Books with Color, Inc., NP #3

 📚 Books with Color, Inc., NP #3

By: Kristi Cruise

Let me take you on a quick ride through the third nonprofit I somehow found myself founding…

Kritsi Cruise and Lawrence Gordon

Yep. Third. (And I swore I’d never do another. Never say never.) But there I was in my most comfortable burgandy outfit and glasses in October of 2020, masked up at a coffee shop with fellow indie author, nonprofit warrior and social good phlantropist Lawrence Gordon meeting for the very first time. We spend most of the time talking about how ridiculously hard it is to build a platform for your book(s) when you’re also running a mission, raising funds, raising kids, and—oh right—trying to sleep once in a while.

We realized something:
We weren’t alone. And we didn’t want to do it alone anymore.

That day, Books with Color was born. Within a year, we had our 501(c)(3), and our mission was clear: connect diverse authors with classrooms—for free—so their stories and characters could show up where they belong. 

In schools. On carpets. In kids’ hands and hearts of children.

BWC Author Earl Fambro
United Way of Greater Charlotte believed in us. So did Duke Energy Foundation. But every single classroom visit? Manually scheduled. By me. (Cue the “sure I’ll do it” face and a Google Sheet held together with hopes and duct tape and 47 tabs open.)

Eventually, we teamed up with Apparo and Coca-Cola Consolidated to build a legit, calendar-based booking system—one that will save time, sanity, and help scale this bad-boy like it deserves. Virtually any teacher can book me or one of our Books with Color Authors to come read to their classrooms virtually or in-person, for free. Talk about hearing the story from the horse's mouth. 

Oh—and before you ask:
Am I a diverse author? No.
But my characters are. Purposefully.
And my books? Nearly all bilingual.
So yeah—I count. And I care. And I keep showing up. 

Books with Color is a home for authors who want to make a difference, and for kids who deserve to see themselves in the pages we bring to them.

And let me be perfectly clear, this is not profit work, it is not for the faint of heart, and it doesn't always work out as planned. But I've learned as long as you keep going, as long as you don't quit, don't give up, you'll get there. And I'm still chugging along. And I'll be doing it for as long as it takes. 

Because representation isn’t extra. It’s everything.

👉 www.bookswithcolor.org

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