If we didn’t know the world had enough problems, the 24/7 news media constantly reminds us. Hunger. Violence. Disease. Poverty. If there were solutions to these, surely we’d hear about it.

In fact there is a solution. Education changes everything, across the board and around the world, and it starts with childhood literacy. Our non-profit client, Room to Read, helps bring quality education to more than 9 million children, promoting a simple way to make a profound difference.

But illiteracy has a PR problem. There is no photo op for illiteracy, no footage of the latest illiteracy disaster. Even in the charity sector, only 1.4% of humanitarian aid is spent on education and illiteracy. We needed to get attention in a serious way and on a miniscule budget. So we posed an impossible challenge, issued with an irresistible dare, timed for maximum impact around International Literacy Day.

DO NOT READ THIS laid down the gauntlet in a video challenging people not to read anything for a day. No books, no street signs, no prescription bottles, not the website they were currently using. Just by reading the DO NOT READ THIS call to action they had already failed, an unforgettable reminder of the challenge facing 250 million illiterate children every day.

Each share the campaign inspired from September 8 – 12, 2014 earned a $1 contribution to Room to Read from its donor pool. Blowing through every campaign goal in every medium, Room to Read enjoyed unprecedented awareness for one of the most overlooked issues in the world.

We created the DO NOT READ THIS video, challenging people NOT to read anything for a day. No books. No street signs. No email. No texts. No websites. Just by reading our DO NOT READ THIS call to action, they had already failed our challenge. It was a revelation people were keen to share.

We leveraged our relationships with YouTube, Bloomberg and The Financial Times to feature DO NOT READ THIS content on digital channels. On International Literacy Day, we launched a Thunderclap campaign tapping into Facebook, Twitter and Tumbler accounts to reach thousands, and arranged $1 donations for every share DO NOT READ THIS received on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that week.

In one week, DO NOT READ THIS was viewed more than 80,000 times, exceeding Room to Read’s $50,000 match challenge. Since, it has logged 482,254 views and counting on YouTube, more than six times the number of Room to Read’s next most popular video. It enjoyed featured position as one of YouTube’s 10 Most Powerful PSAs, shot to the top of the Upworthy homepage, and broke into the news cycles of Huffington Post and CNBC. The highly sharable challenge generated 4,250 social posts, drove 35 million Twitter impressions, and drew messages of support from celebrity influencers Nicholas Kristof, Shashi Tharoor, the Malala Fund, and Girls Justice.