipping
the books to KCPS would be to work with a major global
shipping company such as FedEx. The least expensive way would
be to seek FedExs help in arranging a hub-to-hub shipment of
books, which would be at a very small cost to the company. The
least cost of global shipping is typically the hub-to-hub
transportation between the US hub and receiving FedEx hub in
Tanzania. The more expensive part of global shipping occurs
from the sender to the hub, combined with the transportation
from the receiving hub and the destination. Proposing this hubto-hub shipping would be more attractive to FedEx in terms of
the cost to the company, making them more willing to potentially
help transport these books.

List

of books collected
How Business Works (15 copies)
Introduction to Financial Accounting (15 copies)
Marketing (18 copies)

PDF
o
o
o

Guides for
Microsoft Word
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Excel
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