Why is charity:water successful? How it can be much better.
First of all, the facts! Charity Water was founded by Scott Harrison in 2006 and in just a decade it has raised over $200 million and benefited over 6.1 million people mainly through building clean water projects. According to its Instagram photos, clean water affects the livelihoods of the local people profoundly.
The majority of charities make marketing videos by showing suffering children locking eyes with camera almost pleading for your sympathy. According to the diamond model, they utilize black hat motivators like scarcity and guilt to make people donate. In the world of charity, a lot of negative emotions are present because charities are trying to conquer enormous tasks like abolishing the extreme poverty which contains highly emotional elements. However these negative emotions can easily translate to distrust and frustration. The donors don’t like to easily give their money to organizations who are not transparent in what they do. In other words, using black hat motivators will not produce good long term results with the donors.
Charities should be about changing the world for the better. A charity should be a channel for people to be optimistic of the future. In other words, using white hat motivators like creating an appealing narrative, creating a sense of progress towards a better future, making fun challenges for the volunteers to solve, providing a sense of ownership to the projects or creating engaging community events will be a lot more effective in the long run.
Charity:water tries to change the norm by tracking the progress of their efforts using GPS devices and cameras. They are also very transparent on how they spend money and how the team manages these projects through annual audit reports clearly displayed on their website. The organizational budget is provided by the sponsors whereas every dollar of public donation goes straight to the water projects.
GPS locations of completed projects
When each project is complete, they will send a picture of the village’s billboard that has your name on it. This is a powerful motivational technique because it creates a euphoric feeling of meaning in your life. Charity water respects your generosity and tries very hard to show the impact of your generosity in the world.
Another viral campaign they have innovated is pledging one’s birthday for fundraising efforts. It is a perfect combination of the power of social connections and creating higher meaning.
The marketing video of birthday donation
Any person can pledge their birthday by asking their friends and family to donate to charity:water instead of giving presents for the birthday. Then everyone who participated can see where the money goes with GPS proof and pictures. As a result, the profound altruistic motivator is activated and the donations start pouring in. A single person can raise up to 5000 dollars on average. Not to mention it creates a sense of ownership for the person who pledged his/her birthday. We all know that celebrating birthdays is meaningful. When combined with the effort to change the world for the better, the effect on motivation is multiplied.
One of many charity:water Instagram photos
Charity:water is also famous for having a strong presence in social media. Every photo on Instagram for example are filled with people smiling and being very happy due to the kindness provided by the donors. There isn’t a single negativity in their posts. Every day they warm the followers’ hearts with inspiring stories and videos. Then they leverage the power of their following when they design community wide challenges to raise money. Moreover they utilize social proof through celebrity support and partnering with big brands.
One of the shops in the 5th Avenue, New York sponsors for Charity Water
However there are other ways charity:water can improve itself. I have a few suggestions to make it even better.
The charity presents respectable figures on what they have done so far but in the context of global dirty water problem, their efforts seem minuscule. They have incredibly transformed the lives of over 6 million people but it’s nowhere near eliminating the problem of dirty water completely. According to 2015 report from the World Health Organization, 663 million people are drinking water that potentially contains lethal diseases. Providing every single 663 million people with access to clean water is a worthy goal for charity:water to strive. I suggest making a 663,000,000 countdown on the home page. The number is quickly decreasing due to the charity's efforts. It will look something like this.
If the donors can see the countdown clearly, it will create a powerful extrinsic motivation that adds onto all the other intrinsic motivations that the charity is already utilizing. Then it can sell boosters (a virtual good which is equivalent to a donation) that increase the rate of decline of the countdown. All these boosters goes straight to fund the water projects. It is easier on the brain to see a big number decrease (countdown) than a small number increase (count-up). The former effect feels like sliding down which motivates behavior while the latter feels like climbing up which encourages procrastination. In other words, everyone will be addicted to seeing that number hit to zero when the countdown is fast enough (like the video above). It would be more meaningful if charity:water organizes a global celebration at different milestones (every million). What a historic moment it will be if this succeeds. I believe the goal is not impossible.
Another idea is to leverage the power of human competitiveness. Create a leaderboard which organizes the source of donations to different nations or religions. The members from one religion try to out-donate the other religions so that theirs will be the top in being the most charitable. Since nationalism and faith are powerful emotions, leveraging them in the believers will bring out significant results.
I have many more ideas but these two will provide the best motivations for the growth of the charity. I wish them good luck on their journey to provide fresh water to every person on earth.
If you want to know more about the story of Charity Water, watch Scott Harrison’s talk here.