Charity: Water and Scott Galloway
Thoughts on Charity: Water’s monthly giving program The Spring and how it is growing with innovation
Charity: Water is a nonprofit that has so far helped more than 11 million people to get clean water.
However, they want to do more and faster. To do so they are building a community of generous monthly givers.
How are they doing?
Scott Galloway writes about it on his globally popular blog - Innovation & Recasting Your Life.
56-year-old Galloway is an American professor of marketing, public speaker, author, entrepreneur, and well known for his candid thoughts that are straight and entertain no BS. One of the very reasons why I follow him on LinkedIn and read his blog.
I have followed him for a while but reading his book “Algebra of Happiness” completely opened up a new perspective.
Scott Galloway fundraising for Charity: Water
So I was a bit surprised and inquisitive to understand why the Clinical Professor has suddenly shared about Charity: Water and asked his followers to support the cause. He not only shared that he is matching donations but also shared a link that had thoughts on the nonprofit and the founder Scott Harrison.
It is very rare that an influencer would write in great lengths on a nonprofit and the founder. At the most, the influencer/celebrity would share a video or the cause message with the link to the donation page.
Here he not only was sharing his donation page link but also a blog link that had a detailed post about why he is doing it, his association with the nonprofit, how he knows the founder and the marketing innovation that the nonprofit has been driving.
Certainly, Galloway is a prolific writer and has an immense following on his blog but he walks the extra mile to answer the common questions that a reader would have before joining him in his campaign for the nonprofit. Besides, it is his credibility at stake too. Thus he is being transparent before any of his readers makes a decision.
In my last few posts, I have been writing about the effectiveness of an awareness campaign. This is an individual driving a peer-to-peer campaign for the nonprofit. That has been planned and executed well.
Besides once you click on the donation link, the landing page on the nonprofit website is encouraging people to join Scott’s campaign which is a monthly giving program - The Spring.
In 2000, when Galloway moved to New York City, he needed a Sherpa of Cool. “That turned out to be Scott Harrison, a club promoter who made a living by being dialed in. Scott knew where to go, and who was there.” Soon, I did too, writes Galloway on his blog.
Fast forward to 2006, Harrison launches Charity: Water - a charity that has been known for using every dollar it raises from the general public into the cause of providing clean water to developing countries.
Galloway writes: “From the first fundraising party Scott threw in New York City, charity: water has focused on efficient, innovative tactics for raising those public donations. Word-of-mouth marketing, aggressive use of social media, and peer-to-peer giving all drove strong growth in donations during the organization’s early years.”
But in 2015 the growth plateaued for the charity. This is when once again innovation kicks in and Harrison launches ‘The Spring’ - a community of generous monthly givers.
In a heart-touching conversation, Harrison talks about his life, his childhood days, why he wanted to help people, why he started the charity, the innovation the nonprofit drives, and what is ‘The Spring’.
Apart from Harrison’s story, Rachel’s purpose after her death and how it changed the charity’s growth stands out.
Additionally, Harrison’s emphasis on building strong and transparent communication with donors is remarkable. The charity innovatively uses technology to keep donors updated on how their money is getting used, where, and at what stage.
“42% of people in America don’t trust charity,” Harrison says in the video and that led him to do things differently from the beginning. Be it handing money or communicating with donors to build ongoing trust.
In 2016 the charity decided to walk the path of recurring giving or monthly giving. The Spring is a subscription-based giving product similar to your Netflix or Spotify.
How Charity: Water builds trust for ‘The Spring’
Galloway writes: “Spring members receive monthly Good News emails that detail the ongoing impact of the programs they fund. Every Spring member has a personalized dashboard that shows their “Lifetime Impact,” a metric that recognizes all their contributions and tracks their impact as it grows.”
This is a brilliant example of how personalization needs to be done.
The website, newsletter, and videos showcase another dimension of charity: water’s success: great design.
Just look at the donation page for the monthly giving. The first fold has the option to choose the amount and the required details about Galloway’s matching up. The second fold has a video that tells the story of the charity and scrolling testimonials from monthly givers.
One of the best-designed donation pages that I have seen in a while. In the name of personal details the charity only collects:
Name - First and last name
Email address
Nonprofits should really take a note from Charity: Water that hoarding unnecessary personal details is not cool at all. It is boring and senseless when nonprofits hardly mine the data that is collected.
All the hard work is showing results. “After just four years, donations through The Spring totaled $18.2 million per year, which accounted for two-thirds of charity: water’s growth in donations from the public,” writes Galloway.
What’s more, those donations are reliable: The average monthly churn rate is just 2.7 percent, comparable to that of Amazon Prime. This gives Scott and his team the predictability they need to raise more overhead funding and strengthen the organization.
Monthly giving and nonprofits
The success story for ‘The Spring’ is commendable and even more when it gets the approval of the marketing guru Galloway on his blog. Definitely, it is a convincing pitch for anyone to be a monthly donor.
Recurring giving or monthly giving isn’t about adding one more button on the donation page of your website. Certainly, it gives a breathing space since it is a fixed revenue source. Similar to a bootstrapped startup that can only survive if it is able to create fixed revenue sources.
But in the case of nonprofits, the work is far more. Building trust and accountability are just not about sharing Annual Reports. It is a continuous job of communicating on every piece and medium. Additionally, the results of ‘The Spring’ are not about the last four years but the good work the charity has been doing on the ground and with the donors from 2006.
Don’t copy but study and analyse the ways Charity: Water has tried creating innovation. Execute and see what works for you. And ask yourself these three questions that I had shared last year before implementing monthly giving for your nonprofit.
P.S. As a writing practice I follow the first name of a person. But very rarely I am in a situation that two people have the same first name with the same spelling.