What is the Book Bunk Blueprint and why does it matter?
Hello friends! If you are reading this, you probably work as a founder or manager of an innovative initiative in the creative or social impact sector in Africa, or both! You might be an aspiring founder or manager too. You are in the right place if you are looking for company among people who have been there, done that, made mistakes, brushed off the dust and learned a lot along the way. We have figured some things out by trial and error, but you shouldn’t have to struggle as much as we did! The Book Bunk team has put together this Blueprint to tell you how we built our young(ish) and ambitious organisation. We take you through the steps we took from when this was only an idea and what we have learned along the way. And because we are always drawing inspiration from others, we include insights from some of our friends (peer organisations) who are also tackling challenges through creativity and innovation. This Blueprint is our way of documenting our process as we go – we are very much still learning and evolving as an entity. Volume One documents the first phase of our journey that we call Book Bunk Phase 1, running from the ideation and inception years (2014 to 2017) and the first five years of our existence since 2017.
Now that you know what the Blueprint is, let’s also be clear about what it is not. The Blueprint is not a hard-and-fast, one-size-fits-all, gospel truth view of how to build an institution. We are offering our story as one of many perspectives to support you in your own journey. This Blueprint is not a teaching guide. Rather, consider it a set of field notes from a friend who is telling you about their experiences. Refer to the quote below for more on what we mean:
As Africans we've never stored our knowledge in buildings. Our knowledge has always been stored in people and then we express it through drawings and we tell stories. So for me, what team Book Bunk is doing is daring to remember differently, daring to make inclusive spaces for people. For me that's the thing that makes them one of the most important organisations in the world right now because they're just saying that we're going to do this our way and it matters. And no one's stopping us.
Syokau Mutonga, (Book Bunk Alumnus) former Research & Inventory Manager.
