0:02

Hello and welcome to another episode of

0:04

All the Hacks, a show about upgrading

0:06

your life, money and travel. I'm your

0:08

host, Chris Hutchins, and today, in honor

0:10

of it being the season of giving,

0:12

I want to share one of the

0:14

most interesting and inspiring stories I've ever

0:16

heard and talk a bit about water

0:19

and how helping the one in ten

0:21

people who don't have access to clean

0:23

water might be one of the greatest

0:25

hacks we'll ever discuss on this show.

0:27

Why? When it comes to

0:29

health, diseases from dirty water kill more

0:31

people every year than all forms of

0:34

violence, including war. Every

0:36

day, women and girls who happen

0:38

to be responsible for water collection

0:40

in eight of ten households around

0:42

the world spend an estimated 200

0:44

million hours collecting water each day.

0:47

That's time taken away from education,

0:49

work, community development and family. Providing

0:52

clean water is more than a solution

0:54

to just drinking water. It is a

0:56

key to unlocking potential and fighting poverty

0:58

around the world. But don't take

1:01

that lesson just from me. Listen

1:03

to this conversation with my friend

1:05

Scott Harrison, the founder of Charity

1:07

Water, who after a decade of

1:09

indulging in the darkest vices as

1:11

a nightclub promoter, turned everything about

1:13

his life around, and has since

1:15

raised almost a billion dollars and

1:17

helped over 17 million

1:19

people get access to clean water in

1:21

29 countries around the world. We'll

1:24

not only share that story, but we'll

1:26

talk about evaluating charities, the power

1:28

of storytelling, setting personal goals,

1:30

gratitude and a lot more.

1:33

This may not be a typical All the

1:35

Hacks episode, but I promise it's one you'll

1:37

remember. In fact, even though I've

1:39

known Scott and Charity Water for years, this

1:42

conversation was so impactful that Amy and I

1:44

decided we wanted to get more involved this

1:46

year. So we're running a campaign through Daffy

1:48

to raise $10,000, which is what it takes

1:52

to fund a water project in one community.

1:54

And Amy and I are personally going to

1:57

match the first $5,000 we raised to help get

2:00

to our $10,000 goal or maybe we can go

2:02

past that goal and do two, three or even

2:05

more projects. Who knows

2:07

but we are excited to see what's

2:09

possible. So if you want to consider

2:11

giving to the campaign, you can go

2:13

to allthehacks.com/water. And like I

2:15

said, we're doing this whole campaign through our

2:17

partner Daffy which is the platform Amy and

2:19

I have been using for years to do

2:21

all our charitable giving more efficiently. They

2:24

do that by helping you set up a

2:26

special tax advantage to count called the Donor

2:28

Advised Fund or Daff which works whether you're

2:30

giving a few hundred dollars to charity each

2:32

year or even hundreds of thousands. Now

2:34

to participate in this fundraiser, you don't

2:37

need to set up a Donor Advised

2:39

Fund at Daffy. You can contribute directly

2:41

but if you want to set up

2:44

a Donor Advised Fund with Daffy first,

2:46

you can get an extra $25 to

2:48

donate to this or any other cause

2:50

once you make your first contribution at

2:53

allthehacks.com/Daffy D-A-F-F-Y. And once you're

2:55

all set up, you can head

2:57

back to our campaign at allthehacks.com/water

2:59

to contribute and get your match. Both

3:02

those links are in the show notes. Thank

3:04

you so much for your support. Let's jump

3:06

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4:35

Scott, thank you so much for being here. Hey,

4:37

it's good to be here, Chris. I've been looking forward to this.

4:39

It'll be fun. Yes. For

4:42

so many people, they've seen you. They know

4:44

Charity Water, but they don't know the story. And

4:46

I think there's a lot of things I want

4:48

to dive into that mean going back to the

4:50

beginning and understanding where you came from because it's

4:52

not the same story that most people go through.

4:55

Well, I think Act One is a pretty

4:57

bizarre childhood. When I was four, I was

5:00

born in Philadelphia, middle class family. Dad

5:02

was a business guy. My mom was a writer. And

5:05

we moved into this really ugly gray house at

5:07

the end of a cul-de-sac. In the dead of

5:09

winter, my parents were going to have a big

5:11

family there. And it was close to

5:13

my dad's job. So we had a small commute. These were

5:16

all the concerns at the time. And

5:18

the house was advertised as

5:20

energy efficient, which was

5:22

great, except the house came with a carbon

5:24

monoxide gas leak. So we move

5:26

in and we all start getting headaches. And

5:30

on New Year's Day, 1980, my mom

5:32

walks across the bedroom and she collapses.

5:34

And she crumples to the floor. So

5:37

she's the canary in the coal mine, which

5:39

leads to a series of blood

5:42

tests, which leads to the discovery of

5:44

carbon monoxide in her bloodstream, which

5:46

then leads to the leak, which

5:48

was in the basement. And it was this

5:50

faulty heat exchanger. And

5:53

I remember my dad ripped it out with an HVAC

5:55

guy and he threw it on the sidewalk. But

5:58

unfortunately, the damage was just done.

6:00

specifically for my mom and she just

6:02

never recovered. She never bounced

6:04

back from that. My dad and

6:06

I bounced back from our symptoms but

6:08

what happened to her was her immune

6:10

system was irreparably destroyed

6:13

and her body was no longer able

6:16

to process chemicals, process anything toxic.

6:20

So I think the best way to describe it from this point

6:22

on, she just lived in a bubble. She

6:24

lived in one room isolated. She

6:27

wore a 3M mask

6:29

like an N95 really for the

6:31

rest of her life and family

6:34

planning stopped. So I grew up

6:36

this only child very

6:38

quickly now in a caregiver role, helping

6:41

to cook for mom, helping to clean, helping

6:44

try to make her as comfortable as

6:47

possible. And maybe just to

6:49

give everybody one story that I remember as a

6:51

kid. I remember mom, she was a writer so

6:53

she loved to read and

6:55

she was so frustrated that now the

6:57

ink from books would make

6:59

her sick. So as a kid, I would

7:01

either bake her books in the oven to

7:04

try to get that smell of new print out or

7:07

I would put them out in the backyard and flip

7:09

the pages throughout the day so that the sun would

7:11

kind of bake them. And then I

7:13

would walk up to the second floor and

7:16

she was living in a bathroom that was

7:18

covered with aluminum foil. She slept on a

7:20

cot that had been washed in baking soda

7:22

20 times. And I remember she

7:24

would open the door kind of with this crinkle sound

7:27

and she would be wearing her mask and

7:29

her glasses. She'd be wearing cotton gloves. She

7:32

would take the book from me and she

7:34

would put it inside a cellophane bag, shut

7:37

the door and then she was able

7:39

to read. So just weird, Chris. My

7:42

parents were devout Christians, non-denominational

7:44

Christians. So they had a really authentic faith

7:46

that they would certainly attribute as the only

7:48

way that they stayed married and kept the

7:50

family together. And I was actually actively raised

7:52

in the church. So I would go on

7:55

Sundays and I would play piano

7:57

in Sunday school and I was just a

7:59

good kid, girl. growing up. I didn't smoke,

8:01

I didn't drink, I didn't sleep around. I

8:04

wanted to be a doctor when I grew up and

8:06

I was going to cure mom and other people I'd

8:08

met like her. So that

8:10

was kind of act one. Act two

8:12

was a big detour from that. At

8:14

18, I start

8:16

acting out this cliche,

8:19

prodigal son rebellion story

8:21

and I grow my hair down on my shoulders.

8:23

I join a rock band and I moved to

8:25

New York City. And the band immediately

8:27

breaks up because we all hated each other. But

8:30

I stumble into this occupation

8:33

in New York City nightlife.

8:36

And I realized that if a person wanted to

8:38

rebel, you could rebel in

8:40

style as a nightclub promoter. And

8:43

all you had to do is get the right

8:45

beautiful famous people inside the club alongside

8:48

people with money. And then you could

8:50

sell them a $25 cocktail or $1,000 bottle of

8:54

champagne that cost you only 40. And

8:56

act two, that was the next 10 years

8:59

of my life. Running around

9:01

New York City packing nightclubs, I

9:03

wound up working at 40 different nightclubs

9:06

really to the horror and sadness

9:08

of my parents who saw their

9:10

good virginal Christian kid, now

9:13

out there smoking 40 cigarettes a

9:15

day, doing drugs, going to strip

9:17

clubs, drinking a broom,

9:19

just a total hedonistic

9:21

mess. And it was

9:23

really at the end of that 10 years where

9:27

I realized, wow, I'm

9:30

a mess. And

9:32

I've really become

9:35

emotionally bankrupt, spiritually

9:37

bankrupt. I've come so far from

9:40

this real foundation that my parents

9:42

had tried to lay for me

9:44

in my childhood as helping others,

9:47

this idea of being a doctor. I'd

9:49

served nobody but myself for 10 years.

9:52

And that really led me to

9:54

this moment of cathartic self discovery

9:56

and saying, I need a

9:58

change. This is not a change. working out

10:01

and I've got to go not

10:04

find a pivot here. I need to explore a 180

10:06

degree change. What's

10:09

the opposite of everything I've been doing for 10

10:11

years? What's the opposite of everything I've been thinking

10:14

and speaking? And being

10:16

a pretty radical guy, I had this one

10:19

idea. What if I sold everything I

10:21

owned and I volunteered

10:23

for one year on a humanitarian

10:25

mission? What if I gave back

10:27

one year of the 10 years

10:29

that I'd selfishly wasted and

10:32

could I be useful? So it

10:34

was pretty quick. I remember from

10:36

the dial-up internet cafe putting in

10:38

all these applications to the famous

10:40

humanitarian organizations I had tangentially heard

10:42

of, the Save the Children

10:45

and Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders

10:47

and World Visions and Red

10:49

Crosses of the World. And then I put

10:51

in my 10 applications and I waited and

10:54

maybe no surprise to anybody listening, I'm

10:56

denied by all 10 organizations. Turns

10:58

out they are not looking for nightclub

11:00

promoters or ex nightclub promoters

11:03

to work alongside. And

11:05

I just remember being so sad,

11:08

so disappointed that I

11:10

thought I was ready for change. I take

11:12

this first step and nobody will

11:15

have me. Well, I was very fortunate that

11:17

there was one organization that actually at first denied

11:19

me and then they were about to start their

11:21

mission and they couldn't fill that position. So they

11:23

went back through the rejected resumes

11:26

and they called me up and said, if I'm willing

11:28

to pay them $500 a month and

11:31

if I'm willing to go live in the

11:33

poorest country in the world, a country called

11:35

Liberia in West Africa, then I

11:38

could join their humanitarian mission. And

11:40

the role that they had for me was a photo journalist.

11:43

Now, I was technically not a photo

11:45

journalist, but I had gone to NYU

11:48

part-time. I'd gotten a communications degree and

11:50

I was a pretty decent photographer and a pretty decent writer.

11:53

So my life changed

11:55

so dramatically As I

11:58

left nightlife. The

12:00

set foot in the poorest country

12:02

in the world. A country. With.

12:04

No electricity, no running water, know sewage

12:07

system, know mail system, a country that

12:09

had just come out of a fourteen

12:11

year civil. And.

12:14

I. Joined this mission of

12:16

humanitarian doctors and surgeons.

12:19

People. Who had come from forty

12:21

countries to volunteer their time. And

12:24

offer free medical services. The people who couldn't

12:26

afford. It. With. A services didn't exist.

12:28

And that really was the beginning of backs

12:31

three, which then eventually led to. My.

12:33

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12:35

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haven't hit that moment. Maybe they also haven't been

15:20

as far from their life's work in their previous

15:22

career as you were, but what advice do you

15:24

have for that transition point? I

15:27

think it did build up over time. And

15:29

then there was this catalyst where I remember

15:31

I started having some health issues. And

15:34

one day half my body went numb, and

15:36

I couldn't feel my hand or my arm.

15:38

I remember walking over my loft, turning on

15:40

the water, steaming hot water

15:43

in the sink, and I put my hand and arm under it, and I

15:45

can't feel anything. So I

15:47

am convinced something is terribly wrong with

15:50

me. I have some brain tumor, I

15:52

have some incurable disease, and I'm gonna

15:54

die. And that

15:56

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15:58

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16:00

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16:02

I was raised with as a kid.

16:05

Questions about Legacy, questions about. Did.

16:07

It matter that I was here at all

16:09

when had I done for others? It turned

16:11

out that nobody could find the wrong with

16:13

me. So after a series of brain tests

16:15

and m our eyes and he kg scans.

16:18

It could have been my lifestyle of going

16:20

to dinner at ten, go to the club

16:22

at twelve, Go. To the after

16:24

hours to do cocaine from five to

16:26

noon and then taking ambien one pm

16:28

to come down might have had something

16:31

to do with my body just crying

16:33

out and shutting down or least half

16:35

of it but that was an event

16:37

that I think cause me to really

16:39

stop and take stock of life and

16:41

legacy. And. One to.

16:44

The seems everything in a not even get

16:47

back on track. In. A create a

16:49

completely new path or a new track. and

16:51

when you create a that path you didn't

16:53

know what it would be An I think

16:55

a lot of people assume that if I

16:57

don't love what I'm doing, I need to

16:59

find what I love before I can make

17:01

a change. Would you argue that? Maybe that

17:03

is incorrect common with them. I. Completely

17:05

stumbled into it. You know I should

17:07

say when a when to join this

17:09

medical mission I quit all the stuff

17:12

that I mentioned I member having my

17:14

last cigarette and I remember saying and

17:16

never going to touch shrugs again I'm

17:18

never gonna look at a pornographic image

17:20

again. I really want to to the

17:22

shed all of these vices that have

17:24

gripped me for a decade. And.

17:28

What? Was so important for me

17:30

was also changing community and environments.

17:33

It was much easier not to smoke two

17:35

packs a Marlboro Reds. Or.

17:37

Get high when you're surrounded

17:39

by humanitarian doctors. Not

17:42

so easy. When. Your

17:44

job is nightlife and filling clubs five

17:46

nights a week. So for me I

17:48

think I was so fortunate that be

17:50

intention was there to change. but then

17:52

my environment. Also. Changed. I

17:54

don't know that I would have had the

17:56

self control to just. Quit. All that

17:59

stuff. Cold turkey. While. I'm still

18:01

surrounded by in of thousands of

18:03

drunk parting people and he probably

18:05

didn't know. The goal going into

18:07

this one year adventure was to

18:09

get into charitable work for your

18:11

life. It was just a reset

18:13

and. Start. Over I guess correct. It's

18:15

just where it took me yet infected the end

18:18

of the year I just signed up for another

18:20

year because I just had know what was next.

18:22

but I wanted. More. Life

18:24

more impacts like this. And

18:26

the quoting Chris was. When.

18:29

I landed in Liberia as a

18:31

photojournalist for this medical mission. I

18:34

had about fifteen thousand emails that

18:36

I brought with me and back

18:38

then email open rates were close

18:40

to one hundred percent. I was

18:42

taking this whole group of people.

18:45

That. I had. Invited.

18:47

To forty different clubs over a decade. And

18:50

was sharing what I was seen. They

18:52

were living vicariously through this guy that

18:54

they had known and partied with. Who.

18:56

Is now embedded with

18:58

really bad ass life

19:00

changing doctors and surgeons.

19:03

In this country. Yeah. That

19:05

fourteen years post war. And

19:07

with these people, try to pick up the

19:09

pieces and serves some of the greatest human

19:12

needs you know, maybe even on the planet

19:14

at that time. So in I I joke

19:16

that there were certainly a few unsubscribed sits

19:18

in the beginning. Happy for saying look, that

19:20

Prada party recently I was awesome. That's Darden

19:22

Store Party Drew for the opening. You know

19:24

that M T V thing you did with

19:26

Perry Farah was awesome. But. I'm not

19:29

signing up for cleft lip sync left tumors.

19:32

That. Was really the small minority. Maybe

19:35

the ability to tell stories

19:37

visually of what I was

19:39

seeing actually grew the list

19:41

and people. Began. To donate

19:43

money and sponsor surgeries. And and people

19:45

be and volunteer and say will Scar

19:47

can go and find a way to

19:50

be useful. I work at Chanel. I'd

19:52

like some of that. Ceiling. A

19:54

purpose in my life as well. South Side

19:56

of able to redeem some of the

19:58

things that I learned over the ten

20:00

years even though they were directed selfishly

20:03

are they were directed in be a

20:05

hedonistic way. I think the thing that

20:07

I had learned was how to tell

20:09

stories. The store I was telling men

20:11

Chris was get past the velvet rope,

20:13

get seen by us looking to the

20:16

one way glass get picked. Come in

20:18

then sit with all the beautiful rich

20:20

famous people. Spend a whole lot of

20:22

money and your life has great meaning.

20:25

You've. Arrived at gotten so good at telling

20:27

that story. That. I

20:29

was just telling the wrong story. So. When

20:31

I started telling. Very. Different story

20:33

of doctors who had passionately given up

20:35

their vacation time who have not flown

20:38

to the Four Seasons in the mall

20:40

deaves but it come to the poorest

20:42

country in the world for a couple

20:44

months. To. Serve and get

20:46

nothing in return. People

20:49

really moved by that. But the

20:51

skill. Had been learned in a

20:53

in a very different. Environment?

20:56

maybe A talks about that person and

20:58

Chanel try to have a bit more

21:00

purpose. At. What point in time

21:02

did you find that doing this was your

21:04

carpet Or I guess what is your purpose

21:07

now why think Almost immediately I loved that

21:09

eminem of getting ocelot. Oh isn't it hard?

21:11

You're living in this hundred and twenty square

21:13

foot cabin with two roommates and the ship

21:16

was not an cruise liner. this is not

21:18

a carnival cruise thing. was fifty three years

21:20

old, had rats and mice and cockroaches and

21:22

it was a very very old broken down

21:25

ship. was actually had to be retired couple

21:27

years later. But I was

21:29

so inspired by being surrounded with

21:31

people who serves others. I think

21:33

that's really that simple who were

21:36

just asking the question, how can

21:38

I keep going on in Blessed

21:40

Out and I take my time.

21:43

My. Talent, My money, And.

21:45

Use it. To help

21:47

others use it to end some

21:49

of this needless suffering out there

21:51

in the world. Today was surrounded

21:53

chris with people with the exact

21:55

opposite intention for the life I

21:58

lived for ten years and the

22:00

lives of the people that I

22:02

was curious thing or that I

22:04

was surrounded which was really how

22:06

much pleasure can we bring to

22:08

ourselves. At. Any given moment of

22:10

any given day and all the moments of

22:12

all the days versus how can we are,

22:14

how can we serve and d think that.

22:17

Is a formula for a more fulfilling life.

22:19

I'm very careful to eat out, tell others

22:22

and mean I think I have my personal

22:24

experience. I have found there's a real freedom

22:26

that comes with service. Do with had donors

22:28

over the years into someone's about to go

22:31

by a B M and will come across

22:33

charity water and will buy a Toyota Prius

22:35

instead and donate. The difference you have to

22:37

go help a couple communities. Get access

22:40

to clean water. So I have seen. Sacrificial.

22:43

Giving had seen purpose

22:45

driven work. Improve the

22:47

lives of so many people Now to

22:50

our community. With. Millions of donors

22:52

around the world I believe, so you

22:54

know. Certainly true for me, and certainly

22:56

true. From. What I've observed I

22:58

will say chris like there was never enough.

23:01

He. A Somebody always had a more beautiful

23:03

girlfriend who is more famous. Somebody always

23:05

had a better car, a better plane.

23:08

If. I was with a group of people

23:10

gambling ten thousand dollars a hand, a blackjack.

23:12

somebody else was gambling a hundred thousand and.

23:15

So. It was this insatiable lust.

23:18

For. More but there was no end

23:20

point. And looking back at

23:22

that, there was never going to be

23:24

a nap and back I still know

23:26

people who are out of the clubs

23:28

and they are now dating girls younger

23:31

than their daughters. You know,

23:33

just continually looking. For.

23:35

More looking for more? Looking for those markers

23:37

of success? Knowing that somebody is always got

23:39

a little bit more than you. And it's

23:42

It's not like that when you embrace a

23:44

life of service. I guess it's more. do

23:46

a different degree. there's more work to be

23:48

done. One. of my favorite quotes

23:51

somebody set me from and near city

23:53

bodega like almost twenty years ago and

23:55

it's it was a sign outside of

23:57

delhi that says do not be afraid

23:59

of worker with no end. That's

24:02

really how I see 17 years of charity

24:05

water now is there's always another person to

24:07

help. There's always another community that

24:09

needs clean water. Let's say we

24:11

get to the end of the water crisis

24:13

which I truly believe is possible and I

24:15

truly hope we do. People are

24:17

always asking me, so you're just going to put yourself

24:20

out of business, right? Oh, charity should put themselves out

24:22

of business. I think that's one of the stupidest concepts

24:24

I've ever heard. We've helped 17 million people get clean

24:26

water. If we get to

24:28

100 million served, 300 million served, if

24:31

we eradicate this problem, I would

24:33

hope we would take everything we

24:35

have learned over decades

24:38

of working with donors, building

24:41

trust, building relationship. I would hope

24:43

we'd take everything we've

24:45

learned operating in 30

24:48

really difficult countries around the world

24:50

and we'd say, great, everybody

24:53

now has water. What else

24:55

could we do together? What else could

24:57

we do with our donors? What else could we do

24:59

with our team members and all this expertise? Are there

25:01

people hungry? Are there people without access

25:03

to healthcare? Are there people that don't have a

25:05

roof over their heads? Let's take everything we've learned.

25:07

Let's go focus on that next critical

25:10

human need or that next group of

25:12

people who are needlessly

25:14

suffering rather than let's drop the

25:16

mic, shut down the organization and go

25:18

all try to become millionaires finally. Let's

25:21

talk about that because the mission

25:24

is never ending, right? You've dedicated yourself and

25:26

the organization you built to a life of

25:28

service. There's no end

25:30

in sight, right? There will always probably

25:32

be something unfortunately that the world needs

25:34

to be less suffering and

25:36

people in a better place. How

25:38

do you make time for yourself in

25:40

that world? You mentioned the selfishness of

25:42

your past. Is a little bit

25:44

of selfishness okay? Can you take yourself out to

25:47

dinner? Can you go on a vacation? Or because

25:49

you've been so close to it, I can't remember

25:51

the number but it's a very small amount of

25:53

money each month to provide someone

25:55

with water. So how

25:58

do you not want to give everything? It's

26:00

personality. I'm both optimistic

26:02

but I'm also very pragmatic

26:05

and I think maybe, you know, my experience

26:08

in 10 years of clubs has helped me

26:10

take a long view at this

26:13

and I realized going out to dinner with

26:15

my wife is really important. Going out to

26:17

family dinners is important for our family. There

26:20

are certain things that I try to be a

26:22

really, really good steward of money. I know a

26:24

lot of people are a fan of your travel

26:26

hacks and we were talking about this offline before.

26:29

I'm on about 100 planes a year and

26:32

I just fly coach. We have

26:34

never used a single donor dollar to

26:36

fly me or any other executive, you know, or

26:38

anybody at the organization in business

26:41

class because we take that extra money which

26:43

in my case would be, you know, hundreds of thousands of

26:46

dollars a year and we put that back in the mission.

26:49

So, there are certain things that

26:51

you're taking an austerity stance

26:54

on but, you know, there

26:56

are other things that I mean, I think I live a pretty

26:58

normal life. You know, I've got

27:00

a 9-year-old and a 7-year-old and I have

27:02

one that's 9 weeks old now. We had

27:04

our surprise third. I'm almost

27:06

50, my wife's 40 but, you know, I

27:09

really think about just making

27:11

sure my kids are able to go play

27:13

sports and live in a safe house in

27:15

a safe neighborhood and, you know, when they

27:17

need bikes, I go and buy them bikes.

27:19

I'm not thinking, oh my gosh, if my

27:21

9-year-old goes without a bike, I can go

27:23

give two more people in Africa access to

27:25

clean water. I think it kind of take

27:27

a long sustainable view if my family is

27:29

healthy, if my relationship with my

27:31

wife is healthy and I'm probably going to

27:33

be able to do this a whole lot

27:35

longer and hopefully impact the lives of hundreds

27:38

of millions of people by sustaining

27:40

the energy or the passion

27:42

or the mission. I spend a lot of time

27:45

in proximity to extraordinary

27:47

wealth and I

27:50

know it does not make people happy. The

27:52

most unhappy people I know are some of the wealthiest

27:55

people that I know and just because,

27:57

you know, you've got hundreds of millions of dollars

27:59

or billions of dollars. hours does not make for

28:01

a healthy flourishing

28:04

relationship, family, you know, holistic

28:08

life. So, there's no mystery,

28:11

I think, around money

28:13

or capital that I'm chasing anymore. In

28:16

fact, sometimes even the opposite. And how

28:18

has that changed your own outlook on

28:20

building, you know, your wealth

28:22

or saving? We have

28:24

one family that gives to us that

28:26

I'm really inspired by. They are a

28:28

family in Texas, they've given

28:30

over $13 million to Charity Water

28:33

and the family caps their spending at $180,000

28:35

a year. This

28:37

is a family of four. And

28:40

that's just the number. I think the house is

28:42

paid for and their couple cars are paid for it. But they just

28:44

don't spend any more than $180,000 a year. And

28:48

they give away everything else, everything

28:50

from investments, everything from he was

28:52

a successful businessman. And

28:54

I'm really inspired by that. I appreciate

28:56

the extremes that we were talking earlier

28:58

about. I think you've got a family

29:00

member who's a Franciscan monk. That is

29:02

compelling to me. I will say this,

29:04

in the fundraising business, I

29:06

find sometimes people who have a

29:09

really unhealthy view of money will

29:11

then shame people who do

29:13

have money and they become terrible fundraisers.

29:16

Nobody wants to be around them. You know,

29:18

you don't get invited to go on a

29:20

vacation with somebody who has the capacity to

29:22

give you a million dollars or $10 million,

29:24

$50 million if you're going to make them

29:27

feel judged, if you're going to make them

29:29

feel terrible about themselves. Maybe

29:31

it has to do with my past or what

29:33

I was able to do in New York for

29:35

10 years or just a lot of the people

29:38

that I'm in a relationship with now at Charity

29:40

Water. I look at wealth as an opportunity to

29:42

do more good in the world. Wealth

29:44

as an opportunity to serve, to

29:47

put that money to work in

29:49

human flourishing, in ending suffering. It's

29:52

my job when I'm around people

29:54

who have extraordinary wealth or middle-class

29:56

wealth to tell compelling enough stories

29:59

to create. a compelling

30:01

organization that can be a vehicle

30:04

for turning their money into

30:06

the transformation of human life

30:09

and then creating a circle back

30:11

to them so that they know it happened.

30:13

And if I can do all that, which I've been trying to

30:16

do for almost 20 years, we

30:18

find we're restoring a lot of people's faith

30:20

in charity. The charity means love.

30:22

It's a really beautiful word that

30:25

has become something that many

30:27

people are skeptical or cynical about. I

30:30

remember when I started, 42% of Americans

30:32

pulled by USA Today said they didn't

30:34

trust charities. More recent New York University

30:36

study found 70% of Americans

30:39

believe charities waste their money in some

30:41

part, waste their donations. So

30:44

many of the things that we've tried to do

30:46

at Charity Water is restore that lost faith and

30:49

almost get people addicted to

30:51

generosity. And it can be generosity of time,

30:53

it can be generosity of money, it can

30:56

be both. I

30:58

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34:12

The thing that I first learned about Charity Water

34:14

that made me realize you guys were different is

34:16

that you have two

34:18

separate sources for money, right? One covers all

34:21

the overhead all the way down to the

34:23

credit card processing fees and then the other

34:25

is just directly to

34:27

go towards causes. I mean,

34:29

I think that was an intentional decision early on

34:31

but how much of your success do

34:34

you think would you attribute to, you know,

34:36

in my mind, there's two things. You ran

34:38

it completely differently and then you've become masterful

34:40

at storytelling. But how do you think

34:42

about those two things and is maybe there another

34:45

thing that you think drove such success? That's right.

34:47

Well, yeah, when I started, I was 30.

34:49

I just come back from two years in

34:51

Africa as a photojournalist. And I think I

34:53

had the advantage, Chris, of not knowing anything about

34:56

how to build a charity or

34:58

run a charity. And I didn't really know

35:00

anyone in institutional philanthropy. I

35:02

know people who worked at Goldman Sachs

35:04

or at Sephora or at

35:07

MTV VH1 at the time, everyday

35:09

people. And I remember actually

35:11

going and buying nonprofits for

35:13

dummies, the yellow book. How

35:16

do you start a 501c3? What is a 501c3? Okay, we need some lawyers

35:20

and you have to file this application with

35:22

the federal governments and you need a board.

35:24

I really had no idea at the beginning.

35:27

But I think that then allowed me to

35:29

go out and do just some informal market

35:31

research. And as I talked to my friends,

35:34

they loved the noble mission of

35:36

getting everybody on earth clean water. I

35:38

mean, everybody I talked to could

35:41

stand for clean water for humans,

35:44

Republicans and Democrats and people of faith

35:46

and people who are agnostic or atheist,

35:48

like everybody could think water

35:51

is a good idea for people. But

35:54

really this pervasive underlying

35:57

skepticism, everyone also seemed

35:59

to have a horrible story of a charity

36:01

gone wrong, a charity where

36:03

the money didn't get to the

36:05

people that it was intended to get

36:08

to or a charity where, you know,

36:10

they hired aunts and uncles and distant

36:12

relatives and was just wracked with nepotism.

36:15

So the model for charity

36:17

water really came out of just listening

36:19

to everyday people. I said, well, what

36:21

would make you compelled to give?

36:24

And the 100% model just came out of that.

36:27

People said, if I knew that 100% of what

36:29

I gave would actually help people, I'd be more likely

36:31

to give. I said, all right,

36:33

well, this just needs to look like

36:35

two separately audited bank accounts. And

36:38

in one bank account, I'm going to raise

36:40

my hand and go try to find business

36:42

leaders and entrepreneurs who

36:45

are not skeptical and actually who

36:47

wouldn't mind paying those unsexy overhead

36:49

costs like staff salaries and

36:52

office rent and phone bills and the

36:54

toner for the Epson copy machine if

36:57

they knew we were efficient with those donations and

36:59

transparent. And then I can go out to the

37:01

public and say, great, not your problem.

37:03

If you give a dollar or a million

37:06

dollars, every single penny, every

37:08

dollar will go directly to

37:10

build these water projects, which

37:12

get people clean water. And as you

37:14

mentioned, you know, so that there would be kind of

37:16

perfect integrity with the 100% model, we said,

37:18

well, even pay back your credit card fees. If

37:21

you give 100 bucks on your Amex, sadly, we get 96,

37:24

but we will pay that $4 back from the

37:27

overhead account and we'll send your $100 to the field. And

37:30

then the second thing that came out of listening was people

37:33

wanted just to see where their money was. So

37:36

we said, all right, well, we're going to prove where

37:39

this money goes. Money is not fungible. We

37:41

can build technology in the water bank

37:43

account where all the public is giving

37:45

towards the water bank account. And

37:48

we could track a $92 donation to a well

37:50

in Malawi or $114 donation to a spring protection in

37:55

Nepal. And we actually

37:57

became the first charity in the world just to. geolocate

38:01

all of our completed water projects up on

38:03

Google Earth and then later Google Maps. So

38:06

there was this theme of

38:08

hyper transparency. But

38:11

again, could we wrap that with a story?

38:13

And then the third pillar was just this

38:15

belief that I remember

38:18

looking around the sector and saying, where

38:20

are the apples of charity?

38:22

Where's the Nike? Where's the

38:24

Virgin? No, later. Where's

38:26

the Tesla? And then there

38:28

were these inspiring, imaginative, creative

38:31

brands that capture

38:33

the imagination of people. And

38:35

I saw a lot of shame and guilt

38:37

based marketing. I saw a lot of charities

38:39

with bad websites and terrible

38:41

checkout forms and PDFs that they expected

38:43

people to read, white papers

38:45

about their issue. So I think

38:48

this just came through listening and these became

38:51

really core distinctives for Charity Water, the 100%

38:53

model, always looking for ways to

38:56

connect people to their money, proving it, trying

38:58

to build this really inspiring

39:01

design forward brand.

39:04

And then maybe the most important thing was

39:06

really what we wouldn't do. We wouldn't send

39:08

anyone that looked like me over to Africa

39:10

or India or Southeast Asia to go

39:12

drill wells. And I believed just

39:15

from day one for this work to be

39:17

culturally appropriate, for it to be sustainable in

39:19

the long run, it had to be led

39:21

by the locals in each of these countries where

39:23

we worked. And if we were successful,

39:26

we would help grow the teams

39:28

of local hydro geologists and local

39:30

well drillers and technicians. And

39:33

as we scaled, we would create thousands

39:35

of local jobs in

39:38

the process. And they

39:40

would be the ones leading their communities and leading

39:42

their countries forward in the future. They'd

39:44

also be the ones getting the credit. And

39:46

that's maybe what I've been really most proud

39:48

of. 17 years later, we

39:50

employ well over 2,500 people through

39:53

our partner network. Now across

39:55

21 active countries. And

39:57

they are taking the money that we're raising. and

40:00

turning it into clean water for the people

40:02

living in their communities and their countries every

40:04

single day. So just to

40:06

kind of finish on this, day one, I put all

40:08

these things together and my best idea for

40:11

the launch of Charity Water was to

40:13

get a nightclub donated during Fashion Week

40:16

and to get Open Bar donated and then to

40:18

just email everyone I knew and invite

40:20

them to my 31st birthday party. And

40:23

700 people came, probably less for me,

40:25

more for the club and the Open Bar. And

40:28

on their way in, we put out this big plexi

40:30

box and they had to drop $20 in the box

40:33

to get in the club. And

40:35

at the end of the night, we collected $15,000 and we took 100% of the

40:37

money to a refugee

40:41

camp in Northern Uganda. We

40:44

built our very first well and

40:46

then we sent the photo proof and

40:48

the GPS coordinates and the satellite images

40:51

back to the 700 people who came. And

40:53

we said, you came, you gave $20. It

40:56

mattered and here. Watch,

40:59

see, see the impact you

41:02

made. And I

41:04

mean, that sounds so simple, but nobody else was

41:06

doing that at the time. And

41:09

it turned out to be such a competitive advantage

41:11

in the early days. You had no

41:13

experience in this space and it built, you

41:15

know, not the biggest, but definitely one of the

41:17

most innovative charities that I'm familiar

41:19

with. I want to jump into a few lessons

41:22

because it seems like, wow, you just did this

41:24

one thing and then it took off from there.

41:26

I know you've had your fair share of setbacks

41:28

along the way. So you

41:30

were passionate about this space, but I

41:32

know that takes patience and resilience. How

41:35

do you handle that? And in what advice

41:37

would you give to people who are dealing

41:39

with similar things in life, whether it's charities

41:41

or anything, just to build that resilience in

41:44

their own pursuits? Well, a

41:46

lot of things didn't work. I remember, you

41:48

know, the 100% model sounds great until you

41:50

run out of people who are willing to

41:52

pay for overhead. So we

41:54

had this moment about a year and a half in where

41:57

we were raising so much money for Clean

41:59

Water Project. because the 100%

42:01

model was resonating with the everyday public,

42:04

but I just couldn't find people to

42:06

hire that next incremental staff member

42:09

soon enough. And

42:11

I'll never remember, there was this

42:13

really pivotal moment. We had $881,000

42:16

in the water bank account that was headed

42:18

out to the field to build projects. And

42:21

we had a couple weeks left in the

42:23

overhead account to make payroll. And

42:26

I remember the advice I was getting from people

42:28

was to go borrow against the 881K, write

42:31

a little IOU and transfer between accounts

42:33

because you got to pay your people and

42:36

you'll figure this out later. And I

42:38

remember calling lawyers and I was

42:40

going to start to unwind the charity and just

42:42

say, this doesn't work. This

42:45

is an untenable model. I

42:47

guess unless you have a huge amount of

42:49

capital to start with or a billionaire backer.

42:52

But I remember thinking if we borrowed

42:54

one penny of

42:56

the public's money and violated that

42:59

promise, even if we

43:01

paid it back later, there would just be a

43:03

crack in the foundation of our integrity. And I

43:05

didn't want to run that organization. I would rather

43:07

fail and try again with

43:09

maybe the traditional business model where you put

43:12

all the money in one account. And we

43:14

were very fortunate at that time, I met

43:16

a young entrepreneur in Silicon

43:18

Valley and I remember taking a meeting with him.

43:20

He was interested in what we were doing and

43:22

I remember thinking the meeting went

43:24

terribly. And at the end of

43:26

the meeting, he asked for our bank

43:28

account details and then three days later he

43:31

shot me a note well after midnight saying,

43:34

I enjoyed meeting you, really love the passion,

43:36

love the work. I just wired a million

43:38

dollars in your overhead account. And

43:40

we went from insolvent weeks away

43:43

from insolvency to over a

43:45

year of operating

43:47

capital. And

43:49

we really never looked back. Had

43:52

that not happened, I'm

43:54

probably not having this conversation with you. And

43:57

what helped me so much was I think... One,

44:00

I fell back on our values and

44:02

I would have been proud to

44:05

hold my head high and shut

44:07

the organization down and just say this didn't

44:09

work but at least not compromise. And

44:13

besides the money, that million dollars which was so

44:15

needed at the time, it was

44:17

also that somebody believed in me. He

44:19

believed that this was a tenable model.

44:22

We just needed more time. We

44:24

needed more time to work it out. Today,

44:26

there are 131 families who

44:28

pay the overhead and that grows every

44:31

single year. We invite 10 or 15 new people

44:34

in and we've never

44:36

really looked back after

44:38

that moment, after that time that forced us to be

44:40

creative, it forced us to come up with a multi-year,

44:43

multi-tier operations giving

44:45

program and now we have so

44:48

many people that actually prefer to

44:50

give that way. They would prefer

44:52

to support a software engineer or

44:54

a UI UX designer than

44:56

actually give directly to the water projects. Now, can you

44:58

give money the other way? If you have too much

45:00

in the overhead, do you just save it for the

45:02

rainy day? Well, we never have too much in the

45:05

overhead, Chris. We never have too

45:07

much in the overhead. It's always a slightly

45:09

harder proposition but all that

45:11

to say, we're not going bankrupt. We're always trying

45:13

to grow that group. That is where all the

45:15

growth capital comes from. So unless we grow the

45:18

amount of people who are willing to give on

45:20

that side, we can't grow the team.

45:22

We really can't grow the scale of

45:25

the organization. But I

45:27

think in resiliency, you're talking about staying the

45:29

course. So we're 17 years

45:31

in and we've now helped 17.4 million

45:34

people get access to clean water, about

45:36

137,000 villages around the world. On

45:40

my bad days, I try to fill

45:42

Madison Square Garden with 17 million people and

45:45

you would have to build about a thousand

45:47

Madison Square Gardens. So

45:49

Charity Water has sold out, Staples

45:51

Center or the garden or O2

45:53

Arena in London about a thousand

45:55

times to contain the amount of people

45:58

who now have water. 99%

46:00

of my time, I put that 17 million against the

46:02

700 million and it's 1 40th. Yes,

46:05

2.5% of the

46:07

way to goal because goal really is creating

46:10

a world where no one drinks disgusting water.

46:14

No human being alive as

46:16

we're recording a podcast is

46:18

risking their life, is poisoning themselves

46:21

simply because of the environment they

46:23

were born into and especially because we know how

46:25

to solve this problem. What makes

46:27

this both wonderful and energizing

46:29

and also frustrating is there

46:32

are a lot of problems, Chris, we don't know how to solve. My

46:35

mom eventually died of pancreatic cancer. It was four

46:37

months from diagnosis to death. They had absolutely no

46:39

idea how to help her. We

46:41

don't know how to solve ALS or

46:43

Parkinson's or Alzheimer's yet. We know

46:45

how to solve water for people. There's

46:47

not a single one of the 700

46:49

million people out there where we're scratching our heads

46:52

saying, I just couldn't help them, wouldn't

46:54

know how to get them water. Now,

46:57

we haven't created the will to

46:59

solve the problem. We haven't allocated

47:01

the resources to solve the problem, but we

47:03

actually know how to do it. I

47:06

really kind of believe the best

47:08

is yet to come. I remember

47:10

looking at a 27-year stock chart

47:12

of Amazon and

47:15

the quote was, had Jeff Bezos

47:17

quit in year 20, he'd

47:20

only created 7% of

47:22

the company's value. 93% came

47:24

in years 21 through 27. That

47:27

number may even be bigger now as a ratio, maybe 5 in 95. I

47:32

think there is an animating idea of just continuing to

47:34

show up and we're in year 17 now.

47:38

You never know who is waiting,

47:41

who is watching. We

47:44

still don't have a single philanthropist

47:46

of note in the entire world

47:49

who has raised their hand and said, hey, I'm going to work on

47:51

water. Y'all are working on health

47:54

and education and women and girls

47:57

and gender equality and economic development.

48:00

I found the one thing that sits underneath

48:02

almost every problem related to extreme poverty

48:05

and that's water. So, I'm going to

48:07

take that on. We still don't

48:09

have that. There is

48:11

no Bloomberg, Gates, Elon, Bezos. There's nobody

48:13

who's kind of raised their hand. No

48:15

corporation has raised their hand and made

48:17

any sort of significant commitment

48:20

towards this or really move the needle forward.

48:22

So, I think as we just keep our

48:24

heads down and every

48:27

year, try to grow the organization, grow

48:29

our community, grow our impact, we

48:32

put ourselves in a situation where hopefully we

48:34

build trust, we build credibility, we

48:37

build the systems and the infrastructure now,

48:39

you know, cross over 20 countries to

48:42

be able to absorb that future interest

48:45

in water and hopefully the future capital that

48:47

comes to this space. I think part of

48:49

the reason I am so compelled by this

48:51

story of Charity Water is your ability to

48:53

tell it both here in video, on your

48:55

website. Did you

48:58

know how important that aspect would be to

49:00

your success when you started? I

49:02

didn't. I didn't and I think it's a

49:05

little bit innate. I don't

49:07

think in statistics, you know, they don't move

49:09

me. I really think in stories and I'm

49:11

also a visual thinker. You know,

49:13

I took photos early on with Charity Water. Now we

49:15

have far better, more accomplished photographers

49:17

who are willing to often donate their time

49:20

and go out and document this work. But

49:23

I think I've realized the power of it over

49:25

the years. I'll give you an example. I

49:28

wrote this chapter in my book which

49:30

was probably the most moving and devastating story

49:32

for me over 17 years and

49:34

if I gave you the statistics, okay, 700 million people

49:36

in the world don't have water. Women

49:39

are walking hundreds of millions of hours

49:42

every year that they're wasting. Up

49:45

to 50% of the disease in many of

49:47

these countries is caused simply by bad water.

49:50

Half the schools throughout the developing

49:52

world don't have water or

49:54

toilets for their kids, right? I mean, I

49:56

get statistic after statistic but if I told

49:58

you that... I

50:01

was in northern Ethiopia once and

50:04

somebody came up to me in a $5 night

50:06

hotel room lobby, kind of the

50:09

restaurant lobby and said,

50:11

hey, you're the charity water guy. We've heard of you. We

50:13

know the impacts you're making up here. Let me tell you

50:15

a story. He sits down and he says,

50:17

I'm from a remote village. The women

50:19

in my village, they used to all walk eight hours a day. And

50:22

he goes, there was this one woman and

50:25

at the end of one of her walks,

50:28

before she got home, she slipped

50:30

and she fell and all the water

50:32

that she just walked for spilled out into the ground.

50:35

And she had this clay pot on her back

50:37

and the clay pot shattered. And

50:39

there were shards all over the path. And

50:42

he said, she didn't go get another

50:44

pot. She didn't go back and

50:47

go refill the water. He

50:49

said she took a rope and she climbed a tree

50:52

and she tied a noose around her neck and she

50:54

hung herself. And in the center

50:56

of my village, and we found her body swinging

50:58

from a tree. And he

51:00

let that sit. And they said, the

51:02

work you're doing is important. And he walked back into the kitchen.

51:05

I remember thinking at first, that's not

51:08

true. That's what you tell the

51:10

humanitarian aid worker to make us feel great

51:12

about the work we're doing in the country.

51:16

But I think the power of story, you know, that

51:18

nagged at me. And a

51:20

couple months later, I told my wife, I said, I need to

51:22

go and see if this is true. I

51:24

need to go and see if this woman lived. And

51:27

I need to see the tree. And

51:30

I wound up flying back to Ethiopia and flying

51:32

up to the north and then driving four hours,

51:34

got to the end of the road, renting

51:37

a donkey and a camel and putting a

51:39

little backpack and tent and then walking

51:42

nine hours over the mountains to reach this

51:44

village. It was called Meida. And

51:47

over the next week, I lived in this village and

51:49

I walked in her footsteps and I met her mother

51:52

and I met her best friend who walked

51:54

for water with her that day. And

51:56

they'd kind of split at the end of the walk, her

51:58

friend going to her house and Her

52:00

name was Leta Kiroz walking towards her

52:03

house. And what I didn't know

52:05

until I lived in this village

52:07

was that she was 13 years old when she

52:10

died. I was imagining someone towards

52:12

the end of her life when she

52:14

was described to me as a woman. She

52:16

was a teenage girl and I

52:19

saw where she got her water. I visited her

52:21

grave. I talked to the priest who

52:23

gave her ceremony. I interviewed her

52:25

friends who told me what she was like. She had vision.

52:27

She wanted to get out of this village. She wanted to

52:30

become a doctor, a nurse to

52:32

help people. And I

52:34

remember just standing next to the tree

52:36

which was this frail little tree and there was a

52:38

dirt path that ran next to the tree. You

52:41

know, imagining a 13-year-old girl's body

52:43

hanging with a noose around

52:45

her neck and water

52:49

off in the dust and shards of clay

52:51

pots. And it

52:54

angered me. I came back,

52:56

you know, with a driving

52:58

desire to do more because

53:01

kids shouldn't be hanging themselves because they were

53:03

born in a village without water. And

53:06

I remember, you know, the last thing just about this story,

53:08

what struck me, you know, as

53:11

I thought of, well, this is

53:13

a tough story. I almost didn't need to be

53:15

careful telling this story but I

53:17

asked her best friend. I said, why do you think she took

53:19

her life? And her friend said, you

53:21

know, this is through a translator in the local

53:23

language, D'Agrenia. Her friend said, shame

53:26

because it was her role to go

53:28

and get the water for the family. And

53:31

not only had she let the family down

53:33

through her carelessness slipping

53:36

and falling, she also broke

53:38

into clay pot which was a

53:40

valuable asset. And the shame

53:42

of her failure would have been

53:45

probably too much for her to

53:47

go back and face her family. So there's

53:50

statistics and then there is the

53:52

story of a real life person

53:55

who's just one of those 703 million people. It

54:00

certainly resonated with me. I was able to

54:02

connect to the idea of shame. I was

54:04

able to connect to futility,

54:09

to a situation that you

54:11

just don't know how to get out of. So you

54:13

just have to keep doing it every single day and

54:16

wanting Chris to be a part of

54:19

that answer to the

54:22

next 13-year-old girl that I could get to. It

54:24

makes me want to make sure if there's not a well in

54:26

the – in that village, can we start to do a fundraiser

54:29

to put a well in that village? I'm hoping there already is.

54:31

This is years ago. Okay. So

54:34

I hear you. The storytelling there

54:37

pales in comparison to the numbers. And

54:40

when I think about my own

54:42

ability to story tell, I think you're far superior

54:44

and I need to work on that. Is that

54:46

something you learned? Is that something that was practiced?

54:48

How can you draw people in? I go to

54:51

the movies a lot by myself. I think we're

54:53

creatures of story. My wife was laughing

54:55

at me the other day. I spent three and a half hours alone

54:57

in the new Scorsese

54:59

movie because I grew up and I did

55:01

a couple years in film school and he's

55:03

a great storyteller. So I'm constantly trying

55:06

to immerse myself in stories that have

55:08

nothing to do with Charity Water but

55:10

watch people who are masters of

55:12

the craft. There's no formula.

55:14

I mean, I'm never sitting down and like saying this,

55:17

then that, then this, you know, the hero's journey or

55:19

– I've never read Joseph Campbell's work. I mean, I'm

55:21

familiar kind of with the idea of the hero's journey.

55:24

But I'm a chronological thinker. So

55:26

it's kind of this, then that, then this, then

55:28

that, then this. I feel like

55:30

just because I put everybody on such a downer there, I'll

55:33

tell just one other kind of story in the opposite end

55:35

of that. One of

55:37

my favorites over the years

55:39

and we have so many stories, myriad

55:41

stories that we've come across of just

55:43

extraordinary people and extraordinary lives impacted

55:46

by not having water, impacted by having

55:48

water. And this woman

55:50

named Helen that we met in Northern

55:52

Uganda. And Helen

55:55

was kind of the end of middle age and

55:57

she was a mom. She had a bunch of

55:59

kids. kids. And our team was

56:02

visiting charity water completed projects

56:05

and when the community knows

56:07

you're coming, Chris, there's a lot of fanfare. I

56:09

mean, they roll out the red carpet, they're bringing

56:11

goats and chickens and eggs and there are speeches

56:13

and there's dancing and there's singing. There's a real

56:15

honoring of the people who have come just to

56:18

learn more about the community. So the team had done

56:20

four with fanfare and this was like the fifth at

56:22

the end of the day and they were trying to

56:24

sneak into this village just to see

56:27

the water point in action and kind of almost sneak up

56:29

on it and say, hey, were people using it and what

56:31

did it feel like around the well? Well,

56:34

Helen had somehow gotten wind so

56:36

she leads this welcoming party of

56:38

women and they're dancing and they're singing and they're

56:40

welcoming the team in and after

56:42

that stops, we sit down

56:44

with Helen and we said, just tell us your story. Now

56:47

you have water. It's feet from your

56:49

home. How is your life different

56:51

now? And Helen begins to tell us the

56:53

story of what her life was like before. She

56:55

used to go get 10 gallons of water. So two

56:58

kind of big yellow jugs. Think of

57:00

what you've got in your garage for your

57:02

riding mower or the little gas tank and

57:04

she would carry two of these very heavy

57:06

40 pounds each and she

57:09

said, because the water was so far away, I always

57:12

had to make these choices. There's

57:14

never enough water. So what would I do

57:16

with the water today? And then she listed,

57:18

well, could I cook? I could clean?

57:20

I could garden? I could

57:23

wash my kids' bodies? I could wash

57:25

my kids' school uniforms? And

57:27

she said, there was just never enough water.

57:30

And she said, as a Ugandan woman, we

57:32

put our families first. She

57:34

said, now that I have clean

57:36

water, feet from my house, she said this.

57:38

She said, now I am

57:40

beautiful. And our team didn't quite get it.

57:42

We're like, Helen, of course, you're this beautiful

57:44

Ugandan woman. And she goes, no, I don't

57:46

think you understand. She goes, now I finally for

57:48

the first time in my life in

57:51

this village have enough water to wash my

57:53

face and my body and

57:55

my clothes. And she said, I

57:57

am beautiful. She said, look at me. I'm looking so

57:59

smart. And we'd never

58:02

quite thought of water

58:05

in that way before until we

58:07

sat down with a woman and just

58:09

listened to her simply tell her story.

58:12

And water to her meant dignity. Water

58:14

meant beauty. We've been talking about

58:16

water as health and rattling off

58:19

statistics of disease and water

58:21

as educate. Water to her meant

58:23

something deeply personal. And

58:28

when I tell that story, for me, it also...

58:33

What an extraordinary thing to be able to give

58:35

a woman, especially a woman who was

58:38

sacrificially giving for her family. She

58:40

wasn't using the water for herself.

58:43

She was using her limited water that she

58:46

was walking hours for for others,

58:48

for the benefit of others. And

58:50

now she finally had enough to take care of herself. I

58:52

mean, who doesn't want to be a part of that? I

58:55

feel like what you've just given everyone listening is

58:57

not only an incredible

59:00

story about water and the impact it

59:02

can have, but an example of

59:04

how taking the time to

59:06

pull stories, whether it's from your life,

59:08

whether it's from the lives of people

59:10

that you work with, the companies you work with, and

59:14

turning them into something that's more than

59:16

figures or facts. And

59:19

I so often default to the

59:21

transactional information like, oh, water

59:23

could give someone this, this, this, this. And

59:25

I just need to stop and pause in

59:28

the future and really realize that taking the

59:30

time to tell that story, which you'd think

59:32

as someone who talks to a microphone for

59:34

a living would innately have as a common

59:36

practice. But I just think if there's a lesson

59:39

that I've taken away from the last few minutes,

59:41

it's just how powerful that can be and how

59:43

it's not limited to someone in your role. It's

59:45

not a skill that only matters if you're raising

59:47

money for charity. It's something that probably matters in

59:49

all aspects of life. That's right.

59:51

I mean, some of the greatest entrepreneurs

59:53

are storytellers. It has to be

59:56

true. I'll say that, Chris. It has to be

59:58

true. I mean, I think sometimes, you know, there

1:00:00

can be over-embellive. men and people can get really

1:00:02

carried away. So a story is

1:00:04

powerful when it is true and

1:00:06

often the details in a story

1:00:09

make it true. It would not have

1:00:11

been true for me had I not lived in

1:00:13

Leta Cura's village, had I not stood next to

1:00:16

that tree, had I not walked in her footsteps

1:00:18

down the ravine, had I not talked to the

1:00:20

other women at that same

1:00:22

source of water. So for me,

1:00:24

the proximity and the immersion

1:00:27

to the story was really important. And

1:00:29

then the details emerge from

1:00:32

those which can really

1:00:34

move people because the

1:00:36

details also remind

1:00:39

people that it's

1:00:41

true. You know

1:00:43

what I mean? It's not a genera – the specificity. You

1:00:46

know, Helen – I mean I have a picture of her

1:00:48

in her dress. So if I were to

1:00:50

do this on stage, I would show you Helen dancing

1:00:53

and I would show you the two yellow cans and

1:00:55

then I would show you a portrait we

1:00:58

took of Helen as she is radiantly beaming

1:01:01

and you would look at her green kind

1:01:03

of paisley dress and you would

1:01:05

notice how it really does look clean.

1:01:08

I can't see any dirt on that. So

1:01:12

I think showing as well as telling is

1:01:15

often really, really important. And

1:01:17

it's not just for story. I mean let's

1:01:20

take an example because you've taken a lot

1:01:22

of these stories and made videos. Put them

1:01:24

on the site. I'm referencing one in particular

1:01:26

that you happened to share before we got

1:01:28

started. The financial

1:01:30

impact to the organization of telling

1:01:33

these stories is also great. So

1:01:35

it's not just storytelling

1:01:37

for storytelling's sake. The time you spend

1:01:39

in that village which I think sometimes

1:01:41

comes across as not from you

1:01:43

but like you're brainstorming these ideas and you're like,

1:01:45

do I really want to spend a week of

1:01:47

my life collecting a story? And

1:01:49

I think one thing I've taken from our conversation

1:01:52

is the value of that story could be even

1:01:54

greater than the time you spent collecting it. I

1:01:57

agree. Look, stories can

1:01:59

move people. I mean,

1:02:01

I really think about storytelling is, is this

1:02:03

story going to bring out something

1:02:06

valuable in the people

1:02:08

that might encounter it? I'll just

1:02:10

give you one other example. We'll probably talk

1:02:12

about the film that the people could go

1:02:14

and actually see some of these images, but

1:02:16

there's a famous donor story where there was

1:02:18

a nine-year-old girl named Rachel Beckwith in

1:02:21

Seattle, Washington. And she saw me talk. And

1:02:24

at the time, I would ask everyone in

1:02:26

the audience to donate their next birthday to

1:02:28

Charity Water. And I'd say, you don't need

1:02:30

any more stuff. You don't need toys.

1:02:33

You know, women, you don't need handbags, guys,

1:02:35

you don't need wallets. Like we have enough

1:02:37

stuff. Humans don't even have water.

1:02:40

So turn your birthday into a giving moment.

1:02:43

And I thought the sticky marketing message would be, ask

1:02:46

for your age in dollars. So

1:02:48

if you're turning nine, ask everyone for $9. If

1:02:51

you're turning 89, ask everyone for $89. And

1:02:55

Rachel took me seriously at this and she

1:02:57

donates her ninth birthday. But she sets a

1:02:59

goal of $300, which

1:03:02

was going to help the time 10 people get

1:03:04

access to water. And she cancels

1:03:06

her birthday party, won't accept gifts, and

1:03:09

she raises $220. So

1:03:11

she falls short in her goal. She

1:03:13

tells her mom, she feels like she's failed and

1:03:15

she's going to try harder next year. And her

1:03:18

mom's like, hey, I think you're pretty awesome. I

1:03:20

mean, you raised $220 and just you care so

1:03:22

much about people you've never met living

1:03:24

an ocean away. I mean, we should all be

1:03:26

inspired by you. Well, right after her

1:03:28

birthday, she dies in a car crash. There's

1:03:31

a 25 car pile up on

1:03:33

an interstate in Seattle. She's the only

1:03:35

fatality. Traction trailer, jackknifes.

1:03:38

Her mom was driving, her sister was in the front.

1:03:40

She was smashed in the backseat. And

1:03:43

I was in Africa at the time. I was in Central African

1:03:45

Republic. I remember landing the next day

1:03:47

at JFK, turning on my phone, the Blackberry

1:03:50

at the time. And her pastor

1:03:52

had emailed me to let me

1:03:54

know of this little girl in his Seattle congregation

1:03:56

who had donated her birthday and raised $220. and

1:04:00

then I passed away. And he

1:04:02

asked me if we could reopen her campaign and he was

1:04:04

going to just ask everybody in the church to donate $9.

1:04:08

Long story short, people get wind

1:04:11

of this campaign and a lot of

1:04:13

people, Chris, donate And

1:04:16

it spreads to the New York Times and

1:04:18

Nick Christophe picks it up. It spreads to

1:04:20

the morning shows, starts spreading to Europe. And

1:04:22

then one of the coolest things was

1:04:25

people in Africa start donating

1:04:27

$9 in Rachel's name. She

1:04:30

goes from $220 to $1.3 million in donations. She

1:04:36

inspired almost 60,000 complete strangers

1:04:39

to give. And what was

1:04:41

even cooler was so many of

1:04:43

those givers then went

1:04:45

on to donate their next birthday

1:04:47

that inspired by this sacrificial nine-year-old

1:04:50

girl who really should want

1:04:53

toys or whatever the thing

1:04:55

that a nine-year-old should want for themselves. I

1:04:58

think it's so inspired 60,000 people. They

1:05:00

said, not only can we give to honor her

1:05:03

last wish, but we could

1:05:05

also follow the lead of

1:05:07

a nine-year-old girl. That story,

1:05:09

as tragic as it is, has

1:05:11

put so much good into

1:05:13

the world beyond the 100,000 people that

1:05:15

now have clean water. I mean, she wanted to help

1:05:18

10 people while alive. She's now brought clean water to

1:05:20

well over 100,000 people. I

1:05:22

actually got to take her mom and her grandparents on

1:05:25

the one-year anniversary of her death, took them to Ethiopia,

1:05:27

and they went village to village to village to village.

1:05:30

And they personally met thousands

1:05:32

of people who had

1:05:34

clean water because of their daughter,

1:05:36

because of their granddaughter. And

1:05:39

I think that story is good in the world. And

1:05:44

maybe people have heard that story, didn't even donate a

1:05:46

birthday to charity water, but they donated it for some

1:05:48

other cause or for cancer

1:05:50

research or to build a school. I

1:05:53

know the part of this story

1:05:55

that changed for you was

1:05:57

when you started, when you took this trip. And

1:06:00

you just talked about taking Rachel's family on

1:06:02

a trip. How much of

1:06:05

the perspective from travel and seeing

1:06:07

people in other cultures and other

1:06:09

circumstances has given you the perspective

1:06:11

and gratitude you have and how

1:06:14

valuable do you think that is

1:06:16

as a mechanism for changing anyone's

1:06:18

perspective? Chris, I get asked a

1:06:20

lot, you know, having done this for close to 20 years,

1:06:22

you know, what keeps you going? How can you

1:06:25

still get up and just do this day in

1:06:27

and day out? The travel is

1:06:29

a piece. So I make sure

1:06:31

it's never too long before I am on

1:06:33

the ground in these communities connecting

1:06:35

with the people we are hoping to serve and the

1:06:38

people we're serving. So that grounds me,

1:06:40

it roots me. I've been to Africa more than 55 times

1:06:42

now. I've been to

1:06:44

72 countries around the world. And

1:06:47

living in these villages, I just got to take

1:06:49

my six and eight year old this March for

1:06:51

the first time to Uganda, which is

1:06:53

where Charity Waters first well was. And

1:06:56

you know, I had my kids carrying water. I

1:06:58

had my kids asking questions of

1:07:00

communities and my kids are born into a middle

1:07:02

class life. They will never have to drink

1:07:04

dirty water as long as they live. And

1:07:08

I wanted to share that experience with them

1:07:10

as well. I got to bring some

1:07:12

of our major donors kids as well on that

1:07:14

trip and it was just really impactful. So

1:07:17

for me, it is very, very important.

1:07:20

Brian Stevenson at EGI talks a lot

1:07:22

about proximity. You know, there's a power,

1:07:25

there's a credibility. It

1:07:27

comes when you're in proximity to

1:07:29

your issue, you know, to the

1:07:31

passion and the purpose. I

1:07:34

had that proximity for the first two years,

1:07:36

you know, on that mercy ship embedded with

1:07:38

these doctors. I had the proximity because I

1:07:40

was scrubbed up with a camera

1:07:42

in an eight and a half hour surgery watching

1:07:45

them remove a tumor or put

1:07:47

somebody's body back together who

1:07:49

had been burned by rebel soldiers during the

1:07:51

war. That has helped. I'm always looking for

1:07:53

that and trying to make sure that I'm

1:07:56

never too far away from the

1:07:59

issue. that I'm advocating for were

1:08:01

the people who were serving. And obviously

1:08:04

travel to Africa with kids is a

1:08:06

big trip that not everyone can take.

1:08:09

What other things are you doing as a

1:08:11

father or even for yourself to kind

1:08:13

of create that culture

1:08:16

of gratitude, of selflessness,

1:08:19

of generosity, of giving

1:08:21

in your family? I

1:08:24

like that you started with gratitude because that

1:08:26

is the one practice that I

1:08:28

am very faithful to with the

1:08:31

kids. So we play the gratitude game every

1:08:33

night. We go around. If

1:08:35

I'm doing bedtime alone without my wife, it's 30.

1:08:38

So everybody's got to do 10 and you can have one

1:08:40

repeat. So we're looking at

1:08:42

27 unique things that we're grateful

1:08:44

for every single night. And

1:08:47

sometimes if it's an early bedtime, I'll push them

1:08:49

to do 20. And

1:08:51

just to practice and sometimes you get like I'm

1:08:53

thankful for mom, I'm thankful for the dog, I'm

1:08:55

thankful for our house, I'm thankful for church, I'm

1:08:57

thankful for you know. But

1:09:00

I've gotten some unbelievably

1:09:02

creative, really profound things out of

1:09:04

the kids and I think even out of myself,

1:09:06

things that have kind of surprised me when you

1:09:09

really go into that posture of

1:09:11

gratitude. So that is practice that

1:09:13

I think has really enriched the

1:09:16

lives of our family. And

1:09:19

I think right, not everybody can take a trip. I

1:09:21

mean, we got back my

1:09:23

wife like I'm never doing that again.

1:09:25

I mean, seven flights in seven days,

1:09:28

time zones, 14 hours on Emirates through

1:09:30

Dubai, you know, in coach back to

1:09:32

the bus was oh, bro, all coach.

1:09:35

Yeah, actually, that was seven out and back and

1:09:37

coach with kids. It was rough. But

1:09:39

we would have not traded that

1:09:42

experience. And of course, we would have done it again. And I

1:09:44

think my wife would have done it again too. When

1:09:47

it comes to the charitable world,

1:09:49

I feel like I

1:09:51

don't have the perspective you do and

1:09:53

you've gotten to know this industry probably

1:09:56

much more than most people. I'm

1:09:58

curious as people. people think about

1:10:00

causes they want to support. Obviously, you know,

1:10:02

you'll encourage them to take a look at

1:10:05

what you're doing and I will as well.

1:10:08

What advice do you have for people when they find a

1:10:10

cause in actually finding the right

1:10:12

organization? As much as I love the 100%

1:10:14

model, I think it's fairly unique. And

1:10:17

so finding the right organizations can be

1:10:19

tough. And I know in the

1:10:21

recent past with different disasters and, you know, war

1:10:23

zones, people have, you know, made these

1:10:25

lists of 20 different organizations, but it seems very

1:10:27

hard to kind of evaluate

1:10:30

an organization in the nonprofit sector.

1:10:32

I think it starts with finding

1:10:34

causes that you're passionate about, learning

1:10:36

about those causes, maybe more than

1:10:38

what you're asking, chat, GBT, or

1:10:40

you're browsing one article, educating

1:10:43

yourself on these causes and then trying

1:10:45

to research organizations that are well run

1:10:47

and are transparent. I certainly

1:10:49

do not think, in fact, I don't even advocate

1:10:52

other people starting charities to adopt the 100% model. It

1:10:55

was right for us 17 years ago. It continues

1:10:57

to be right for us going

1:10:59

forward. But what I really

1:11:02

was trying to say back then is people

1:11:04

just want to know where their money's going.

1:11:07

They want transparency in that.

1:11:09

If I told your listeners today that

1:11:12

the greatest need at Charity

1:11:14

Water was a new

1:11:16

expensive copy machine because we

1:11:18

needed to print a bunch of paper copies and, you know,

1:11:20

it was going to be $3,000 or something. People

1:11:23

would donate for a copy machine to meet

1:11:25

a need, to meet a specific need if

1:11:27

they knew how that would move the mission

1:11:30

forward. We don't need a copy machine, but

1:11:32

you could argue that'd be like the

1:11:34

unsexiest cost ever is

1:11:36

like something that prints paper. But

1:11:39

if those papers were valuable to the continuation of

1:11:41

the mission, people would step up. It's

1:11:43

often I think the opacity, it's

1:11:46

the not knowing where the money goes.

1:11:48

You know, it's the fine print during many of

1:11:51

the disasters where you find out actually $100 million

1:11:53

it was given went into an endowment which

1:11:55

won't see the light of day because

1:11:57

in that fine print, it would be a real

1:11:59

good idea. organizations say, well, if we

1:12:01

over raise what we can spend, you

1:12:04

know, we can do anything with this money. I

1:12:06

remember to that end, there was a very famous example years

1:12:09

ago during the tsunami, I believe it

1:12:11

was where Doctors Without Borders over

1:12:14

raised significantly and they

1:12:16

tried to refund everybody's money and

1:12:18

they tried to say, here, take your money back. We

1:12:21

got what we needed, can't spend it

1:12:23

in this intended way. And what

1:12:25

do you think 99% of people did? Said,

1:12:28

keep the money. But thank you for

1:12:30

telling us. You know, so that move

1:12:32

would have built so much trust because there

1:12:34

was integrity in that move, there was transparency

1:12:36

in that move. And I think that's often

1:12:38

what is lacking sometimes

1:12:41

in the sector where

1:12:43

when you really follow the dollars, you're

1:12:46

not always thrilled with what happened with them. How

1:12:48

would the average person go through that process? Like,

1:12:50

what would you practically do? Let's say there's a

1:12:52

tsunami, you'd read a 990, which is one. So

1:12:56

you read a 990. I mean, every organization publishes

1:12:58

their 990 so you can see how they're spending

1:13:00

their money, how much on marketing, how much on

1:13:02

office costs. You can really see where the money

1:13:04

is going out. That's one document. I

1:13:06

mean, a lot of organizations that don't put that

1:13:08

up online. So that's one flag. Somebody

1:13:11

sent me through diligence, check out this organization. I

1:13:13

said, well, they've been around for seven years. They

1:13:16

haven't posted a single financial online. You

1:13:18

know, that's not even legal. So

1:13:21

a charity is forced to publish their

1:13:23

federal files, like your tax return. Every

1:13:26

single year and that needs to be found online.

1:13:28

So there's actually a lot of just simple best

1:13:30

practices that aren't happening. I'm a big

1:13:32

damn Pilata fan. If people don't know him, he

1:13:34

gave a very famous TED talk on kind of

1:13:36

the overhead myth. He wrote a

1:13:39

book called Uncharitable. He's got a film coming out

1:13:41

in the next month or so. And

1:13:43

I am not an

1:13:45

advocate for these tiny overheads. I'm

1:13:47

really an advocate for well-run

1:13:50

efficient organizations who

1:13:52

are growing their impact, who are trying

1:13:54

to put more and more money out

1:13:56

into the field or directly to the cause.

1:13:59

And that's it. That is driving everything of the

1:14:01

organization. The Wounded Warriors story

1:14:03

is probably the most famous. I remember they

1:14:06

were much vilified for a long time

1:14:08

and I sat with Steve Nardizzi

1:14:10

once who was their kind of co-founder. The

1:14:13

way that he explained it to me was so simple.

1:14:15

He said, I took this organization over and we were

1:14:17

raising $8 million a year for veterans. I

1:14:21

might get this slightly wrong but he

1:14:23

said $8 million was not even a

1:14:25

fraction of what was needed. I

1:14:27

learned that every dollar I would put into

1:14:30

marketing, I could return about 50 cents. That

1:14:33

sounds horribly inefficient but

1:14:35

he said I wanted to market

1:14:38

and grow the organization and

1:14:40

then I would worry about efficiency later when we

1:14:42

got up to scale. I

1:14:45

think he took the thing to $450 million. Now,

1:14:50

again, I don't remember the exact ratio but let's say at

1:14:52

$450 million, half of the money

1:14:55

was going directly to help

1:14:57

veterans. Well, he just took an

1:15:00

efficient organization at $8 million going

1:15:02

out to a much less efficient

1:15:04

organization but $225 million was going out in impact.

1:15:09

I think he never really got the chance with his team

1:15:11

to dial it back down

1:15:13

and go back to efficiency at scale which was

1:15:15

going to be possible because some of these people

1:15:18

were monthly givers. There was a

1:15:20

high cost to acquire but then you got a

1:15:22

long tail. Then you shut

1:15:24

off that marketing spend and by the

1:15:26

way, I mean Disney Plus, they went from 0 to 100

1:15:29

million users I think

1:15:31

in the first year just by spending billions and billions

1:15:33

of dollars of marketing. We're

1:15:35

not seeing that same marketing blitz in

1:15:37

year 2 and year 3. I'm

1:15:40

with you that these are often really wise

1:15:42

investments that people need to make but you

1:15:44

ask these questions and you start to really

1:15:46

understand more about the

1:15:48

organization's leadership, more about their history.

1:15:52

You can make some pretty good decisions with some more

1:15:54

information. you

1:16:00

put in your own research versus

1:16:02

the rating from a charitable rating

1:16:05

site? Yeah. Well, we've been fortunate. I mean, we've

1:16:07

had the highest ratings from all the sites. I

1:16:09

am very cynical about the methodology. I mean, it's

1:16:11

just a formula. You know, a 990 is

1:16:14

getting put through a variety of metrics

1:16:17

and I think that's a whole other

1:16:19

podcast. I'm like, man, do I want to

1:16:21

even open that? I think they

1:16:23

are a good place to start. They're certainly a

1:16:26

good place to start maybe weeding out some of

1:16:28

the egregious actors, but it's looking

1:16:30

at overhead. It's looking at some very

1:16:32

simple metrics that is not

1:16:34

necessarily an indicator of

1:16:36

the impact they are having by moving

1:16:38

their mission forward in the world. And

1:16:41

simply because it can't, I mean, there's one and a

1:16:44

half million charities or something in America. So, you know,

1:16:46

imagine it's the same thing with the IRS. I can

1:16:48

imagine assigning 1.4 million, you

1:16:51

know, let's go do deep dives in all these

1:16:53

organizations. It's just not even feasible. So,

1:16:55

I know a big part of what you guys have done well is

1:16:58

around tracking your impact and effectiveness as

1:17:00

an organization. I'm

1:17:02

curious if you've ever thought about that

1:17:04

perspective on a personal level and

1:17:07

how you or anyone listening might

1:17:09

be able to apply some of

1:17:12

those lessons to track the

1:17:15

impact they're having with their

1:17:17

own lives or with their own wallets or

1:17:19

in their own careers. I mean, Chris, I'm

1:17:21

probably a bad guy to ask

1:17:23

that question to because my KPIs

1:17:26

are pretty simple because

1:17:28

this is my life's work. It's people

1:17:30

that have access to clean water because

1:17:33

of the organization we're built because of

1:17:35

the movement that we are growing and

1:17:37

how effectively we're deploying capital to change

1:17:40

lives. So, we have a pretty simple

1:17:42

output. I have a personal goal

1:17:44

of helping at least 100 million

1:17:47

people. So, that is a benchmark

1:17:49

that's out there for me and

1:17:51

we've helped 17 million people. So, we

1:17:53

continue to this path. I would

1:17:56

be probably far too old to

1:17:58

realize that. So, some exponentials. financial growth

1:18:01

is certainly required to achieve that personal

1:18:04

goal through work. When I

1:18:06

think about my family, it's all about character.

1:18:09

It's all about virtue. It's

1:18:11

instilling compassion, integrity, generosity

1:18:14

into the lives of my

1:18:16

children. Do they tell

1:18:18

the truth? Do they admit when they're wrong?

1:18:21

It's all kind of soft

1:18:23

stuff. I can care less if they

1:18:25

come and work with me or, you know, go work at a

1:18:27

bank. I'm

1:18:29

really interested in the people that

1:18:31

they become and the way

1:18:34

that they do things, whatever they do. You

1:18:36

know, are they doing it with the

1:18:38

utmost integrity? You know, are they doing

1:18:40

it by telling the truth? Are

1:18:42

they treating people with kindness and respect? I

1:18:45

think two very different metrics. You know, obviously, I'm

1:18:48

trying to do the same thing as we build

1:18:50

the culture of the organization. Are we living up

1:18:52

to our values? Are we good all the way

1:18:54

to the core? You know, is there anything that

1:18:56

is not working that we need to go and

1:18:58

fix? Is there anything

1:19:00

that's hypocritical? You know, are

1:19:02

we saying anything that we actually can't deliver

1:19:04

on? So we're constantly asking ourselves those questions

1:19:07

as a culture as well. You mentioned legacy

1:19:09

a bit earlier and then I

1:19:11

know Charity Waters work has had a lasting

1:19:13

impact on communities. In a way,

1:19:16

that impact is part of your legacy. I'd

1:19:18

love to explore this concept of leaving a

1:19:20

meaningful legacy and making a lasting difference in

1:19:22

the world. And is that something

1:19:24

you think about a lot? It's interesting. I

1:19:26

think about it less for me and

1:19:29

more of encouraging other people to think

1:19:31

about it. But I guess I

1:19:33

would think about it as it's

1:19:36

really positional or it's an intention

1:19:38

of a life. I

1:19:40

don't think legacy is like, okay, well, I tick

1:19:42

these five boxes or, you know, they're going to

1:19:44

read at my funeral, A, B, C, D. I

1:19:47

think of it more as going through

1:19:49

life. And I

1:19:52

said this earlier, but asking the question,

1:19:55

how can I take What I

1:19:57

have, what I've been blessed with? I Mean, everybody

1:19:59

listening to this has been blessed. As certainly many

1:20:01

things to be grateful for. And. How

1:20:03

can I use that in the

1:20:05

service of others? I think it's

1:20:07

that simple. And. That

1:20:10

is really than a legacy of giving.

1:20:12

It's a legacy of compassion. It's a

1:20:15

legacy of generosity. That will

1:20:17

manifest itself. In

1:20:19

different ways to different seasons.

1:20:22

Of Life. One of my dreams at some point

1:20:24

is to write a million dollar cheque to a

1:20:26

charity. I. Have wanted to pay that

1:20:28

forward for seventeen years. In

1:20:30

a we've been able to turn that million dollar

1:20:33

guest into now? Yeah, well. over a hundred million

1:20:35

dollars. Raised. And I think I was

1:20:37

able to give that back. To. That donor

1:20:39

saying you believed in me. We've

1:20:42

honored this hundred percent model with absolute

1:20:44

integrity now for seventeen years, and we've

1:20:46

kind of turned that one talents. Into.

1:20:49

Eight hundred more and growing. But.

1:20:51

I'd like to do a personally Chris. You. Know

1:20:54

you're not going to do it to my

1:20:56

salary charity water but I'd I'd love to

1:20:58

not just give advice. Not. Just

1:21:00

fund water projects, cost twenty one countries and

1:21:02

be fun to write a check and change

1:21:04

the game form a small charity the same

1:21:07

way somebody change the game. So

1:21:09

I don't have. I'll ever get the opportunity to do

1:21:11

that. But. I think.

1:21:14

You. Know if I came into money in some

1:21:16

way, where had the ability to do that?

1:21:19

I'd. Be more likely to do that. Then.

1:21:22

To try to go blow million dollars

1:21:24

on I don't know I guess is as

1:21:26

by that much anymore. But rather than

1:21:28

trying to upgrade myself to visit to

1:21:30

the next fight or something. And

1:21:33

want that to be useful. This is been

1:21:35

amazing. I appreciate you sharing your story and

1:21:37

the story of Charity Water It everyone here.

1:21:39

We didn't even mention where people can find

1:21:42

that video we reference earlier so maybe let

1:21:44

everyone know where we want to send them

1:21:46

right now. We'd. Like to see

1:21:48

the video or you're looking for some

1:21:50

way to get involved with us. Probably

1:21:52

the best place to go is the

1:21:54

Spring. It's the spring.com it's were that

1:21:57

video lives as had over a hundred

1:21:59

million views. now cross platforms.

1:22:01

And the spring is just very simply an

1:22:04

online community of people who show up

1:22:06

every month. It's like

1:22:08

Netflix or Spotify, you pay them every

1:22:10

month except we

1:22:12

will not send you any music for free. We will not

1:22:14

send you any TV or movies. We will

1:22:16

take 100% of your money every

1:22:19

month and we will turn it into clean water for

1:22:21

people in the year around the world. And

1:22:24

it was actually with Daniel Ek in

1:22:26

Ethiopia who founded Spotify and was

1:22:28

helping me kind of move a

1:22:31

lot of our one-time giving to subscription.

1:22:34

And that idea and that community has

1:22:36

been really transformative. We tripled the

1:22:39

organization's impact since we started that.

1:22:42

And the average is $40 to give

1:22:44

one person clean water. So it's probably

1:22:46

a lot of people listening who

1:22:49

could donate $40 a month and

1:22:51

not even really feel that pain

1:22:54

but know that every single month, one

1:22:56

more person is getting access to clean water. If

1:22:58

I had one ask of people to consider, yeah, there's people

1:23:00

that give $10 a month that are

1:23:02

broke college students. We have people

1:23:05

in their 90s on their pensions who

1:23:07

give $10 a month and every four

1:23:09

months, a person moves from

1:23:11

dirty water to clean water. It's a real

1:23:13

big impact. So check out the video, share

1:23:15

it with your friends. A lot

1:23:17

of the images, Rachel's stories in that video,

1:23:19

you get to see what she looks like

1:23:22

and just some really cool stuff and

1:23:24

images in there. Well, Scott, I appreciate you

1:23:26

being here. I've been a Charity Water supporter

1:23:28

throughout the years and will continue to be.

1:23:31

Thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me. Give

1:23:33

me the opportunity. Thank

1:23:36

you everyone so much for joining me. No matter

1:23:38

how many times I hear the Charity Water story,

1:23:40

I get inspired every single time. And so this

1:23:43

time, I'm excited that hopefully we're going to be

1:23:45

able to build a well. If

1:23:47

you want to contribute to the Daffy campaign, you

1:23:49

can go to allthehacks.com/water. And like I said earlier,

1:23:51

Amy and I are personally going to match the

1:23:53

first $5,000 to help get to our $10,000 goal.

1:23:58

So if we get there quickly, we'll be right back. I'm going to

1:24:00

raise that limit and we'll go for two or

1:24:02

more wells. We'll go for two

1:24:04

or three or however many wells we can build.

1:24:07

Reminder that you don't need to

1:24:09

open up an account at Daffy.

1:24:11

You can contribute directly at allthehacks.com/water.

1:24:14

Reminder that you don't need to

1:24:16

open up a donor advised fund

1:24:18

at Daffy to contribute. You can

1:24:20

do that directly at allthehacks.com/water. But

1:24:23

if you do want to set up your donor

1:24:25

advised fund at Daffy first, you can get an

1:24:27

extra $25 to donate to this or any other

1:24:29

cause once you make your

1:24:31

first contribution. And you can get

1:24:34

that $25 at allthehacks.com/Daffy. D-A-F-F-Y. And

1:24:36

once you're all set up, you

1:24:39

can go to our campaign at

1:24:41

allthehacks.com/water to contribute and get your

1:24:43

match. Both those links

1:24:45

are in the show notes. Thank you so much in

1:24:48

advance for your support. Finally, even

1:24:50

if you don't want to contribute, you

1:24:52

can always go to allthehacks.com/water to see

1:24:54

our progress. Thank you so

1:24:56

much for listening. Happy holidays, and I will

1:24:58

see you next week.