By Steven M. Wells
Most mornings at 5:30, when he’s not travelling to Africa, you’ll find Microsoft alumnus Cliff Schmidt working in the Seattle office of Literacy Bridge, the nonprofit organization he founded 10 years ago. By 8 a.m., he’s back home and walking his daughter to the bus stop for her trip to kindergarten.
“My time with my daughter is both precious and fleeting,” Cliff says. Then he’s back to the Literacy Bridge office for a full day helping alleviate poverty around the world.
In the decade since the 46-year-old started Literacy Bridge, he’s helped nearly 500,000 people of extreme poverty across Africa, who live without electricity and on $1.90 per day.
Cliff’s successes are laudable, but his ambitions for the future of Literacy Bridge are truly impressive. He’s set his sights on reaching 10 million people across multiple continents in the next five years, by establishing an affiliate model.
His motivation to start Literacy Bridge came during an extended walk back to his Atlanta hotel following a presentation he gave at a conference on open-source software.
Taking a route through economically distressed areas of the city, some that reminded Cliff of those near his childhood home of Memphis, he happened upon the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King once had been pastor. At the same location is a memorial for Mohandas Gandhi. As he toured the exhibits, Cliff reflected on the efforts of those leaders to define a world of peace and harmony, and their commitment to erase the link between discrimination and poverty. More importantly, he realized he was personally falling short of such noble goals, and that his own life seemed far too easy.
Cliff suddenly understood that he had more important work to do.
Cliff returned to Seattle from Atlanta and, for the next six months, he researched poverty and racism around the world. In 2007, he founded Literacy Bridge with a mission to tackle global poverty.
Cliff engaged university engineers to design the Talking Book — an innovative, low-cost audio computer designed for the learning needs of illiterate populations living in the poorest areas in the world. A trial deployment of Talking Books, loaded with agricultural information to help increase crop yields, proved the concept in Ghana. Subsequent deployments with Cocoa farmers, and then UNICEF, to teach maternal and child health education, established the viability of the Literacy Bridge model. Use of the Talking Book in a 2016 project in Kenya increased bed net usage by 50 percent, and increased the practice of handwashing with soap, to prevent disease, also by 50 percent.
Cliff’s progress got attention. The Microsoft Alumni Foundation selected Cliff as an Integral Fellow and awarded a $25,000 grant in 2010, and a sustaining grant of $25,000 in 2015. Cliff was invited to join the Clinton Global initiative in 2011, only one of two organizations in Washington state to receive that honor. Other recognitions included becoming a PBS News Hour Agent of Change, and winning a Computerworld Honors Award for his design of the Talking Book.
Many nonprofit organizations struggle during their transition from innovative idea to a sustainable organization. Cliff has made many of the right moves. He built an impressive and functional board, hired staff able to manage the challenges of a multinational organization, organized successful fund-raising efforts, and built worldwide partnerships with organizations such as UNICEF, Care International, and the World Cocoa Foundation.
Among the nearly 500,000 people in Africa who Literacy Bridge has helped, a 2015 survey shows how the Talking Book is making a difference. The survey measured the changing attitudes and level of adoption of health practices taught and results showed that people with access to the Talking Books and the health lessons taught were 50 percent more likely to use bed nets and to wash their hands with soap.
Cliff now wants that type of success to multiply in a major way in the next five years.
Cliff and his partners, such as UNICEF, understand that a successful deployment with Literacy Bridge is achieved through many factors: the low cost and utility of the Talking Book, a structured behavior change plan and effective communication messages, and routine monitoring and evaluation during implementation and deployment.
By implementing an affiliate model, Cliff wants to leverage his programmatic and logistics knowledge, augment standard fundraising efforts with a steady revenue stream, and expand to additional regions and continents.
Established affiliates will work together with Literacy Bridge to support the deployment needs of their global partners, and maintain the Literacy Bridge brand and program consistency. An initial affiliate is underway in Kenya, and others will be added.
“I’ve never worked harder,” Cliff admits, “but my life is now truly rich from helping those most in need.”
Besides his family and his work, Cliff has found a new passion, learning to play the saxophone. You might even catch him one evening, performing with other students, at the Royal Room in Columbia City.