A Forbes 30 Under 30 Founder Alexander Debelov Used the Biggest World Cup Ever to Fund Free Books in Malawi

Burlingame, CA, USA, August 10th, 2026, FinanceWire

Alexander Debelov used the summer of 2026 to bring attention to a charitable publishing initiative tied to his book. He flew to the largest sporting event in human history, put on a canary-yellow Brazil shirt, and gave his product away.

The book has gained international recognition, reaching #1 Amazon Best Seller rankings in multiple categories and being published in several languages.

The Prayer: Rise with Jesus, a 30-day illustrated devotional Debelov co-authored, illustrated and published with Brazilian writer Stefania Leão, is a #1 Amazon best seller in three languages, a winner of three international book awards in 2025, and is now in print in six languages with editorial coverage in seven countries.

The catch, and the reason this story is worth telling at all, is what happens to the money. Every dollar of royalty from every paid copy in English, Portuguese, Italian, French, Spanish and Russian leaves the authors’ account and pays for two things: free books hand-delivered in rural Malawi, one of the poorest nations on earth, and food, water and outreach for the homeless on the streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin.

The authors keep none of it.

“Malawi is the whole point. It’s not a footnote to the book, it’s the reason the book exists,” Debelov said. “We didn’t want to send Malawi a link and call it charity. We wanted to put a real book into a real person’s hands, and look them in the eye when we did it.”

That inverted business model, a bestseller whose founder is the only person not getting paid, is not the kind of thing publishing MBAs teach. It is also what let Debelov pull off the marketing stunt he executed in June.

One book, forty-eight flags

The 2026 FIFA World Cup shattered every attendance and viewership record on the books. FIFA counted 6.81 million fans through the turnstiles across 104 matches in the United States, Mexico and Canada, at 99.7% of capacity. In America, Spain’s 1-0 win over Argentina in the final drew 62.8 million viewers, the largest audience for a soccer broadcast in U.S. history. Forty-eight nations, 104 matches, a planet watching the same thing at the same time.

Debelov and Leão did not buy an ad. They did not rent a booth. They walked into the crowds carrying stacks of signed hardcovers.

Leão, a Brazilian who wrote the manuscript in Portuguese and originally never intended to publish it, wore her national team’s yellow shirt. Debelov signed every copy by hand the night before, at a hotel table draped in a Brazil flag. They handed signed copies to Brazil’s Seleção, including players, staff and delegation, and then kept walking, giving books to fans wearing the colors of dozens of other countries. No sale. No QR code. No upsell.

“Every nation sent a team. We came with a book for all of them,” Debelov said. “The World Cup can only crown one winner. We wanted to hand something to everyone else, the fans, the strangers, the people no camera was pointed at.”

The other half of the story is 8,000 miles away

The World Cup was the megaphone. The mission is in Malawi.

Working with a local ministry, Debelov’s team prints The Prayer, including a full translation into Chichewa, the language spoken across Malawi, and carries the copies in by hand. Nothing is mailed to a warehouse. Nothing is left as a download link. Every copy is placed into a person’s palm, one by one, for free. Proceeds also help fund churches on the ground.

The economics are the part that will make readers do a double take. In the paid editions, every royalty generated by a reader in Los Angeles, London, Milan, Paris or São Paulo goes right back out the door and pays for the free Malawian edition. Buy a copy on Amazon, and you are quietly paying for someone in a country you may never visit to receive one for nothing.

For Leão, that is the entire arc.

“Prayer began as a silent conversation with God, in one of the hardest seasons of my life,” she said. “I never imagined it would be read by anyone, let alone carried into a World Cup, and then into villages in Malawi. The book saved me first. Now it’s meant to reach the people the world forgets. In Malawi, it finally has.”

A model, not a slogan

Charity-linked products are not new. Everyone from Toms to Warby Parker has built a business around the “one for one” pitch. What is unusual here is the founder-side math. Debelov is not skimming a margin and donating what is left. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 tech entrepreneur running the operation as if he were the beneficiary’s colleague. He keeps zero, and the entire royalty stream, from a product that has hit #1 in its category in three languages, funds two field operations on opposite ends of the earth.

The homeless outreach in San Francisco is deliberately small and local. Debelov’s team hands out food, water and copies of the book on the streets of the Tenderloin. The Malawi operation is deliberately unglamorous. No warehousing, no digital-only distribution, no aid-agency middle layer. A book, a hand, a face.

“The trophy stays in Spain. The mission goes everywhere else,” Debelov said. “A championship lasts a season. We’re building something that outlives all of us.”

The receipts

For readers who assume any story that reads this cleanly must be a startup pitch dressed in a good cause, the credentials are on the record: #1 Amazon best seller in Christian Prayer Books, Religion in Portuguese and Religion in Italian; three 2025 international awards, including the Best Indie Book Award, Storytrade Award and Readers’ Favorite; six published languages plus the free Chichewa edition; and editorial coverage in outlets across the U.S., U.K., Australia, Brazil, Netherlands, Taiwan and Asia-Pacific.

“The bestseller list is nice. Malawi is the reason we made the book,” Debelov said. “A number one ranking fades in a week. A book in the hands of a child in Malawi lasts a lifetime.”

Documentation of both stories, with photos from the World Cup handoff and the Malawi villages, is at readtheprayer.com.

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