Social Impact Reading List

I've wanted to do a book list for awhile now of books that I would suggest for others to read.  Want to be a changemaker?  These books are a great start.  One of my favorite things to do around campus while I walk from class to class is to read a physical book, and of course it's great (and probably safer) to sit and read too!

Half the Sky and A Path Appears by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

I am slightly obsessed with Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.  Sheryl is a Cornell graduate who went on to co-author four award-winning books with Nick, her husband.  Nick and her won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1990 for their work following the Tiananmen Square protests.  Nick is well known from his opinion column in the New York Times. 

These two books are their most recent.  Half the Sky covers topics such as sex trafficking, maternal mortality, female genital mutilation, sexual violence, microfinance, and girls' education on a global level.  A Path Appears focuses on how people are making a difference in the world and serves as a sort of roadmap for global citizenship. 

Both also were made into documentaries by PBS that are extremely powerful.  I reserved the TV room in my dorm my freshman year of college to watch A Path Appears as it was televised and Half the Sky was popular in my class on globalization in high school.

Definitely worth reading and watching both.

You can buy them here and here.

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

I hate to admit I liked this book.  It was required reading for a class that I despised back during my freshman year.  I did not finish the book during the class, but I did continue reading it after the semester let out.  It follows the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a world figure for public health.  If you want to be inspired, this is a great book for you.  I double suggest it if you want to make a difference with your life and I triple suggest it if you are interested in pursuing a career in public health.

Honestly, I'm a Paul Farmer fangirl because of this book.  Check out his organization, Partners in Health. 

​You can buy it here.

Clay, Water, Brick ​By Jessica Jackley

You may know that I am obsessed with Kiva.org and their work with microfinance.  I ran a Kiva Club in my high school and during my first year of college.  As a senior in high school I had the opportunity to see Matt Flannery, Kiva's then-CEO and co-founder speak and freaked out pretty hard.  I asked for a picture with him and I told him about my club and long story short, he flew me out to San Francisco a couple weeks later to see their HQ and attend the Kiva U Summit.

This book opened my eyes to Kiva's founding story and also introduced me to Jessica Jackley, who, until I read this, I wasn't really aware of.  It tells stories of entrepreneurs and I felt so much pride for the organization I love.
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​You can buy it here.

Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus is known as the "Father of Microfinance," which is a pretty big deal if you ask me.  Someone gave me this book after learning about my interest on the topic and I finally got around to reading it this summer.  Amazing.  Sometimes I just assume that I'm late to the humanity game and that so much has happened before I came along that there's not much more to do.  I know that's not the case in reality and this book was a pretty stark example in just how recent microfinance popped up.

Plus, Muhammad Yunus is a living person!! I'd love to meet him and tell him about how his "invention" changed my life.

You can buy it here.

Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard

I really liked this book.  Yvon Chouinard is the founder of everyone's favorite socially responsible fashion company: Patagonia.  Chouinard talks about the brand from a few different angles, even going into some detail about how they chose their textiles and such.  This was fun for me as a fashion student because it had everything I am interested in! The pictures are a fun way to understand the Patagonia story too.  A little difficult to read as there aren't exactly chapters, just sections, but definitely worth it.  Shoutout to my aunt, uncle, and cousins who bought this for me for the holidays last year! It was a perfect gift.

You can buy it here.

Screw Business As Usual by Richard Branson

Honesty time: haven't quite finished this one yet, but so far it's been great.  A friend gifted this as an E-book to me and it's been quite the enjoyable read!  I had heard Branson's name thrown around a few times in the social impact space but didn't really know much about his companies or their missions.  One of the coolest things for me in this book is that he mentions the CEO of ChenFeng Group, a manufacturing company in China that I visited while in the country this summer.  I spent a full day with their CEO and read about him in Branson's book later, which was a great surprise!  Looking forward to completing this read!

​You can buy it here.

What I Wish I knew at 20 by Tina Seling

My brother gave me this book on my twentieth birthday.  I LOVED it.  I read it and wanted to transfer to Stanford where Tina Seelig is a professor so that I could take her class.  This book asks you to think entrepreneurially, innovatively, and logically.  In it was mentioned an entrepreneur story that looked familiar because I remembered it from Jessica Jackley's Clay, Water, Brick, so it's always fun to see how this social impact realm is connected.

Maybe I'll go to Stanford for my MBA and have the chance to interact with Seelig in the classroom in the future!

​You can buy it here.

Distruptors​ by Kunal Mehta

I had the great pleasure of meeting Kunal through an event I put on at Cornell back in 2015 and read his book shortly after that.  It is a wonderful book to read to learn the origin stories of a lot of social entrepreneurship ventures, such as charity: water and FEED.  It's a pretty fast read but definitely has high quality content that makes this book good for those looking to make an impact in their career.

If you ever have the chance to see Kunal speak, definitely attend! He's worth it.

You can buy it here.