Soda-pop Challenge
Order water & save the world.
charity: water caught my eye a while ago as an organization that I felt was running their 501(c)(3) nonprofit the right way. There are a lot of different types of charities — many who also do amazing things, but what I really like about this particular one is how they provide long-term solutions as well as how the finances are handled.
charity: water makes it clear that they are not a relief organization (like, for example, Red Cross). When the earthquake hit Haiti and many people were in need of clean water, the organization directed them to their sister nonprofits who were more focused on providing immediate relief, however, charity: water now has wells in Haiti — which you can see because they tag each one with a GPS location on Google Maps.
Their finances work slightly different than most nonprofits I’ve seen as well. One of the goals when starting the organization for Scott Harrison was that he wanted to add accountability to the process.
Scott wanted every donor to understand that every dollar is truly helping:
“People weren’t giving to charity because they didn’t know how much of their money would reach the people.” — Scott Harrison, founder of charity: water
So he setup the organization as two separate accounts: one to cover the costs of running it and another that goes towards building the wells. All public donations are sent to the latter and they take on private donations to cover the costs of administration salaries and even the transaction costs paid to the credit card companies. If you watch the video below you’ll hear Scott talk about how they went broke, but had millions of dollars in the donor account (the organization was eventually saved by the founder of Bebo).
I used to work in a corporate office that had a very nice cafeteria which provided locally bottled water. What’s startling, however, is that in order to get to this bottled water people walk past a drinking fountain (filtered), a bathroom faucet, a sink faucet, a water/ice machine (also filtered), and a fountain drink machine that also serves water. People say they like the taste of the bottled water. We apparently have 6 “flavors” of water to choose from just 30 steps from each other, while 1 in 8 people worldwide don't even have access to potable water.
My challenge to all of you is simple: order water
…instead of ordering a soda or liquor drink with your meal when eating out for 30 days simply say “I’ll have a water, please.” Keep a tab on yourself what you would have spent and donate that to this great cause. If you extend this challenge to the others at the table with you, this act will easily generate the $20 that can give clean water to someone for 20 years. Hopefully it will also give you a new appreciation for one of the easiest things we can take for granted everyday.
The thought of this challenge came after hearing about an 8-year-old who gave up her dinner and instead ate rice & beans for a month.
I was also inspired after watching Scott present during Big Omaha in May of 2010. His “a ha” moment came after buying a $16 margarita in NYC — the same price that can feed a family in Liberia for a month.
