Bookshare.org Chosen as Finalist in National Business Plan Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Palo Alto, CA, February 21, 2003: Yale School of Management and Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures announced this week that Bookshare.org, an online library of accessible books for people with disabilities, was selected from 655 applicants as one of twenty finalists in the National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations.

Bookshare.org is a subscription service that provides an extensive online library of accessible digital books to people with severe visual, reading and mobility disabilities. The service, which was created by Benetech, the leading technology nonprofit in the Silicon Valley, operates under a copyright exemption in US law allowing the redistribution of copyrighted works in specialized accessible formats for people with qualifying disabilities.

The twenty projects are in the planning stage, or early stages of operating income-generating business ventures. (For a full report on the finalists and Competition entrants, see www.ventures.yale.edu/statusreport.asp.) Each finalist will present their business plan to a panel of expert judges at the first Annual Conference and Awards Ceremony, which will be held on May 1-2, 2003 at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. The judging panel will select four grand-prize winners, each of whom will receive $100,000, and four semi-finalists, each of whom will receive $25,000. In addition to cash awards, the winners will receive hundreds of hours of technical business planning consultations to assist their organizations in implementing their ventures.

Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman commented, "It's a thrill to have Bookshare.org recognized in this way — we pride ourselves in the rigor of our business planning. Now we're looking forward to presenting our plans for making Bookshare.org a huge success to the judges in May!"

The judging panel will include Roger Brown, Executive Chairman of Bright Horizons Family Solutions; Chandy Chandrashekhar, Vice President of Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Catherine Clark, Director of the Research Initiative in Social Entrepreneurship and Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School; J. Gregory Dees, Faculty Director of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business; Gary Mulhair, Managing Partner of Global Partnerships and former President and CEO of Community Wealth Ventures and Pioneer Human Services (both nonprofit enterprises); Barry Nalebuff, the Milton Steinbach Professor at the Yale School of Management and a leading expert on competitive strategy; and Lynn Taliento, Principal of McKinsey & Company and co-founder and leader of the Firm's Global Nonprofit Practice.

About Benetech

The Benetech Initiative is a Silicon Valley nonprofit that develops sustainable, technology-based solutions to address pressing social challenges in areas such as disability, human rights, education and literacy. Many beneficial technologies have compelling social applications that are not developed because such efforts do not meet for-profit investors’ financial expectations. Benetech specifically pursues endeavors with a strong social, rather than financial, rate of return on investment, bringing commercial technology and private sector management techniques to bear in creating innovative, non-traditional solutions to challenging social issues. More information on Benetech and its projects can be found at www.benetech.org or by calling (650) 475-5440.

About The Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures

The Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures was funded through combined grants totaling $4.5 million made by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Goldman Sachs Foundation. The Partnership grew out of the partners' growing concern that nonprofits increasingly find the need to enter the marketplace to generate new revenues beyond their philanthropic activities, and need guidance and resources to do so.

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