Today is my birthday. Another day, another year.
Around this time of year, friends and family are always asking me, “So, what do you want for your birthday?” This year I’ve been in a major cleaning mood and honestly, don’t want more stuff cluttering up my house. I’ve finally got it pared down. I’m not quite like The Minimalists, but I’m getting there.
Health is good. No more thyroid cancer. Family and everything is a-ok. Thank God!
Then, I started researching what else is going on in the world and I found out something quite shocking. Over 1 billion people about 1 in 7 and a group, charity:water is trying to change it.
Here’s a little video with more info about the problem:
Water Changes Everything. from charity: water on Vimeo.
My experiences with charity:water were a bit of a happy accident. One day, I was cruising along the interwebs and found an inc magazine interview with Scott Harrison, the guy who started charity:water. At the bottom of the article, the author mentioned that Scott is a motivating speaker. Being the good Toastmaster that I am, I was intrigued and looked Scott up on You Tube.
I found one of Scott’s presentations, I believe it was this one:
Scott has a great story. Basically, he was a nightclub promoter who in his late 20’s decided there was more to life and decided to go to Africa on a mission trip. While there, he was shocked to learn about the water crisis.
He came back to the states and decided to start charity:water. He decided to be different than other charities and add in a lot more accountability. The first thing Scott did was seperate the funding for the administration from the water funding. He went and found angel investors to pay his bills. When someone donates to charity:water, 100% of the money raised goes directly into the water project.
Scott took it a step further. He also decided that there should be GPS photos of the projects and a map linking to them. He decided to fund the wells separately from the administration, so people would know exactly where their money is going.
And it worked. From it’s humble beginnings in 2006, charity:water has been growing.
One of charity:water’s big things is a birthday drive. Here’s a video from Scott on how that came about.
Some people raise $200, some raise $500. Some, like the video below end up raising $1.5 million. Every little bit helps.
Rachel Beckwith’s Mom Visits Ethiopia. from charity: water on Vimeo.
So, with that in mind, I decided to do my own fundraiser for charity:water. My goal is $500. Can you help me?
The theme of the donations is “donate your age”. I turned 41, so the suggested donation is $41. But, you can give more or less. No donation is too big or too small.