35 Years. One Movement: What's Changed Since buildOn Began (And What Hasn't)
It’s 1991. You’re wearing your favorite flannel, a scrunchie is doing double duty holding back your hair, and Paula Abdul is on the radio for the third time today. You just made a mixtape off the airwaves, your pager is clipped to your belt in case anyone needs you, and you’ve never once used the word “website,” because the World Wide Web won’t go public for a few more months. Halfway across the world, Nelson Mandela is leading the fight to end apartheid in South Africa, a reminder that the push for a more just and equitable world is already well underway.
It’s also the year buildOn was born.
Today, August 21, marks 35 years since one person walked away from a career in corporate finance with a simple belief: that education could ignite lasting opportunity. That belief became a movement. On buildOn’s official birthday, it feels like the right moment to look back at how far we’ve come, and what’s stayed exactly the same.
How did buildOn Begin?
While trekking through rural Nepal, Jim Ziolkowski saw the poverty communities faced without a school of their own, and he saw something else too: the joy of a community building one together. Inspired, he headed to Misomali, Malawi, with barely enough money to start and no guarantee he’d finish. His friend in the village, Steven Tentani, kept the project going when Jim was sidelined by a near-fatal case of malaria.
“I looked at Steven and I knew he was never going to give up,” Jim recalls. “So his courage became my courage.”
The first buildOn school opened in Misomali in 1993, with 120 students. Today, the village has five schools, with over a thousand students attending.
35 Years of Building Hope
Thirty-five years, one timeline:
How Has buildOn Grown Since 1991?
In 1991, buildOn was one person and an idea. Today, it’s a team of 319 full-time staff and thousands of volunteers, working alongside communities in eight countries. In the U.S., they’re running service-learning programs in 38 high schools across five regions: Boston, Bridgeport, Chicago, Detroit, and the Bronx.
That growth shows up everywhere you look. buildOn has partnered with communities to build more than 3,250 schools, serving over 418,000 children and adults. Those communities have contributed more than 6.3 million volunteer workdays to make it happen, and in the U.S., students have logged more than 2.6 million service hours and counting.
Along the way, there have been some memorable moments, too, like a 2006 breakfast event headlined by a then-future president: Barack Obama.
One person turned into a global movement of staff, volunteers, and student leaders, all still building toward the same idea Jim carried to Misomali in 1991: that opportunity is something communities build together, not something handed down by outside saviors.
What Hasn’t Changed?
The belief that started it all. That education, built together with the people it serves, creates opportunity that lasts. That communities aren’t waiting to be saved. They’re leading, and they always have been. From one school to 3,000, from one U.S. high school to thirty-eight, that’s the throughline of the last 35 years, and it’s the same thing that will carry buildOn into the next 35.
Help Us Celebrate!
We’re marking 35 years the way this whole movement started: together. So throw on something purple or teal, crank up some Nirvana, and help us celebrate. Give $35 in honor of buildOn’s birthday, and we’ll add your name to our birthday card. Leave a message too, if you’d like; we’re saving them all.
Add your name. Share a message. Help us celebrate 35 years.