With summer and gardening coming up fast, many of us here in the US have a common problem: the price of water is increasing, so it leaves us with little choice but to turn to xeriscaping and to take shorter showers, or just gripe and pay the extra costs. At least many of us have that option to ensure that we'll still have clean water.
This is the part where we feel guilty, because millions of people don't have such easy access to clean water, regardless of how much we might have to pay for it. Compared to how much more it's going to cost us to use as much water as usual, or considering how much money we'll save by letting our grassy lawns die, $10 to help less fortunate people around the world have a better shot at access to clean water isn't that difficult.
Out of all the water charities out there, I think Water for People is one of the best developed, accountable, innovative and most able to make an impact. They are a 4 (out of 4) star rated charity on Charity Navigator, and they oversee a number of different kinds of water projects in Africa, Asia, and South and Central America, including the project that first caught my attention, the PlayPump. In a nutshell: kids play on merry-go-round at local elementary school, this powers a pump to access clean ground water, the water goes up into a storage tank which has income-generating advertising space on the outside, and people pump clean water out through a tap, and the village has clean water. Ta da! See more about the business model for this project here.
Of course, as creative as many water projects sound, just like any development project, they don't run quite as planned in the original business model. That's why Water for People measures their success in terms how many people their projects at serving not only at the start of a project's completion, but 3, 6, and 10 years afterward to make sure that it's not only meeting original targets, but growing.
Payment Procedures
Go to the DONATE page, and fill in your contact and credit card information as usual. They ask for $25 amounts, but have the option to type in your own $10 amount if you so choose.
If you aren't comfortable giving on a credit card, you can also give with stock or by mail according to the instructions on the web site.
Happy giving, and here's a toast of H2O to you all.
