Frequently Asked Questions

Book Donations
Funding
Logistics
Language

Book Donations

Does Sabre accept used books?
No, for three reasons:
a. Publishers donate new books to us.
b. Publishers donate multiple copies - each child/student in a class can have the same book.
c. We do not have the space nor the manpower required to inventory used books.

Does Sabre donate books to individuals?
Sabre's book donations are coordinated through its local NGO partners. The recipients of books include universities, schools and individuals.

Does Sabre donate books within the USA?
No. As a condition of receiving new book donations from publishers we only donate books to countries where the publishers have no market. These countries are typically in conflict or in transition.

Funding

Is Sabre a grant-making foundation?
No. Sabre relies on external sources of funding - other foundations, organizations and individuals - to underwrite Sabre's book donation and ICT programs.

Logistics

How does my organization become a partner?
In the first instance your organization needs to be a 501c 3 or equivalent and may be US-based. Valid documentation will have to be provided.

Are there any costs involved?
Yes. Sabre's cost in making available new books and CD-ROMs includes the following activities:

pro-rated book procurement (including screening of offering lists from publishers) and transportation of publisher donations to Massachusetts;

pro-rated warehousing;

maintaining and updating the inventory database used to offer out titles to overseas partners;

order fulfillment, packing, palletizing and loading of the container;

preparation of packing lists and shipping documents;

freight costs, including both transportation to the port of departure in the US and ocean freight (when possible, door-to-door).

How might these costs be covered?
We encourage you to explore your own sources of funding - foundations, corporate, individuals - to underwrite a shipment. With the significant Diasporas there are in the USA, it doesn't take that many people to club together to fund a shipment.

What is the value of a container-load?
Depending upon the type of book and container size, a load can be valued anywhere from $250,000 to $750,000.

What are the partner responsibilities?
Partner responsibilities include attending to customs clearance, the logistics of storage and distribution, and the tracking from local warehousing facilities to the generation of reports from the end-user.

What volume of books do you send?
Sabre typically sends books by the container-load, 20-ft and 40-ft containers. This is the most cost effective way to ship. The number of books is contingent upon the kind: so for example, children's books are thin and thus something of the order of 15,000 can fit into a 20ft container. Secondary education and tertiary level books are of course much larger- a ball park figure would be 6,000 books. Encyclopedia sets of course are very much larger. Sabre typically requires that a minimum of 35 copies per title are requested. Any title and numbers are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Sabre's stock is continually in flux.

Language
What languages are the books in?
As our book donations come from English-language publishers, the majority of our books are in English. Furthermore, given that English is lingua franca of business and science, our clients have a preference for English-language books. We have a significant stock of Spanish-language children's books.