Sterling Speirn is Chief Executive Officer of the National Conference on Citizenship.  He is the immediate past President and CEO of the Peninsula Community Foundation, now the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (PCF, 1992-2005). At PCF, Speirn launched the Raising a Reader take-home book program which today operates in 34 states at 2,700 sites serving more than 125,000 children annually.

In this podcast, Speirn talks with Paul Shoemaker, founding president of Social Venture Partners, about the importance of early literacy, the ongoing impact of the Raising A Reader's take-home book program, and the bold investments needed to make measurable change. Speirn asks philanthropists to consider the cost of success over failure.