How we use our funds

We’ve re-imagined the publishing process to make books almost unimaginably affordable. Our funding partners know that they get more bang (or books) for their buck because our efficient model enables book creation and distribution at scale.

We take the same approach to running an organisation: we have excellent systems, a small and skilled team, and tried-and-tested processes to ensure responsible resource management. This means we achieve a lot with lean budgets, punching far above our weight.

Book Dash plans to be around for many years to come, to keep working towards a world where every child owns a hundred books by the age of five. To this end, we keep a percentage of all funding we receive for organisational and sustainability costs. Everything else is allocated to create, translate or print more beautiful books for children.

Research shows that children who own books before school have better foundations for learning., and better lifelong outcomes. We create, translate and print books, and partner with others, to get quality, relevant books into children’s hands and homes, as captured in our Theory of Change:

Deep in the Northern Drakensberg mountains of KZN, Khanyisela Projects supports literacy and communication from infancy to nine years. Its amaZizi Reads intervention is rooted in the belief that children‘s success in literacy is very important for their future development. Below they share their story of partnering with Book Dash:

“In underserved rural communities children have almost no books at home and yet one of our aims was to promote a culture of reading. This lack of resources was a major challenge until February 2019 when we were fortunate to partner with Book Dash. 

“At the heart of the Book Dash vision is the idea that book ownership is a powerful intervention in itself, but initially we questioned giving books away. However, an open mind, expert opinion and first-hand experience soon convinced us of the enormous value of giving books ‘for-keeps’. To date we have distributed more than 3000 books into our community through the preschools we support, our BabyBoost sessions, our community reading afternoons, and by running competitions where participants send us pictures of ‘reading-in-action’.

“What we have been delighted to witness is the immense joy of receiving the gift of a story. Children have taken these little books home and returned to community reading afternoons, ready to read along with the visiting teachers. Books are prized possessions. Valued and loved. Their very own.

“So together with Book Dash we are helping grow language and literacy in this remote area and we are developing a love for stories. The benefits are enormous. Reading and sharing stories helps build strong bonds, which allows for open conversations. Reading together stimulates thinking and language and creates opportunities to discuss feelings and outcomes. Having a story at home, in these dark Covid times, has been a safe escape for our little people.

“The idea that each child should own 100 books inspires us to maintain our momentum to ensure we continue to grow literacy and language – we hope that all the children in the amaZizi valley we impact will Learn2Read so that they can Read2Learn.”

Every year, the Santa Shoebox project donates gift boxes to tens of thousands of children in need. In 2018, to mark its 21st birthday, MySchool (a Woolworths initiative that raises funds for schools and charities) sponsored 21,000 Book Dash books for Santa Shoeboxes. It was such a success that over the next three years, MySchool increased its pledge: it sponsored 200,000 books in total from 2019 to 2021. 

By 2022, when MySchool shifted its focus to another early childhood development project, books had become an integral part of the annual gift-giving campaign. The Santa Shoebox team felt so strongly about including books in the boxes that they took over funding themselves: they paid to print 24,000 books in 2022, 30,000 in 2023, and a whopping 65,000 in 2024. In 2025, they plan to order 70,000 books.

 In 2019, the Book Dash team visited a few Khayelitsha preschools with Santa Shoebox and MySchool to hand out boxes. Children’s eyes sparkled as they opened their beautifully-decorated shoeboxes, each one packed individually for a specific child.

For these children, the idea of receiving a box full of goodies ‘just for you’ is a novel concept. Including a book in the Santa Shoeboxes adds a dimension that is crucially important for children who live in poverty. The book donated by MySchool is often the first book a child ever owns – and have the power to ignite a lifelong love of reading and learning.

Thanda is a community-based organisation in Mtwalume, KwaZulu-Natal. In October 2018 they received Book Dash books, sponsored by the Solon Foundation. This is their feedback:

“You have made it possible for children in our community to have something they never had before – books of their very own! Thanks to your generosity, all the children in our early childhood development (ECD) programme were able to take home two wordless storybooks, I can dress myself and Springloaded, to read and enjoy in their own time.

“In October, our ECD facilitators read both books with their classes and talked about the stories, giving every child an opportunity to give their interpretation of what happens in the stories.

“Before children took their books home, our ECD facilitators held a meeting with guardians where they read both books together to encourage guardians to read them with their children, and to familiarise them with reading wordless books with children.”

For young children to thrive, they need food, love, security, stimulation and learning. Books can be a crucial tool in this model of nurturing care.

In 2019, Book Dash donated 400 isiZulu books to the Bethesda Hospital in the Umkhanyakude District of northern KwaZulu-Natal. The hospital has many baby-friendly programmes, but lacks resources to support them. The Book Dash books were used by the Paediatrics Unit, the Dietetics Department and the Occupational Therapy Department. 

Feedback from hospital staff on using the donated books was very positive. Children who visited the hospital loved receiving their very own book, and practitioners saw increased parental engagement. They shared:

“Linking health to education resources is new for Bethesda, but our OT team specially found amazing teaching opportunities with babies, toddlers and young children, both in the ward and during clinic visits. They used the books to teach and engage: body awareness, visual perceptual skills, language development. The books are ideal to link the hospital-based interventions to home learning and take-home tasks.”