An ODwho is making a difference in the "Third World"

Paul Farkas

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 28, 2000
80,779
4,745
113
www.odwire.org
School/Org
Columbia University / PCO
City
Lake Oswego
State
OR
I received the following communication from Jordan Kassalow, OD,MPH...

"Dear Friends,

With your support, Scojo Foundation has experienced remarkable growth and success over the past few years, working to reduce poverty and create economic opportunities in the developing world through the sale of affordable glasses. We thank you for your commitment to our mission. Together, we have built Scojo Foundation into a leading innovator in social enterprise and we are now ready to take our work to the next level. To this end, we are proud to announce some exciting news: Scojo Foundation is changing its name and launching a five year, $5 million prospectus to help us build a sustainable enterprise capable of delivering our mission over the long term.

As you may know, the for-profit side of Scojo was recently sold. With this and the launch of our new prospectus in mind, we feel that now is the best time to change our name to better reflect our mission and brand for the long term. Scojo Foundation will now be known as “VisionSpring.” We are also proud to announce our new website, www.visionspring.org.

The launch of the VisionSpring prospectus represents the latest thinking in social enterprise and nonprofit development, in which capitalization is based on the private sector equity model. This model allows VisionSpring, and nonprofits and social enterprises in general, to secure funding upfront and devote 100% of our time and energy to executing our mission, as opposed to diverting limited resources to raising money on an ongoing basis. The prospectus builds on our commitment, as part of the Clinton Global Initiative, to more than triple the scale of our impact by 2010.

For tailors, weavers, and others throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa who need to see up-close for their livelihoods, the loss of near vision means the loss of the ability to work and support a family. While it can be easy to take access to affordable glasses for granted, 400 million people living in poverty whose productivity, self-reliance and dignity hinge on this simple tool lack access to it. Scojo Foundation has made significant progress towards overcoming this tremendous market failure, and now, as VisionSpring, we look forward to making it history.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jordan Kassalow
Chairman & Co-Founder, VisionSpring"


In the interest of full disclosure, Jordan is a partner in my former practice. For those interested in assisting the less fortunate overseas, Jordan is a good person to know.