s'les.

(via lanewood)

Today, charity: water launches their 5th Anniversary edition of the September Campaign. 

5 years, over 4000 projects built and over 2 million people getting access to clean water. If you’re in the NGO/development scene, you know how significant these numbers are. The type of growth and impact that charity: water has experienced is typically reserved for the Facebooks and Googles of the world with access to limitless VC capital and a workforce in the hundreds of people. 

Culturally, it’d be hard not to attribute the successes of many other young non-profits to charity: water’s dedication to branding and storytelling. Their development of adedicated online grassroots fundraising platform (it’s raised over $10 million!) has inspired the creation of other sites that you see now. A rising tide floats all ships, and so on.

So five years in, my friends at charity: water have run into a bit of a challenge, and they’ve made it a public one. Capacity in the field. You can’t just go around handing out money to anyone with a shovel in Africa and ask them to dig. No, you need to vet and invest in reliable partners proven to do sustainable work. But what happens when those trusted partners begin to operate at capacity? A partner might have the funds to build 500 water projects this year, but only the manpower and equipment to build 250. 

You help them scale by investing capital. Apple does the same for their factories when they want them to produce more touch screens. This year, charity: water is asking their followers to fundraise for a drill rig that can serve another 40,000 people every year. With this rig, their partners have set a target of providing 100% coverage in the area of Tigray in Northern Ethiopia. The cost of a rig: a cool $1.2 million.

The campaign is beautiful and inspiring as always, thanks to Viktoria and her small design team. I hope September is a massive success for them, and they get some much deserved sleep soon.

Make sure to watch the video above and check out the campaign home page (read through to the bottom for all the details).