High end Canadian department store Holt Renfrew announced the launch of a limited edition Marc by Marc Jacobs tote today, designed and sold as a promotion for VisionSpring! The exclusive tote will arrive in stores across Canada September 30 and will only be available until October 10, 2010, or while quantities last.  Holt Renfrew’s generous goal is to  contribute up to $80,000 to VisionSpring through sales of the tote.

Made of durable nylon and with two sturdy straps, the Marc by Marc Jacobs tote is both fashionable and functional, fitting comfortably over the shoulder and ideally shaped to carry textbooks, magazines, files and more. Available in four hot colours – pink, blue, white and black – each tote features a striking graphic – the words Marc by Marc Jacobs laid out as an eye chart in a tribute to Vision Spring.

“VisionSpring is thrilled to partner with premiere companies Holt Renfrew and Marc by Marc Jacobs,” said Founder and CEO Dr. Jordan Kassalow. “A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this unique tote bag will enable VisionSpring to provide the gift of sight and economic self reliance to thousands of people in the developing world.”

VisionSpring is deeply grateful to Holt Renfrew and Marc by Marc Jacobs for this exciting opportunity. Visit Holt Renfrew to learn more about the  promotion.

On September 16th, VisionSpring and its Board of Directors will host a conversation with Fareed Zakaria, TIME Magazine’s Editor-at-Large and host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS.

Following an informal breakfast, Time Warner CEO, Jeff Bewkes will offer opening remarks and provide framework to the program, “Business Solutions for the Base of the Pyramid.” Dr. Zakaria will discuss the lack of effective products and services to address social problems in the developing world and explore new solutions to meet the pressing needs of the poor. He and VisionSpring Founder & CEO, Dr. Jordan Kassalow, will examine the unique aspects of social business and its impact at the Base of the Pyramid.

In addition to his work with Newsweek International and CNN, Fareed Zakaria is a New York Times bestselling author. He was described by Esquire Magazine as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation” and in 2007, Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines named him one of the 100 leading public intellectuals in the world.

This event is by invitation only.

To inquire about the event, please contact Kelly R. Ricculli at kricculli@visionspring.org

VisionSpring is pleased to announce the appointment of Pritpal Marjara as Regional Director for Asia.

Based in New Delhi, Mr. Marjara will be responsible for leading VisionSpring’s team in India and collaborating with our partner, BRAC, in Bangladesh. Mr. Marjara will be instrumental in helping to drive VisionSpring’s success as it works to reduce poverty and generate opportunity in the developing world through the sale of affordable eyeglasses.

Mr. Marjara brings nearly 15 years of diverse professional experience in social marketing, behavior change communication, research and Information Technology. He joins VisionSpring from Marie Stopes International (MSI), a world leader in providing family planning service, where he worked with the global marketing team to increase access and demand for family planning products and services through the use of technology. Before his work with MSI, Mr. Marjara worked with the National AIDS Control Organization, within the Indian Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. In this capacity, he formed and directed an autonomous unit which provided strategic guidance to the Indian Government’s integrated condom marketing programs across much of India.

Mr. Marjara has also worked with Population Services International (PSI) in India including leading PSI’s successful Avahan Project supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The author of numerous research papers utilizing his social marketing expertise, Mr. Marjara began his career as an IT professional developing software programs, which included a two year assignment in the Czech Republic.

Pritpal will officially join the VisionSpring office in New Delhi on September 15th. The VisionSpring global team is delighted to welcome Pritpal on board. Welcome, Pritpal!

In June 2010, Partner Manager Caroline Misan visited the VisionSpring office in Santa Ana to assist Country Director Heidy Serpas to achieve a more polished Vision Entrepreneur and give our customers a better experience. Due to the success of programs VisionSpring is piloting in El Salvador, the Santa Ana office has enjoyed much more business – and given Heidy the opportunity to take the next step in the development of the program by building out the professionalism of the office and Vision Entrepreneurs. These improvements set the stage for continued growth of the operations and eventual replication in other cities in El Salvador and across Latin America.

Heidy and Caroline installed a display case for the frames (shown above) so customers are now able to clearly see all of the attractive options. The office was painted and a custom sign with VisionSpring’s logo was erected on the street to reassure customers of VisionSpring’s legitimacy and serve as a visual presence in the neighborhood. Then came the challenge: answering the Vision Entrepreneur’s call for VisionSpring to provide them more with professional support while balancing the organizational need to continue to recover costs from the location.

The team developed a plan to revise operations of the office to support the most committed Vision Entrepreneurs and incentivize the part-timers to do their part in making the program more successful. Now, the Vision Entrepreneurs will be asked to increase the number of campaigns held and meet a small minimum sales goal; if they meet these targets, they will earn an extra $50 per month. Caroline and the El Salvador team developed marketing materials and business cards for the Vision Entrepreneurs to allow the VEs more time for face-to-face outreach. Heidy also hired two loyal and talented Vision Entrepreneurs to support her in daily operations.

The opportunity to invest in the consumer experience for our Santa Ana customers signifies the deepening of our presence in El Salvador. These improvements respond to the overwhelming response from the communities as well as the commitment of VisionSpring staff and the Vision Entrepreneurs.

See photos of the Santa Ana office renovations by visiting our Facebook page!

VisionSpring was highlighted on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric last night!

The CBS Evening News team traveled to Rajasthan to learn the moving story of Ranju Sharma, whose work as a Vision Entrepreneur was so well respected that she was the first woman ever nominated to run for village chief.

Watch our powerful three minute CBS Evening News segment, “Eyesight for Sore Eyes”!

VisionSpring is lucky to have four MBA students from the Ross School of Business MAP program assessing the pilot of our new business model in El Salvador. The MBAs arrived in Santa Ana, El Salvador last week. During their time with us, VisionSpring will post the impressions of our four students on Business in a Bag. In the first post, Stephanie Osborn reports on the patience Vision Entrepreneurs exhibit cultivating customers in regions where eye care has never before been accessible.

We have had the opportunity to observe several campaigns, the community gatherings where the Vision Entrepreneurs perform eye exams and sell reading glasses. Whether there are eight people from the community present or fifty, I have been struck by the level of individual attention that the VEs give each customer. People come from all over the area surrounding Santa Ana, seeking not only an eye exam but some sort of explanation about what exactly is happening in their eyes. They want to know why their vision is cansada, or tired, and why they need this specific type of glasses. People come looking for answers.

The VEs never seem to lose their patience or rush a customer. They make sure that each person gets his or her questions answered. During one campaign, a VE named Noel explained to an elderly woman why she needed to take better care of her eyes so that she could continue to live a full life and not go blind. The woman began to cry. Noel immediately began to comfort her, sitting down on the bench beside her. He kept speaking with us until she calmed down and understood that he was trying to help her. I was impressed with how he listened to the elderly woman and answered her questions; this sort of attention and care is very different from the clinical and fast-paced medical experience in the United States.

This is not to say, however, that the eye exams performed at the campaigns are any less thorough than those in the U.S. People leave the VisionSpring campaigns with glasses or a referral to an optometrist in the Santa Ana office. The customers seem very happy with their new frames and renewed vision. I continually notice that the VEs do not only give out glasses, but answers as well; the personal attention given to each customer is incredibly important because it makes the VEs part of the communities that they serve. There are perhaps more answers to be found in this process than simply those that the VEs offer their patients.

-Stephanie Osborn

The Fraserview Boys and Girls Club of Greater Vancouver recently selected VisionSpring as its inspiration for the production of a claymation video. The video, made by a group of elementary-school students, highlights VisionSpring’s work promoting self-reliance and economic productivity using the story of a guide dog struggling with blurry vision.

VisionSpring in Claymation from elizabeth kaplan on Vimeo.

We couldn’t be more excited to see this animated interpretation of our work! A sincere thanks to these creative young people!

About The Fraserview Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Vancouver

Founded in 1936 and incorporated as a charitable organization in 1938, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Vancouver (BGCGV) provides a wide range of social, health, educational and recreational services to assist young people in their growth and development. Summer camp, low-cost recreational programs, alcohol and drug abuse counselling, after-school drop in programs and parent support are just a few of the programs provided on seasonal and daily basis to over 6,000 youth and families by core staff and over 1,200 volunteers.

To learn more about BGCGV

In the February 14, 2010 edition of Parade Magazine, VisionSpring Founder and CEO, Dr. Jordan Kassalow recounts what sparked his ‘eureka’ moment, where he discovered the enormous need for vision care at the base of the pyramid. Dr. Kassalow also sat down with Entrepreneur Magazine (March, 2010) to discuss how the organization grew from an idea to a global enterprise that operates in eleven countries with a corps of more than five thousand entrepreneurs.

The following is an excerpt from Dr. Kassalow’s interview in Parade:

Why did you start VisionSpring?
When I was an optometry student, I volunteered in Mexico and met a 7-year-old boy at a school for the blind. All he needed was the right glasses. When I put them on him, his face changed from a blank stare into this incredible, animated, beautiful smile. It changed his life—and mine.

How does the program work?
So many people in underprivileged areas lose their livelihoods as they age because they can’t afford the glasses they need to see their work. At the same time, millions of women need a way to support themselves. We decided to train women to start small businesses selling glasses to their neighbors at a price they can afford. We began with 18 women and currently have more than 5000 selling glasses from Ghana to El Salvador.

To take VisionSpring and the growing corps of Vision Entrepreneurs to the next level, the organization needed to develop a scalable and replicable model. In “The Vision Thing,”Jason Daley of Entrepreneur Magazine describes the solution – VisionSpring’s innovative microfranchisie model, which lies at the heart of VisionSpring’s global impact:

“Microfranchising works essentially like any franchise system. A locally based franchise partner—usually a local NGO or corporation with a strong local presence, signs up “vision entrepreneurs,” 95 percent of whom are women, who receive a “business in a bag” including glasses, eye charts and three days of training. They then travel from village to village marketing and selling the reading glasses for what typically amounts to 10 percent of a month’s salary. It’s a win-win-win situation—the franchisors put back whatever revenues they get from consignment sales to fund more entrepreneurs; the sellers create a viable livelihood; and workers in remote villages have access to glasses that might not reach them otherwise.”

Check out the full articles to hear more insights from VisionSpring’s founder:

Parade Magazine
Entrepreneur Magazine

This month VisionSpring welcomes Sean Mayberry as Chief Operating Officer.

Mr. Mayberry will be responsible for providing leadership to the Senior Management Team and driving the organization’s global growth. He comes to VisionSpring from Population Services International (PSI), a leading global health and social marketing organization where he has served as Managing Director for India since 2007. In this position he directed a 1,500 person, $35 million social marketing program with field presence throughout the Indian sub-continent.

On Decemember 9th, two weeks after relocating his family from India, Sean Mayberry’s arrival was celebrated by the VisionSpring community at a special reception held at the Rockefeller Foundation.

In the evening’s opening comments Antony Bugg-Levine, Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, compared Mr. Mayberry’s decision to join VisionSpring a comment made by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” In joining VisionSpring, Bugg-Levine explained, Mr. Mayberry shared his own belief in the bright future of the organization.

Speaking to members of VisionSpring’s board, staff and friends Sean said he was “humbled at the vote of confidence” and assured he would “exceed expectations.” He also praised Graham Macmillan, who is moving on after six years of dedicated service to VisionSpring, for his critical role growing the organization to where it is today.

The team is delighted to have Sean on board. Welcome, Sean!

At the end of August, VisionSpring launched its first South African partnership in partnership with microfinance organization Women’s Development Businesses Group (WDB). Halfway through the pilot, the word from the women in the field is that VisionSpring glasses are “selling like hotcakes!”

Indeed, a record 280 pairs of glasses were sold in the first month. What have been the keys to this early success?

For one, WDB Group’s hybrid for profit/non-profit structure provides a solid structure for achieving sustainability. Housed under the WDB Trust, the two main branches of the Group are an Investment Holdings body, which manages a portfolio of investments, and WDB Micro Finance, the operational engine that ensures financial resources are made available to poor women in rural areas through micro loans. The established culture of problem solving and collaboration is a huge head start for a third party social enterprise looking to join forces.

Another key factor has been the batch of entrepreneurs WDB assembled for the VisionSpring pilot. Nineteen highly energetic women were chosen to participate based on their previous success running businesses through WDB Micro Credit. The intimate knowledge these women already had of their customers allowed VisionSpring to extract invaluable market feedback quickly, price our glasses appropriately, and send the right mix of products for the local consumers. Participating in this feedback loop immediately increased the entrepreneurs’ motivation.

At the close of the first Vision Entrepreneur training, the excitement was palpable as the women of WDB got up and improvised a song and dance about VisionSpring, caught on video by VisionSpring’s Carrie Magnuson. Join the celebration!