Leading with Care: How Women Around the World are Inspiring Businesses, Empowering Communities, and Creating Opportunity

Delivering Spoonfuls of Stories

A very different but equally important General Mills program is Spoonfuls of Stories, a cause-marketing effort focused on reading. Illiteracy costs the United States more than $225 billion a year in lost productivity and is tied to some of society’s major problems: unemployment, crime, and poverty. Although it may be hard to believe, 40 percent of American adults have trouble reading and writing even simple things. They can’t fill out a job application, read traffic signs, complete election ballots, or follow the directions on a medicine bottle. They can’t understand a bus schedule, newspaper article, or product label. And they can’t read to their children.

Although Chris doesn’t claim to be an expert on the ...