How a Social Entrepreneur Brings Sight to the Developing World

In 1984 Jordan Kassalow, an optometry student in Boston, volunteered to treat hundreds of patients in rural Mexico. Many had struggled to find work because of their poor eyesight but couldn’t afford corrective lenses. Of the 70% who needed eyeglasses, Kassalow figured half could get by with the sort of ready-made models sold in drugstores. “Why don’t we train local people to sell reading glasses?” he thought.

Seventeen years later Kassalow and friend Scott Berrie formed a nonprofit, now called VisionSpring—a combination of Mary Kay and LensCrafters. Some 9,000 women in VisionSpring’s network have sold 600,000 pairs of basic reading glasses throughout seven countries, including Bangladesh, India and South Africa. Last February VisionSpring opened its first store, in El Salvador, staffed with an optometrist and six employees who sell higher-priced prescription lenses as well as regular reading glasses. (Berrie left in 2007.)

With $290,000 in annual income last year, VisionSpring still relies heavily on charitable donations—it amassed $1.7 million in 2010. But Kassalow has his eye on a bigger achievement: building a self-sustainable operation. “We put every dollar of revenue or outside funding toward identifying a scalable, for-profit business model,” he says.

Kassalow, 49, is making progress. In 2005 he outfitted his army of saleswomen—mostly mothers eager to earn extra income—with kits containing 30 pairs of sunglasses made in China. Each kit cost $75, or $2.50 a pair, which the sales reps then resold at $4 to $7 apiece. (The women put down a 10% deposit and paid off the rest over time.) But the reps quickly ran out of customers after exhausting their network of friends and neighbors in nearby villages. The economics didn’t work, either: After manufacturing, shipping, sales training and overhead at headquarters in Manhattan, VisionSpring’s expenses totaled $20 a pair. Loss: $17.50. “We were a very good charity but not a good business,” says Kassalow.

Three years later Kassalow joined forces with BRAC, a global microfinance organization based in Bangladesh that hires women to sell baskets of health-related goods, like Band-Aids and aspirin. Kassalow figured BRAC’s 80,000-strong sales force could help him scale up faster while saving money on training and administrative costs. In 2008 VisionSpring sold 98,000 pairs at $1.70 each (BRAC got a volume discount) but still lost $9.30 a pair; a year later it moved 201,000 pairs, at 95 cents apiece, and lost $7 on each. At that rate Kassalow would need to sell millions of pairs to break even.
Last year Kassalow started going after the other 50% of potential customers who need stronger lenses than reading glasses provide. Hence the El Salvador store, which VisionSpring opened in February. At $15 a pair, prescription specs turn a $4.50 profit—and generate a $1 finder’s fee to saleswomen in the field who book appointments for the store. Kassalow says the El Salvador operations (the store and field sales) made money in 2010.

To slow cash outlays further, Kassalow is bartering with established brands, including ClearVision and FGX International. “VisonSpring is priming the market for us,” says Alec Taylor, chief executive of FGX, which sold VisionSpring 10,000 pairs of reading glasses at a deep discount. “Whether it’s 5, 10 or 15 years from now, people will understand the product.” And Kassalow’s vision will have come true.