# Social impact publishing

Social Impact Publishers (SIP) are mission based publishers that are committed to the social goal of a literate society where all can read for meaning and reach their full potential. These organizations recognize that education offers social mobility and they see the number of children’s reading and story books, either in a home or at school, as key for measure for children's future attainment.
Books at home is commonly used as a measure of economic status and a predictor of future educational success across the globe. However, books, in the majority world, such books are often not available in vernacular languages or the paper based reading materials are prohibitively expensive. Social impact publishers, such as African Storybook, Book Dash, Nal'ibali, Storyweaver, and Vula Bula seek to address elite enclosure and use innovative approaches (such as social impact publishing or community publishing) to make it possible for children to have digital books at home.
SIP publishers rely on crowdsourcing to either professionally produce reading materials and/or self-publish books in a variety of formats. SIP publishers are active in contexts where bookselling is uncommon, or where the bookchain fails address the demand for suitable reading materials or limit authors publishing opportunities. These publisher's motivation consider how "books" might enable the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, values and practices...in a manner that respects children’s dignity and background". These publishers consider how to enable epistemological access in schools, are comfortable with a variety of modes (eg books, mobile or open platforms) and use Creative Commons licenses to share data, images, and text freely. SIP texts are designed to be compliant and accessible. They can be used to address both formal and informal access to reading goods, and because they are "discoverable, accessible, and interoperable", they can be accessed either by an institution or a traditional bookshop and distributed via virtual or algorithmic means.

## How SIPs work

Social publishers are prosumers, committed to encouraging both reading and contributing to the book chain. SIP Projects share, inform and empower those who strive for a literate society. Social impact publishers make use social mechanisms (networks, social media, word of mouth etc) to accomplish their goals. They rely on social subsidies / donations / grants / goodwill etc to support their efforts. While the commercial book chain is driven by markets and profit is generated through the sale of published books, social publishers are focus on sustainability, concerned about how those who live in regions where there is an acute shortage of books, can learn how to read. Social impact publishers should not be confused with self-publishing. Profits are not generated by selling books or selling services. SIP relies on crowdsourcing and IP generosity.

## Addressing a "reading crisis"

It is common to hear about a "reading crisis". In most case, the pat response is often to instill a "reading culture". This is seen by government and the general public as the solution. Social publishers differ. They identify the failure to provide suitable early reading books at home as a key cause of children’s inability to read at grade-level expectations. They also consider multiple factors (language, teacher background, the school, parents and community that influence reading development. While bookshops and libraries cater to the reading needs of urban middle class children, the commercial book chain does not cater sufficiently for vernacular readers in the majority world. The ongoing faith in the "culture of reading" is unjustified and should be seen as empty rhetoric.

## African Storybook (ASb)

The African Storybook's goal is to to make the case for the importance of multilingual literature for children and fostering pleasure reading as a key foundation for early literacy, and fostering pleasure reading as a key foundation for early literacy. This community publishing initiative is intended to address a shortage of children's storybooks in the languages of Africa. The ASb project is run by SAIDE.

## Bookdash

Bookdash has a goal that every child will own 100 story books by the time they turn 5 This social impact publisher (SIP) works with volunteer creatives, who work in a team to produce beautiful and professional picture books. Book Dash is a project associated with Electric Book Works

## Storyweaver

Storyweaver have an online platform that is intended to permit children to read books in their own language. In 2023 Storyweaver was awarded The OE Global 2023 Open Assets Awards for their Open Curation / Repository Storyweaver is associated with Pratham Books