MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
August 30 – September 6, 2006 Edition
Random House
To Donate $1 Million
To National Literacy Group
NEW YORK, NY/8/27/07–Random House, Inc., the U.S. division of Random House, the world’s largest trade book publisher, will donate one million dollars to First Book, the national non-profit literacy organization. It is the biggest single philanthropic contribution in the publisher’s history, and will enable First Book to further their renowned mission “to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.” The Random House multi-year commitment was announced today by Peter Olson, the company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Random House’s parent company is Bertelsmann AG.
Since it was established in 1992, First Book has distributed more than 50 million new books to children in more than 3,000 communities large and small across the US Before First Book, many of those children did not have a single book in their homes. The organization consistently has demonstrated that interest in reading increases dramatically, as does their literacy, when young people grow up with access to books. First Book aims to build a grassroots network of lifetime readers throughout the US with its future book distributions.
Random House, Inc. has been working closely with First Book for the past ten years through its Random House Children’s Books division, which, to date, has donated more than 13 million copies of their publications for First Book to disseminate directly to children in need in a setting in which they learn to read.
The Random House one-million-dollar contribution builds on this existing partnership. “As publishing professionals who spend our days surrounded by and immersed in books, it is difficult to imagine a world without them,” said Mr. Olson. “But this is a disturbing reality for millions of children in our country who do not have any books at all in their homes or schools or daycare centers. We know that one of the leading imperatives in raising the national literacy rate is to ensure that children have access to books. First Book has been very successful in achieving this goal. But they want to do much moreand we want to help them.”
In addition to their corporate donation, Random House has set up a First Book Matching Gift Program for its employees which will equal any individual contribution up to $2,500 dollar to dollar. The company will also match contributions to First Book from authors, illustrators, vendors, suppliers, literary agents, and booksellers to a maximum of $1,000.
"For over a decade, Random House has been an amazing supporter of First Book’s mission," said Kyle Zimmer, President of First Book. "This extraordinary contribution underscores Random House’s generosity of spirit and commitment to children in need. First Book’s goal is not just to fight illiteracy but to end it, and this expansion of our partnership brings us closer than ever to that goal."
Random House, Inc., the world’s largest English-language trade book publisher, publishes many of the foremost and most popular fiction and nonfiction authors in hardcover, trade and mass market paperback, audio, electronic, digital and other formats. Random House, Inc. (www.randomhouse.com) is the US division of Random House, the book division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the world’s leading media companies. Random House, Inc. has won the most major awards of any publishing company, including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Newbery Medal. Among the dozens of Random House, Inc. publishing divisions and imprints in the US are the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, the Crown Publishing Group, the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, the Knopf Publishing Group, Fodor’s Travel Guides, Random House Children’s Books, the Random House Publishing Group, and the Random House Audio Publishing Group. Random House’s publishing
