It was founded in 2002 by three friends from the University of Notre Dame who started selling textbooks online to earn some money, and ended up forming a pioneering social enterprise — a business with a mission to promote literacy.

BetterWorld collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide. With more than six million new and used titles in stock, we’re a self-sustaining, triple-bottom-line company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders.

BetterWorld is not a traditional company with an add-on “cause” component. Social and environmental responsibility is at the core of our business. You could say it’s in our DNA.

BetterWorld is breaking new ground in online bookselling. We believe that education and access to books are basic human rights. That’s why books sold on BetterWorldBooks.com help fund high-impact literacy projects in the United States and around the world.

Every book purchased from BetterWorld contributes to individual literacy throughout the world and the promise of a better life. Clearly, we can’t do this work without our customers. That’s why we’re so passionate about trying to offer the best price, selection, customer service, and overall shopping experience.

Our speedy shipping team is one of the most efficient in the business, making it difficult to cancel orders once placed. However, if you need to cancel an order please let us know as soon as possible by sending us an email at help@BetterWorld.com. In most cases your order will already be on its way, but we’ll do our best to catch it before it goes from our shelf to yours.

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BetterWorld is not a traditional company with an add-on “cause” component. Social and environmental responsibility is at the core of our business. You could say it’s in our DNA.

We’re breaking new ground in online bookselling. We believe that education and access to books are basic human rights. That’s why books sold on BetterWorldBooks.com help fund high-impact literacy projects in the United States and around the world.

All books are available with free shipping to any location within the United States (or $3.97 worldwide). And in case you’re concerned about your eco-footprint, every order is shipped carbon neutral with offsets from Carbonfund.org.

Here’s the best part: In addition to selling new titles, BetterWorldBookssupports book drives and collects used books and textbooks through a network of over 1,600 college campuses and partnerships with nearly 1,000 libraries nationwide. So far, the company has converted more than 25 million donated books into $6.5 million in funding for literacy and education. In the process, we’ve also diverted more than 13,000 tons of books from landfills.

Because we believe that most every book has lasting value and the potential to help change the world, we see our job as helping to find new homes for unwanted books. Thus far, we’ve donated nearly one million books to partner programs around the world. Our five primary literacy partners are Books for Africa, Room to Read, Worldfund, the National Center for Family Literacy, and Invisible Children. Good company, no doubt.

Every book purchased from BetterWorldBooks contributes to individual literacy throughout the world and the promise of a better life. Clearly, we can’t do this work without our customers. That’s why we’re so passionate about trying to offer the best price, selection, customer service, and overall shopping experience.

Thanks for joining us in our mission to create a better world, one book at a time.

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