Literacy about character

Our organization believes in keeping jobs in America, even if that means slightly higher costs. All of our books are created by our staff. From the idea on the computer it will go straight to a printer in Illinois who we are able to work closely with. There's nothing more frustrating than a miscommunication in a project, so we're choosing someone close to home and who gives us the best prices possible

Since there are 9 traits that our organization focuses on we do not need to wait until we have the total funds in order to begin the process. As soon as we have funding for a single book we will begin the process and as donations continue to come in, we will continue producing the other traits.

We will also be working diligently to obtain funding for shipping costs. It's an additional cost for this project that we have not included in our budget, but we are confident that donations to our organization will allow us to cover these costs. If not, we will begin fundraising specifically for this cause. We want to be able to share these books nationwide (possibly worldwide depending on shipping costs and as long as the recipient understands that the books are in English) and we don't think that it's fair that certain people are not allow to receive these books because they are not able to attend events that our organization is at, or are not located in that area to begin with.

Once the books are completed, or at least one book, we will create a form on our website. This will be a basic form for adults to fill out. It will allow us to decipher if the book will actually be used or someone is just looking for something free. We do not want to waste our funds for someone who will not be using these books to help teach children about the trait. We will also do our best to not send more than one book to a single household. Of course, if someone is truly interested in all nine books we will set up a separate way to get them to them. They will have to provide the funding for it, but producing additional books is not a problem as long as funding is available for it.

The form will only be available while copies of the book are available. Books will also be provided at events that we attend.

For every purchase of our book, Tune Into Good Character, $1 will go directly to our current project of producing 9,000 character books.

Click on the photo to buy your copy today!

Each book will focus on a single strait. There are nine traits in total that our organization teaches children. These include:

Behavior- This book will focus on Behavior Bear demonstrating good behavior at home, school, the playground, and in public.

Perseverance - This book will focus on Do'er Duck struggling with tasks, like everyone else, but never giving up on what he is trying to acheive.

Friendship - This book will focus on Friendship Frog describing what a good friend truly is, and how you can be one.

Health - This book will focus on Healthy Hippo describing how he takes care of his own body with exercising, eating properly, and keeping good hygiene.

Manners- This book will focus on Manners Monkey explaining what manners are. This will include polite words and kind actions (like holding open the door for someone)

Respect - This book will focus on Respectful Rabbit expressing the need to respect yourself and those around you, and the importance of doing so.

Responsible - This book will focus on Responsible Rabbit explaining why you need to be responsible for yourself and your actions.

Self esteem - This book will focus on Self-Esteem Elephant explaining why being proud of yourself is so important, and why you should take pride in everything that you do.

Kindness - This book will focus on Warm-Hearted Walrus and how to prevent and deal with bullying.

These book ideas are subject to change as they have not been written yet. We also do not have a determined reading level, but we do focus ages pre-k through late elementary. These books are also meant to be read with a parent (to allow discussion about the traits and encourage more parent/child interaction)

Because our organization is nationwide we find it extremely difficult to find grants that will fund what we do. Most grants (especially with today's economy) focus on their own communities. Also, these books will be provided nationwide..not just a single area. That means that getting funding through a philanthropy or foundation will be extremely difficult.

So, we are focusing (and counting on) donations from people like you. We are also continuously getting in touch with corporations and businesses who will help us to fund this project. In addition to that, we will be working in our own community to try and raise funds from things like standing outside local stores collection donations and passing out information about our organization and what we are trying to acheive.

I would like to clarify that we are not eliminating foundations and philanthropies from our potential donors. If, and when, we come across a foundation who may fund this project we will pursue it. We are just not relying strongly on such funding.

Once we start receiving donations I will create a graph that I will update as often as needed. If funding is slow at trickling in I obviously wouldn't update the graph every week, but as long as we are getting funding I will continue updating this lens with the most current information.

If you're donating to this project because you'd like to receive a copy of one of the books, but don't feel like keeping up to date with how things are progressing, simply contact us and Jenny will let you know as soon as we have a significant amount of funding to direct you to the form to fill out in order to get a copy.

The goal is to have funding completed by March of 2012. We did not reach our previous goal date, but that doesn't mean we're giving up with this project!

If you're like me, you question the amount of funding that someone is asking for. I can completely understand questioning the cost of a project versus the population it will serve and whether or not it seems worth it. We gave you a price breakdown for how the funds will be used, but I also wanted to clarify this point.

While our funds allot for 9,000 books to be printed (you can see that the cost isn't exactly cheap) we are hoping that it will be able to help far more children and parents than that. We will include a small note attached to the front of the book for the adult. It will simply ask them to donate the book after they are done using it. We're not asking that you read it once to your child and give it away. But we know how books tend to collect dust on the shelves rather than getting use out of them. We'd rather encourage everyone to keep them in circulation and helping as many children as possible, rather than providing books that will not be used to their full potential.

Also, if this project is successful (and goes over the budget) we will continue printing these books and providing them to parents at no cost to them. The goal is that parents pass along the information to other parents who might get good use out of the books. Even if 9,000 are in circulation we are estimating that the number of families that benefit from these books will be far larger than that number.

We understand that knowing exactly where your donations go (straight down to the penny) is important. There are so many organizations out there that do no use the funds as they promised they would, or the funds go to someone's already overpaid salary. So, here's a breakdown just for you.
The total cost of this project will be $32,000.

We have estimated (as we can't be sure until we actually get them printed) that each book will cost $3.55 for the size and full color pages.
This will include the shipping costs that it will take to get them to us, and a small administrative fee to create (illustrate, edit, and write) the books.

Since we're only order 1,000 copies of each book (9 in total) there isn't much of a price break for colored copies. Plus, as I stated before we are getting them printed in Illinois and the costs are slightly higher than going out of country (or state consider shipping costs) to do so.

Keep in mind that the reason the total cost seems so high is because we are producing a total of 9,000 books and will be providing them to parents completely free of any kind of charge.

**If for any reason we find that the cost of these books is significantly lower we will either produce more books to give to parents, or donate them to other charities like Toys for Tots or children's hospitals...basically anywhere that our books would be able to help as many children as possible.

If you'll take notice, the cost has already been lowered after talking to our printer. We knocked off nearly $10,000 of what we thought it was going to cost. If we go over our goal we will be printing more copies of the books or use some of the funds for shipping costs based on how many inquiries we receive.