ABSOLUTELY AMAZING THINGS HAPPEN when you stick to a great mission for years.

I wrote about The ShareLingo Project a couple of years ago, so I was super excited when James Archer contacted me about what’s been happening.  It turns out that he’s just 22 days away from launching his new book about developing programs which build cross-language learning through cross-cultural relationships.

Quick synopsis: ShareLingo brings together small teams of English and Spanish speakers where they learn the foreign language from each other while building personal relationships and deep appreciation for culture.  Feel free to check out that previous article for more of the story.

James and his team have experienced great success, but they’re impatient to make a deeper impact in our country.

Mission-driven organizations often feel the pressure of ever-growing needs, but given cultural pressures in our current political climate, they’re experiencing this even more acutely.

It turns out that a book is a fantastic way to reach a much broader audience, especially corporate and government decision-makers.  That’s why they’ve invested in capturing what they’ve learned in published form.

At the end of the day, it’s about how many lives they can improve.

James and I talked a bit about why they chose to make ShareLingo a for-profit venture, since I know that’s a common issue for many starting an effort intended to have societal benefit.  It’s actually quite simple: while their motives are that of a non-profit, they believe that they’ll have more of an impact using a for-profit model.  They’ll have more freedom in engaging supporters and allocating money and effort to the places which can most benefit.

They’re looking ahead to the day when they can expand their programs, pro bono, into primary and secondary schools.  Since that will be a substantial change to their business model, they’re being thoughtful about how to approach it.

And part of that will include engaging partners and capturing their impressive depth of expertise, yet keeping the personal relationship model which is the unique strength of their approach.

Capturing expertise?  Well, writing a book is a good place to start.  But there will be a whole lot more online resources they’ll be developing in coming years.

These folks are tightly focused on improving peoples’ lives and our compassion as a society.  So go and check out the book – it’s released!