Our Future Reads is a non-profit in Chicago IL, with a simple goal. We want to find a home for every book you donate to us. Thanks to your generous book donations, and the work of so many people who care about our mission, we have been able to collect over 20,000 books!
Our inventory is comparable to a library— but our storage facility is not. You see— we’ve hit a little speed bump. Our organization has more books than we can reasonably organize and store.
We know that you care about literacy as much as we do. That’s why we want to let you in on all the ins and outs of our process, our vision, and the help we need to make it happen.
Why Our Non-Profit in Chicago, IL, Needs Your Help
Every book deserves a shelf. At OFR, we are always seeking new shelves to house our books on, both temporarily, and permanently. While we are more than capable of filling individual readers’ shelves, finding space for their temporary storage is proving more difficult.
Our current facility is bursting at the seams with your donated books. Now, we need a bigger space to be able to store all of these donations properly. You may or may not know it, but 20,000 books is larger than a small library!
So, we need a small library sized unit— or bigger— if we want to keep growing our non-profit organization in Chicago, IL.
What Is Our Mission?
You might be wondering— what is our mission at Our Future Reads? We donate books to organizations, but what makes us different from all the other non-profits who do the same thing?
There are a lot of organizations that work with book donations, but only OFR lets the readers choose their own books from our inventory. We don’t just drop off a pile and tell the recipients to “have at it.” Books, and those who read them, mean more to us than that.
We’re on a mission to build personal libraries for those who can’t afford to buy new books. And let’s face it, with inflation on the rise and traditional publishing and booksellers charging an arm and a leg for NYT best-sellers, not everyone can afford to keep up.
But that doesn’t mean that everyone doesn’t deserve to own copies of their favorite novel. And that’s why we’re different.
When you request a book from Our Future Reads, we get it to you! We’re the bookstore for those who can’t afford bookstore buys. That’s because we believe everyone deserves to choose their own story.
Where is OFR’s Story Headed?
We are at the cutting edge of non-profit work, literacy advocacy, and innovative technology. Our incredible team has just completed development of a QR code system that links to our inventory organization system. All we have to do is tag each book, scan it into our system, and it will be available for someone to request.
Additionally, as a donor, you will have access to some incredible information regarding your donations, including:
- Analytics on our most popular genres
- Which organizations are receiving your book donations
- How many books each organization is getting
- Most frequently requested book
- And (eventually) even more
Our technology allows for more donor engagement than ever before! You can keep in touch with your donations and know that they are headed to bookshelves of readers who need them most.
As a non-profit in Chicago, IL, we want to give every opportunity for our friends and neighbors to help us in this mission. That’s why our technology is also designed with volunteers in mind.
Volunteer Work Made Easy
The process for individuals to request books is so simple. And we want to make it just as easy for our volunteers to find the requested books from our vast inventory. That’s why we developed our QR code to also be able to locate every specific book— once it’s organized properly.
When we get a larger holding facility, our team will set-up the space like a library. Volunteers will easily be able to locate any requested book, using our in-house technology. They can then package it and organizations can retrieve the books, with absolutely no confusion, whatsoever.
This system comes with the double bonus of allowing any person to volunteer with Our Future Reads at any time. Whether it’s one time service work or on-going, you will be able to join us at any time and help us get the books to organizations we work with.
We want to get all 20,000 books we currently have into the personal libraries of those in and around Chicago, IL. Then, we want to build our inventory even more.
How Can You Help Our Future Reads?
If you want to help bring our vision to life, you can make a monetary donation with us today! As a local non-profit in Chicago, IL, we are keeping your donations in the community. Every cent you donate to us, goes back into this mission.
All donations will go towards helping us find a permanent building where we can store our books, and work to bring the light of literacy to our community.
Our mission is truly to help make sure that “our future reads”. And we can only make it happen, by getting a storage space to house all of our books.
Donate to our Non-Profit in Chicago, IL
As our storage facilities are at full-capacity, we humbly request for monetary donations at this time (although, we’ll never turn down a book!).
If you can help us reach our goal, please check out our donation center here. You can also learn more about our mission, and keep up with all the latest in OFR by following us on social media.
Thanks so much and happy reading!