Beyond Basics Media Page

Beyond Basics’ Executive Director Pamela Good Featured on Forbes.com

Beyond Basics Executive Director Pamela Good is currently featured in a Forbes.com online article about eight individuals who gave up other careers to start their own nonprofit organizations. The list includes well-known billionaires, such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former eBay president Jeffrey Skoll, as well as individuals from more traditional walks of life.

Pam Good knows what it is like to see potential in underprivileged children. After working in a variety of fields, including accounting and computers, she left the workforce to raise her own children.

After a trip to a Detroit school, she was surprised at how limited the schools were in terms of arts and other extras offered to the students. She began working with the schools to bring the arts to the children but in the course of doing so found out that many had trouble reading at their grade level. Her organization “Beyond Basics” began focusing on literacy and getting the students up to grade level. Literacy, she believes is the key to keeping the children out of the correctional system and a far more economical choice. Incarcerated individuals cost the state of Michigan more than $35,000 a year, where as her literacy programs cost a few hundred dollars.

For the full story from Forbes.com, download this PDF.