Water and Scott Harrison

Scott Harrison was a New York nightclub promoter who lived to flaunt his Rolex, his super-model girlfriends, and his ability to get liquor companies to pay him $2,000 a month to drink their brands in public. Harrison woke up one day and “realized I was the most morally, spiritually, and emotionally bankrupt person I knew.” He signed on with a not-for profit and while working in Africa, he became acutely aware of the devastating impact the lack of clean drinking water had on communities. “I learned that a billion people in the world didn’t have what I took for granted every day of my life,” he said. “And it’s entirely solvable problem.”

He decided to take a three-pronged approach with charity: water.

• He pledged to find a way to put 100 percent of donations into water projects, such as digging wells in impoverished villages.


• He’d provide proof of where donations were going by sending donors pictures and showing them the projects using Google Earth.


• He’d create an “epic brand” to differentiate charity: water and to gain support from the media and high profile donors.

Harrison’s asks individual donors to “give up” their birthdays by asking their friends and social media contacts to donate a dollar amount equivalent to the age to charity: water. So far, 9,500 people have done just that, including several celebs. The charity has raised $43 million to finance 4,200 water projects, serving two million people in 19 countries.

Donna Fenn, Inc