charity: water (Part one of the 'Tis the Season series)

It is the season of giving! What better way to kick it off than to give to an remarkable charity in your co-workers’ names?

Okay, well, I understand if you have an awesome Secret Santa thing going on at your place of employment. If you do, you might want to stick with that. I worked at a place once that had a kick ass white elephant thing going on, and if I still had the choice, I would participate in that, every time. Wouldn’t even have to think about it. Those are some wonderful memories.

But…if you have coworkers who just need a little something, or if you have a relative who has damn nearly everything, or if your best friend reacts violently to any present you give, THEN you should consider giving in someone’s honor.

Or maybe you just contribute because it’s the season for giving and you like what they’re doing.

Their picture, not mine!

At charity: water, when you spend 20 dollars, you give someone clean drinking water for 20 years.

I like what charity: water is doing. I am of the opinion that they are doing things the right way-- on so many levels-- that I couldn’t possibly fit it all into one blog post. Primarily, I like that 100% of public donations go directly to funding their water projects. Corporate and private donations cover all of their administrative costs.

That means, when I donate in my co-workers’ honor this season, I know that the money I spent goes directly to building new wells in small communities. When they receive the e-card to tell them about my contribution in their name, they get to choose the country of their particular project.

According to their website, “almost one billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water.” Another creepy statistic—according to the organization, in Africa alone, people spend 40 billion hours seeking and transporting water. My bet is that we would not consider it to be safe for consumption. My bet is that we wouldn’t give that water to our children.

The vast majority of those who are responsible for procuring water for the family are women and children. That means that children are not going to school and mothers are not able to do the many other things to keep their families and households running.

charity: water has raised over 20 million dollars in only four years. Each well only costs 2,500 dollars, and that’s A LOT of wells! On their website they also have the chance for you to track their spending, to track their current projects, and to see and read the stories of the communities they’ve helped. I like how transparent they are.

And talking about transparency—if you start up your own group fundraising adventure with Charity: Water, they give you tons of promotional materials for free, and track where every dollar comes from. When they’ve completed your project, they send each person that contributed updated information on what was accomplished, and even the GPS coordinates for the well.

You may be asking your computer screen right now, “Why I should contribute to this charity during the holiday season, when there are so many charities out there that could use my help?” I think that is an excellent point! If you want to support a local organization, I think that is a superb idea. I can only tell you that the story of this organization’s founding was what made it the right one for me this season. I read the story about Scott Harrison, founder, who said, “I'd made my living for years in the big Apple promoting top nightclubs and fashion events, for the most part living selfishly and arrogantly. Desperately unhappy, I needed to change. Faced with spiritual bankruptcy, I wanted desperately to revive a lost Christian faith with action and asked the question: What would the opposite of my life look like?”

I know that I have asked the very same question of myself before. I am happy to find someone out there who was able to put that self-reflection into actions that will benefit millions of people in our world.