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Books delivered to students and teachers in Africa

UK Registered Charity No 1152599

  • 1 million books
  • 25 shipping containers
  • Annually

Can your organisation commit to fundraise or sponsor 1 or more containers annually?

A commitment of £8,000 per year to cover the cost of processing, shipping and delivering 40,000 books in a 40ft shipping container to one of our Africa offices for distribution to the hands of students and teachers. You'll receive an annual impact report, and your logo/name will be listed on our Sponsors Wall below and on relevant impact report pages.

  • Distribution offices in 4 African countries
  • Supported projects in 20 African countries
  • Impact reports published online
“The effect is so great, especially for the kids who are from the villages. They will come in and read books. Sometimes they can’t read but they will open pages and see pictures, and just get excited to have this place. For us, we have times when we come here and study, and also research for our own teaching. And just for amusement! For me, I will just come, sit there in the corner and read. I like reading fiction: horror and also romance books.”
Edward
EdwardPreschool Teacher, Zambia
Request More Information
Other Corporate Opportunities

Setup a Books2Africa Donation Portal or Bucket

We partner with Goodbox to provide these awesome contactless donation devices that can be left (attended or unattended) at your tills and sales points, allowing your customers or clients to donate seamlessly. You can also order a traditional donation bucket. 

  • Contactless Donation Portal (£100 setup)
  • Cash Donation Bucket (£10)
Setup Enquiry

Setup donations on your own Payment Gateways

We partner with Pennies to provide your customers the chance to make their pennies count for your chosen charity Books2Africa. We’ll work closely with your payment provider to enable Pennies across multi-channels, in-store, online, or app.

  • Compatible with most card reader providers
  • Comptaible with e-commerce via API
Setup Enquiry

Setup a Book Bin for your students and staff

Our Book Donation Bin is perfect for academic institutions to locate within departmental receptions, students’ halls of residence, and offices, enabling staff/students donate unwanted books and you can reduce waste. You also get a reduced collection fee.

  • Book Bin (£70 - £250 depending on size)
  • Collection cost (£4 per 20kg box)
Setup Enquiry

Sponsor the charity's Overheads

Every item we ship to Africa must be thoroughly checked, scanned into a database, counted and packaged at our UK warehouse by our team of paid staff and volunteers. You can help cover any of the following costs:

  • Tape, Pallet Wrap, Labels (£8k per annum)
  • Warehouse Rent (£22k per annum)
  • Staff (70k per annum)
Contact our Corporate Team

Corporate fundraising and volunteering

Make fundraising and/or volunteering a part of your organisation’s culture and meet your CSR goals. We’ll work with you to develop bespoke campaigns, projects, events and branding that creates lasting impact on education and the environment.

Contact our Corporate Team
  • Sponsors Wall
Special thanks to the following amazing organisations

Kent Union

Books2Africa started as a student society at the University of Kent in 2012 and received a start-up fund from Kent Union

A&S Self Storage

More than 11,000 books were collected in the first year and A&S provided discounted storage, enabling us move the operation off campus and become a registered charity.

Google For Nonprofits

After becoming a registered charity, Books2Africa was accepted on the Google For Non Profits programme, receiving free digital advertising that spread the word across the UK and beyond.

Clugton Technologies

The charity has benefited from thousands of pounds worth of web design and development from Clugton, enabling us run an efficient information and communications technology infrastructure.

Universal Channel Africa

As part of the launch of Season 2 of TV show The Librarians, Universal Channel ran a TV campaign that raised £12,000 to fund our first container shipments of books to Africa.

Ninety Consulting

With a business model committed to donating 90% of their profits to charity, Ninety Consulting started funding container shipments of books in 2015

TBN UK

TBN UK aired a 30 second video about Books2Africa for several weeks on their newly launched faith and family TV channel, free of charge!

Macmillan Education

For 175 years Macmillan has built lasting relationships with teachers and educators around the world. in 2016, they started donating books to the charity and funding container shipments.

Wristband Creation

This California based company provided free customised wristbands used as part of Books2Africa's fundraising materials.

Commonwealth Education Trust

As a charity with a shared purpose of advancing education across the Commonwealth is shared, the CET decided to fund a shipment.

Zendesk Chat

Books2Africa receives a 100% charitable discount from Zendesk Chat, a toll that takes away the stress from Customer Service.

Gravity Forms

Books2Africa received a 35% charitable discount from Gravity Forms, the "Easiest Tool to Create Advanced Forms for Your Website".

Zapier

Books2Africa received a 100% charitable discount from Zapier, the "best way to Connect Your Apps and Automate Workflows".

Convertize

Books2Africa receives 100% of profits from the sale of Smart Persuasion, a book by digital marketing company Convertize.

BrightPay

Books2Africa receives a 100% charitable discount from BrightPay, "payroll software that makes managing payroll quick and easy".

Gravity Wiz

Books2Africa receives a 50% charitable discount from Gravity Wiz, a company dedicated to providing awesome Gravity Forms resources in the form of snippets, tutorials and plugins.
Why Books2Africa
Make Impact
Make a significant impact as an individual or organisation by helping to fund the shipment and delivery of one million books to students and teachers across Africa every year.
DONATE

Books To Africa International is a UK registered charity (1152599)
An organisation in special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 2017.
Unit 2, Barton Business Park, Canterbury, CT1 3AA.
We do not store credit card details nor do we share financial details with any third parties.
© Books2Africa – All rights reserved 

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Coronavirus (Covid-19) updates

A quick update about what Books2Africa is doing in response to these uncertain times caused by the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19). Our top priority is the health and wellbeing of our staff, volunteers and supporters. Key to this is following government recommendations closely. Thankfully no suspected cases of COVID-19 have been reported amongst our staff and volunteers. Our Processing Centre in Canterbury is still operational and well stocked with the enough books and resources to ship to Africa.

Please read our updates below on steps taken to minimise the risk to staff, volunteers and supporters.

  • Public Book Collections Suspended: Effective today, we are suspending our collection service for book donations by members of the public in the UK. Although this will affect our book donation numbers, it would reduce the workload on our paid staff who continue to work during this difficult period to ensure the charity remains operational. This will be reviewed at the end of Easter on 14th April 2020.

  • Warehouse Volunteering Suspended: Effective today, we are suspending all volunteering work at the Processing Centre in Canterbury. This means all our UK and International Volunteers are no longer allowed to come into the Canterbury site. Although this will affect our processing and sorting capacity, it makes it easier for us to enforce government advise on social distancing and minimise the risk to paid staff who continue to work normal hours, ensuring our charity shop remains operational and shipments to Africa are dispatched. This will be reviewed at the end of Easter on 14th April 2020.

  • Online Volunteering: During this suspension of warehouse volunteering, we will be assigning all our volunteers to our Education Team to work on a variety of fundraising tasks online. To this end, all our International Volunteers are required to attend an online Skype meeting with our Director of Education on Wednesday 25th March at 9:30 am. UK volunteers who would like to join in can also email [email protected] to indicate their interest in order to receive further instructions on joining the meeting.

 

 
Finally a word of encouragement – Do not be afraid, stay safe and continue to have faith that this will soon pass. 
  • The strictest hygiene standards are being followed at our Processing Centre, with hand sanitisers, disinfectant sprays, plastic gloves and posters reminding staff, volunteers and supporters to wash their hands regularly and wipe their work surfaces.

 

  • No contact deliveries: Couriers delivering boxes to the Processing Centre will no longer require you to sign by hand on delivery. Rather, they are advised to enter your initials.

 

  • Drop-offs and tours suspended: From next week, drop-off appointments by members of the public will be suspended until further notice. Until then, staff and volunteers are advised to receive deliveries without contact and avoid giving members of the public tours of the Processing Centre.

 

We appreciate your understanding as the situation evolves and reassure you that we will take necessary steps to ensure your safety whilst trying to also fulfil our charitable objectives. If you need any support or advice, you can send us an email [email protected]

Thank you for your continued support and do subscribe to our coronavirus updates if you want to be remain updated.
Books2Africa UK Team

Shipping and delivering 1 million books every year
involves the following:

Volume
  • 20,000 books fit in 1 x 20ft container
  • 1,000,000 books fit in 50 x 20ft containers
  • 4 x 20ft containers shipped monthly
Costs
  • £5,000 to process, ship and clear each container of 20,000 books
  • £20,000 delivers 4 containers monthly
Fundraising Target
  • 2,000 individuals giving £10 or more monthly, or 50 corporate partners sponsoring 1 container per year. Thank you.

30%

Processing in the UK

30%

Freight from the UK

40%

Clearing and haulage in Africa

Books2Africa is a UK registered charity number 1152599