The African Library Project (ALP) changes lives book by book by starting libraries in rural Africa. Our grassroots approach mobilizes U.S. volunteers, young and old, to organize book drives and ship books to a partner library in Africa. Our method makes a concrete and personal difference for children and adults on both continents.

We work with our African partners to create small sustainable libraries in Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Swaziland. Our model provides many benefits for the U.S. too, including greater knowledge of Africa, leadership opportunities for young Americans, recycling of books, and many books donated to American organizations (those not appropriate for Africa). Our model is scalable and, while already making a significant difference, it has the potential to do much more.

We have helped develop over 1400 libraries in 10 years!

We are looking for board members who have one or more of the following skills/experience:

Social Media Director

Marketing Director

Website Director

Event Management Director

Experience in Botswana, Lesotho, and/or Sierra Leone

Our ideal board member will have a passion for Africa and literacy, and we prefer board members with experience in Africa. As a board member you will be responsible for one primary area (see specific position descriptions below). In addition, as part of our working board, you will participate in making decisions around both strategy and direction of the organization and then execute those decisions with the help of other volunteers. Each board member is expected to make a personally significant financial donation yearly and to participate in fundraising, but unlike many other nonprofits, fundraising is not the board’s main activity. Our CRM database is Salesforce, and we would prefer if you have experience using the system, but it is not required.

Time Commitment: 10-20 hours/month. You are required to attend our monthly board meetings in person. They are held on the second Saturday of every month from 9am-noon in Portola Valley; the remainder of your volunteer time can be scheduled at your convenience.

Social Media Director: The book drive organizers (our “community”) are the bread and butter of ALP. We have found that being active and leveraging social media has been one of the best ways to keep our community engaged (and become recurring book drive organizers), and to share success stories to encourage our new book drive organizers. We are looking for someone who will engage with our growing community to get them to organize another book drive, and get them to share our posts with their networks to recruit their friends. You would work with the Communications and Marketing Directors to keep a steady flow of content to our existing platforms which are: Facebook (5,000+), Twitter (2,000+), YouTube, and Google +. You would also help find ways to get past and present book drive organizers to follow us on social media (only a small percentage do), growing the size of our audience online. Your objective will be to syndicate social content to build community among existing book drive organizers and find new, first time book drive organizers Ideally, you have experience using social media outside of your personal life.

Marketing Director: You will help us tell our story and the many amazing stories emerging everyday from Africa and our book-drive organizers. You will use paid and content marketing with the goal of recruiting new book drive organizers. You would manage our existing Google AdWords account and guide us as we try and evaluate other paid marketing (in January 2015 we tried our first paid ad aside from Google AdWords and paid facebook posts). In addition, you will distribute our press releases and get our stories out in print and on digital platforms where our target market congregates (e.g. parent, teacher, librarian blogs or websites). You would work with the Communications and Social Media Directors in accordance with our communications calendar. Your objective will be to develop outreach programs to find new, first-time book drive organizers. Ideally you have experience with SalesForce, SEO, Google Analytics, public relations, and/or content marketing.

Website Director: Our website is the main way we interact with prospective book drive organizers, and it is also where we have all the materials active book drive organizers need for their book drive. So our website, based on Joomla, is central to our work. We are looking for a board member who will keep our site fresh, useful, and aesthetically pleasing and consistent. The Web Director oversees the design, development, and maintenance of the ALP website. Duties include updating and developing new web content and graphics, training other staff to update content and use the website, guiding the creation and implementation of long-term plans to improve website functionality, diagnosing and repairing any problems with the website or databases, tracking site usage/statistics, ensuring and improving security features, regularly backing up content, and maintaining hosting and third-party relationships on which the functionality of the website depends. Our Web Director is also responsible for building, improving, and troubleshooting web-based applications. The Web Director ensures that the ALP maximizes the functionality of the Book Drive Applications and acts as the primary email administrator. We have a paid consultant who is available for major or complicated changes. Also, several board members make minor changes themselves to avoid overloading the Web Guru. You must be good at Joomla, detail-oriented, and good at dealing with and prioritizing requests from multiple board members. You need experience with Google Applications; command of HTML, CSS, and other mark-up languages; fluency in Content Management Systems and Joomla; the ability to effectively use desktop publishing software such as InDesign or Pagemaker; understanding of cross-browser compatibility issues, W3C web design standards, accessibility and usability; the ability to troubleshoot problems with web hosting services and leverage hosting service interfaces (such as CPanel) to carry out necessary tasks (e.g. back-ups, restoring previous versions of the site, security enhancements, etc.); and experience with online payment methods and e-commerce, particularly relating to donations.

Special Event Director: Every two years, ALP hosts our main fundraising event called Harambee! (Harambee means Let's All Pull Together to Get it Done in Swahili). Not only do we use the fundraiser to connect with new, existing and past supporters of ALP, the funds we raise will primarily go towards organizing our bi-annual Partners Summit in Africa (we pay for travel and accommodation for our African Partner delegates), as well as to buy HIV/AIDS books to include with our book shipments, among other things. The ideal Event Director should have great organizational and project management skills, be passionate about event planning, and be excited to help us host an exciting event in fall 2016 that may comprise a cocktail party or dinner (for ~150 guests), as well as a live and silent auction. If the Event Director has ideas for other events or smaller gatherings ALP should host to stay more connected with our book-drive organizers or supporters throughout the year, we would love to hear them! 

Country Liaison: You are the primary point of contact between ALP and one of the African countries where we work. As a country liaison you will maintain regular contact with the partners throughout the year. One of the main parts of the role is to review the applications from our partner countries and enter them into our system. Then you will communicate with the container manager (another US-based ALP volunteer) during the period when the applications are being matched with book drive organizers. Then, once the libraries are on the way, you communicate the shipping details to the partner and keep up to date on container arrival, library distribution, and training, in order to communicate back to the board and the book drive organizers. You must be patient, detail-oriented, flexible, and persistent, and you must have experience spending an extended period of time in Botswana, Lesotho, or Sierra Leone (or be willing to go there--at your own expense).

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.