Charity: Water
What would your life looked like, if you didn’t have the access to water? Probably quite different. Around 785 million people don’t have access to clean or safe drinking water. Now, that is a lot of people. That is why there are a lot of non-profit organizations and NGOs trying to help people by giving them access to drinking water. One of them is Charity: water. The organization is not an ordinary one and it is a little provocative as you will see later. But maybe, we need a little provocation, doing things differently, and finding other ways how to address one of the biggest issues in the world: lack of clean water. Their ultimate goal is that “No one on Earth will die from dirty water.”
Giving people access to clean drinking water improves people’s lives in a way that we don’t even imagine. On the organization’s charity website, we can read that “Diseases from dirty water kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.” Not only that people drink dirty water that is making them sick, but also, they need to walk long distances to find the water source. “In Africa alone, women spend 40 billion hours a year walking for water.” is stated on their website. This means that kids are spending a lot of time walking, instead of educating themselves in schools. Not to even mention that kids can get hurt, lost, or even worst, die on the way to a water source and at the water source itself. Not all wells achieve a high-security level enough to make sure that kids or even grownups don’t fall into it.
Also, based on the organization’s statement, one-third of schools in Africa don’t have proper sanitation stations or drinking water. For the institutions to be able to work properly, they need sanitation facilities. By bringing water wells close to the community, we can even fight against poverty: kids can achieve higher education, helping their parents in any other way possible to survive or just having a little more “normal” childhood that they deserve. That is why, Charity: water believes giving people access to drinking water can change not only individual lives but also lives in the communities or even regions.
The organization works with local partners or even governments to provide water, sanitation, and hygiene programs in the areas needed. They are creating wells to get access to underground water, systems to capture water from springs or raindrops, and purification and filter systems. They are also building the infrastructure that uses gravity for sending water to other communities and latrines, used for sanitary purposes. Once the infrastructure is built, they monitor, evaluate and maintain it, so it can be used for a long time.
The first thing they have to do when starting a new project is to choose a location. This is based on numerous factors: geography, assessment of need, the community in that region, overlapping with other humanitarian organizations, and the region’s repairing capabilities and accessibility. After they have choose the location, they have to figure out how will they enable people to gain access to water. Depending on the terrain and the knowledge of the community, they find the best option for them. However, they can’t do everything by themselves.
That is why they are having partners that help them to achieve their goals. “In order to ensure that funds are used responsibly, we also look at their operational capacity and fiduciary responsibility. Every new or potential partner is subject to this vetting process.” is stated on their website. These partners also help them to use the best practices from the field. Once this is done, they have to implement the project.
Firstly, when they are trying to implement a project, they have to determine the project’s costs. This doesn’t only include the costs of materials, but also, the salary of the engineers, managers, and the expenses of training the local community. They are trying to educate the community about hygiene and sanitation services. Secondly, they have to create a timeline and stick to it. It can even take more than 20 months to transport the material, build the water pumping system and educate people. Thirdly, they are closely working with the local government to help them plan and maintain the project.
Once the whole infrastructure is in place, they have to maintain it. As we said before, they train the community, so they are able to repair the system when it is damaged. From 2015 onwards, the organization started to implement water wells with IoT sensors, so they were able to monitor and evaluate its performance. By connecting these sensors to cloud computing technology, they didn’t have to physically visit the wells to make sure they function properly. This meant less money was spent on maintenance and could be used for other things.
They have stated that “Our handpump sensor lasts 10 years without a battery change, installs in 10 minutes, is fully tamper-proof and vandal resistant and uses the Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform to analyze readings in real-time. The sensor’s roaming agreement automatically covers over 200 countries.” They’ve even created a google map with all the sensors and their data. You can visit it by following this link. In 2021 the fourth generation of these sensors will be produced. These sensors will provide GPS location, temperature, humidity, device performance, and how many liters of water per hour are pumped. It will be cheaper and it could measure 20 times per second its water flow.
The last phase of their projects is to show their supporters the result. This is one of the most beloved features among the supporters. They can track all of the progress the organization makes on this map.
Since 2006 the foundation has funded over 59 thousand water projects in 29 countries. This number includes also the projects, which aren’t finished yet. With these projects over 11 million people will have access to water. This number is provided by their partners. Charity: water is really a transparent organization, as it should be. You can view its financial report right here. They’ve been even awarded for their transparency from numerous sites.
Remember that we said that the organization is a little provocative and different? Let us explain why. Firstly, the founder of the organization isn’t the type of person who we thought would end up creating such an exceptional project. Scott Harrison, who founded Charity: water, had been a nightclub promoter for quite some years in New York. However, after some time he had realized that he can’t live like this anymore. That is why he has applied as a volunteer in numerous humanitarian organizations, but only one accepted him if he had paid them 500$ a month. He agreed and off he went to Liberia in Africa, with a bunch of doctors and surgeons on a ship.
He had worked there as a photographer, shooting people’s transformation after their facial tumors were removed. There he had noticed that people were dying because they didn’t have access to drinking water. From that day forward he knew what he wants to focus on. His team had built outdoor exhibitions, had thrown parties for raising money, had staged water walks and they had designed really compelling ads that people reacted to. They are really trying to do anything that will raise some public’s attention.
Secondly, they handle their money a bit differently than other charities. They have two separate bank accounts. One account is used for receiving all the donations from their supporters and it goes to empowering communities. The other account is used to fund the salaries, office rents, and travel expenses by wealthier people. Therefore, they could honestly say that 100% of collected money goes for charity. But some people were critical of them because other charities don’t have two bank accounts and they have to fund their operations from the one they have. That is how they can’t say that all the money goes for charity. That is why, not all people approve this, but we think they decided to work differently and we have to acknowledge that.
Thirdly, the founders of different companies can donate their company’s stocks to Charity: water to pay staff bonuses. Based on a New York Times article in 2019 the organization has been enabling this. We see it as a step forward. We believe that charities do need to strive against frictionless and as many different ways to receive funding for their work. We can read in the article that not all agree with the organization’s decision to collect equity for salaries. However, if you want to achieve a high flying goal; this organization certainly has one, then you need the best people you can find. Salary is definitely one of the factors.
We don’t agree with comments, such as: “they are already working in charity, isn’t that enough? Now they want higher salaries?” Well, why not, if they do a phenomenal job at it. They should be completely open and let the market decide if this is OK. We don’t say that we are right or wrong, but we think charities need to be innovative in their work. In the case of Charity: water, we can see that they are really doing great and innovative work.
How can we help the organization to achieve its goal? There are basically 3 different ways. Firstly, you can donate any amount of money once or monthly. If you donate it monthly, you become a part of their spring community. Every month you get the report of how your donations are helping to fight against water scarcity. Also, you get to read about the stories of people you are helping. The organization estimates that by giving 40 dollars each month, you can give 12 people access to water every year. Secondly, is to pledge your birthday for changing people’s lives. How does this actually work? On their website, you can enter your birth date and let the world know that you are serious about this pledge. A few days before your birthday, you will be reminded to “ask your friends to donate to clean water for your big day.” Once you donate this amount, you will also get a report on how your money was spent. Over 100 thousand people have already pledged their birthdays and have raised over 9 million dollars this way. The last way to help the organization is to start a campaign. You initially define the campaign goal and give it a name. Charity: water estimates that it needs 350 dollars to enables 8 people to gain water access. Over 85 thousand people have already started their campaign.
As we can see people behind Charity: water are great marketers and are trying to find different ways for people to donate. Because they are most certainly fighting for a good cause and are trying to do things differently in charity, we find them very interesting. Keep on with the good work!
