Benetech

Benetech was founded to be a different kind of tech company—a nonprofit—with a pure focus on developing technology for the social good. Our business model aims to create sustainable, not profitable, projects, which allows us to do more and to be more creative in how we apply technology to accelerate social progress. In many ways, we’re like a start-up company in a venture capital environment—identifying new markets and new ways to be efficient in existing markets. The big difference is that our bottom line is centered on how many lives we can help, not on how much money we will make.

We have four main program areas—Global Literacy, Human Rights, Environment and Benetech Labs—and focus on projects that offer the greatest social return on the funds invested. Jim Fruchterman, social entrepreneur and MacArthur Fellow, founded Benetech in 1989 and leads the organization as its President & CEO. Benetech has over 70 employees, most of which work out of our Palo Alto headquarters on California Avenue (walking distance from Caltrain and Stanford University).

One example of Benetech’s work is our flagship initiative, Bookshare (http://bookshare.org). Bookshare opens new doors for people with visual and reading disabilities. Bookshare is the world’s largest accessible library of eBooks and periodicals. Bookshare offers more than 250,000 books in its online collection and gives people who can’t read traditional printed books, access to a dramatically expanded world of information. This project is funded by the U.S Department of Education, foundations, other donors and paid memberships.