The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 30 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Harrison warns founders against adopting the 100% public donation model
“I can't even tell you how hard that was, and how I talk other people away from doing that now.”
charity: water holds the world's largest rural water flow dataset
“Now we have the largest data set in the history of the world of real time flow through our sensors for rural water systems.”
Harrison: I advise other nonprofit founders against the 100% donation model
“I can't even tell you how hard that was, and how I talk other people away from doing that now.”
Harrison: Guilt-based charity marketing fails to build advocates
“Charities use shame and guilt to market their wares. They made people feel terrible about what they had, hoping that they would respond. You remember those Sally Struthers commercials from the eighties, and the kids, and slow motion looking sadly at the camera…”
Harrison: 17% of 'The Spring' Video Viewers Became Monthly Subscribers
“And we put this thing out and it crushes it. I think 17% of the people that watch the video convert to subscribers.”
charity: water intentionally built its brand on hope, not shame
“We are on all the platforms now trying to reach people with the mediums that they are consuming every single day and reach them with true stories, but also a brand that is aspirational and hopeful, not a brand based on shame and guilt.”
Ghana deployed charity: water's sensors onto government wells
“We recently had the government of Ghana Take our sensors and put them on government wells. What's exciting about that is Charity Water has never worked in the country of Ghana. We don't have a single well in Ghana”
Harrison: 25% of water projects in Africa are currently broken
“In Africa alone, 25% of the projects are broken right now. 25%.”
Charity: Water deployed 8,000 remote sensors for largest rural water dataset
“We've installed 8000 of these. We currently are monitoring the largest data set in the history of the world when it comes to rural water supply, mainly because no one ever bothered to do this before.”
Harrison: 129 tech leaders including Jack Dorsey fund Charity: Water's overhead
“We're now a 129
Families fund all the overhead, and it's people that I'm sure you've had on here.
It's been Jack Dorsey, and Sean Parker, and Johnny Ive, and Angela Aarons, and Matt Mullenweg, and Daniel Eck, and it's been a lot of John Doerr, venture capitali…”
Harrison: Showing donation impact creates a virtuous giving loop
“Inspire someone to give, and then show them how their money, even if it's 10 bucks from a child, from a lemonade stand, how that 10 dollars actually traveled across the world and did good. And if you can show them, you create this virtuous cycle, and they cont…”
Harrison: Charity Water Expects 35% Growth and Over $70M Revenue
“Last year we grew 37%. This year we're gonna grow another 35%. We think we're gonna do over seventy million dollars this year. Help almost one and a half million people get clean water.”
703 million people globally lack access to clean drinking water
“So, as of right now, we are down to seven hundred and three million people living on Earth without access to clean water.”
charity: water has provided clean water to over 17.5 million people
“Our impact is now up to over 17 and a half million people with access to clean water across about a 137,000 communities around the world.”
130 donor families fund all charity: water overhead expenses
“A hundred percent of public donations go directly to the field to provide people clean water, and then in this separately audited bank account, about a 130 families pay the overhead.”
charity: water's overhead bank account once dropped to just $111
“So we get to this point about a year and a half in, where we raised a couple million dollars, and the game was up. There was a moment when there was a 111 dollars in the bank account for overhead.”
Bebo founder Michael Birch wired $1 million to save charity: water
“Three days later, I get an email from him saying, hey, it was great meeting you. I wired a million dollars into your overhead account. So we go from insolvent to a year in funding.”
charity: water has raised over $330 million since its near-insolvency
“You know, that was a third of a billion dollars ago.”
Harrison launched charity: water at a nightclub, raising $15,000
“I launched Charity Water in a nightclub on my birthday. It was my 31st birthday, and the only idea I had to officially launch was to get a bunch of people in a club, give them open bar, and ask them for 20 bucks on the way in as a donation. And we raised 15,00…”
A supporter raised $30,000 by listening to Nickelback for a week
“We had a guy listened to Nickelback for an entire week with headphones on, raised 30,000 dollars.”
charity: water is building a 7,000 square foot retail tech experience
“One of the things we're working on right now, we're building a 7000 square foot retail experience where we're going to bring people in who may have never contemplated the global water crisis before, and we're going to use cutting edge technology to lure them i…”
A $12,000 sponsored well pumps one million liters of water annually
“A well that somebody sponsors for 12,000 dollars can pump a million liters. I mean, a million liters every year.”
Google awarded Charity: Water $5M to develop remote water sensors
“But finally, I got a meeting to pitch this idea to Google, and they awarded us a five million dollar cash grant to try to go build a water sensor for the developing world.”
Harrison: Charity: Water was down to $111 in its overhead account
“So we get to this point about a year and a half in where we raised a couple million dollars and the game was up. There was a moment when there was a 111 dollars in the bank account for overhead.”
Harrison: Charity: Water has surpassed one million public donors
“They have made it possible for over a million donors now to have a pure play.”
Harrison: Video of failed well became Charity: Water's most popular video
“It was the most popular video we had ever done in the history of Charity Water at that point, because as you said, it was authentic, and it doesn't always go right.”
Harrison: Charity Water's Core Donors Renewed at 80%+ Rate
“The well, those 129 families, were actually repeatable. They were giving on three-year terms and renewing it at 80% plus rate because we could build a relationship with them.”
Harrison quit nightclub promoting for a year of humanitarian service
“I actually asked myself this question, what would the opposite of my life look like? And I thought, well, if I'm this selfish, hedonistic, drug-addled nightclub promoter, who's done nothing for anyone else, What would it look like to actually help people in ne…”