charity:water Launches September Campaign

charity:water, one of my favorite organizations, is inviting all those born in September to consider making a donation to bring clean water to African populations in need. We get caught up in daily annoyances and don't always remember how lucky we are not to worry about the basics we need to survive. 1 in 6 people in the world do not have access to clean water. This is a multi-pronged problem. People cannot feed their families, children cannot reach their schools, they get sick, they put themselves in harm's way to get to clean water sources. So, instead of piling birthday gifts you may or may not get around to use, consider helping charity:water build wells in Africa. Ask your friends to donate here, whatever they can. (Maybe a dollar amount equal to your new age!)

charity:water has done an amazing job so far. It actively uses social media to bring awareness to the water issue, to rally the troops and to raise funds. Since its inception 2.5 years ago, the organization raised $8.5 million, and funded 1240 water projects in 14 countries. Those projects continue to serve more than 640,000 people with clean drinking water.

Your money will not go to waste. Guaranteed.

One Twitter Push, Two Twitter Push for charity:water

On September 3rd, I got an email update from Twitter's Biz Stone, introducing Scott Harrison, the 33 year-old founder of charity:water, a non-profit that raises funds to build wells and bring clean drinking water to people in need. The organization has so far brought successful projectsto life in Africa (Liberia, Central African Republic, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi), Latin America (Guatemala) and South East Asia (India and Bangladesh). 

Scott was running a pretty cool fundraising effort, calling all September birthdays (his is the 7th) to donate to the cause and get their friends to do the same. The logic is simple: if you think you pretty much have what you need to get by, you can ask your friends to donate to the campaign instead of getting you things you may or may not use. 

I ran a quick search on Twitter and came across 15 pages of posts from the past 6 months about the charity. Many people announcing their own contributions, encouraging their friends to donate or buzzing about the charity's touching PSA and video announcements. 

My question is why stop in September? The charity has raised close to $1MM from donations. Its goal is to reach $1.5 million. I am a November baby. My birthday often coincides with Thanksgiving. I am thankful for a lot of things in my life and will ask friends to donate here.