18 years in. So much more up ahead.

Hi {NAME}, Exactly 18 years ago, charity: water started with a very simple idea: Let’s bring clean water to everyone in the world. At the time, over a BILLION people drank dirty water every day — one in six people living on planet Earth. Like everything, you have to start somewhere. So I started with a birthday party. [Video thumbnail of Scott Harrison]( After I started writing this, I decided to film it as a video message, too. [Watch here.]( I was turning 31, and I invited everyone I’d ever met to come to my birthday party and throw $20 in a big plexiglass box at the door. At the end of the night, we’d raised $15,000 to build our very first well in Uganda, East Africa. And because so many people seemed skeptical about where their money would go, we proved it. We sent them photos and videos and GPS coordinates of the project they funded. We showed them the people who were now drinking clean water because they gave $20. I’ll never forget how surprised those donors were. We knew we were onto something. We promised to always use 100% of public donations to directly fund water projects, and we found a small group of entrepreneurs and philanthropists to cover the staff salaries and overhead costs in a separate bank account. And then, we promised to prove exactly where 100% of donations went. Over the past 18 years, proof has taken on many different forms. When people started donating their birthdays, we built something called Dollars to Projects which linked birthday campaigns to the actual water projects they funded. When we crowdfunded a million-dollar drilling rig in Ethiopia, we mounted a GPS tracker and gave it a Twitter account, all so people could follow it live. But we’ve always wanted to do more with this idea of proof. Of showing people exactly where their donations went and who they helped. So, as we celebrate 18 years today, that’s what our team is working hard on right now. We’re building an incredible new way for every single donor to visualize their impact. I can’t wait to show it to you in December. Today, I turn 49 years old. And that first well from my 31st birthday has now turned into more than 172,000 water projects across 29 countries. Projects that will serve almost 20 MILLION people with clean water. Together, we are making progress. But there’s still so much work to be done. Today, perhaps you’d [consider joining The Spring]( our amazing community of givers who show up each and every month. Perhaps you’d donate your age in dollars. I actually just changed my Spring membership to reflect my new age (49!). Or maybe you could give $18, celebrating 18 years of charity: water. [You can join us right now at charitywater.org/spring.]( No matter the amount, 100% brings clean water to people who need it — and we’ll continue to prove your impact, every step of the way. 18 years into this amazing journey, it feels like we’re just getting started. Along with incredible supporters like you, we won’t stop until everyone, everywhere, has access to life’s most basic need. On behalf of the charity: water team and the more than 5,000 local professionals working hard to construct charity: water projects right now, thank you. Scott Harrison, Founder and CEO -- (If you no longer want to receive messages like this from us, you can unsubscribe [here](