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The book follows Braun's path as he quit a job in finance at Bain & Co. to found Pencils of Promise with $25. Drawing upon his family heritage and native Connecticut roots, each chapter explains the steps that every person can take to discover a meaningful life.
Pencils of Promise is a not-for-profit that has successfully broken ground on more than 200 schools in some of the poorest regions in the developing world, including Laos, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Ghana.
His life journey has been shaped by his Jewish identity and family history –particularly by his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who spent time at Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen.
After her release, Braun’s grandmother returned to Hungary to find her family, where she met Adam’s grandfather, Joseph, a Holocaust survivor from Dachau.
His grandparents and his father immigrated to New York City in 1956, fleeing the Hungarian Revolution. Braun refers to these life events often in his memoir.
Braun decided to take a leap of faith to help bring the right to basic education to hundreds of children in developing regions of the world.
As an entrepreneur who began in the business community, Braun founded a successful organization that operates at the intersection of profit and purpose.
Braun graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, previously worked at leading consulting firm Bain & Co., was selected as one of the first 10 World Economic Forum Global Shapers and has been featured at the United Nations, Clinton Global Initiative, Google Zeitgeist, Wired Magazine’s 2012 Smart List of 50 People Changing the World, and 2012’s Forbes 30 Under 30.
In just five years, Pencils of Promise has blossomed into an organization making significant impact on access to education for youth. It has successfully broken ground on over 200 schools in some of the poorest regions in the developing world.
Before breaking ground, Pencils of Promise's approach includes an in-depth community analysis/need profile, followed by assessments of sustainability, cost efficiency, and community commitment. Pencils of Promise schools are built with high-quality materials to ensure long-lasting structures. The organization works with the communities in which they build their schools, and also provides teacher training and scholarship programs.
"The Promise of a Pencil" is available on amazon.com in Kindle, hardcover or audio form.
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