The Story of WeDrink, Pt. 2

Date: 2009.05.23 | Category: Uncategorized | Tags:

So the goal settled upon was to solve the Global Water Crisis. No problem, let’s do this.

As mentioned before, I found a lot of inspiration from previous social entrepreneurships that followed the “buy-one, give-one” model, such as TOMS Shoes and the One Laptop per Child Foundation (which is now a 501c3 though). The problem is, it’s harder to sell and give a lifetime of water than it is shoes and laptops.

But we set out to find a way…

I first thought of selling bottled water at a 50-60 cents premium, and then donating that money to water charities (buy a bottle, give the monetary equivalent of a bottle). Thing is, companies like Ethos Water already had a pretty strong hold of the “charitable bottled water” image in peoples’ heads (even though they only give a measly 5 cents per bottle). But that ignores the fact that plastic bottled water itself is a huge aspect of the Global Water Crisis, and I didn’t want to contribute to that.

Then, finally, it came to me. Reusable Stainless Steel Bottles paired with a substantial donation to water charities. It was exactly the “buy-one, give-one” I’d been looking for. With the bottle, you’re buying practically unlimited access to on-the-go water, and with the donation, you’re giving one individual in Africa the clean water they deserve.

Next came the question of how much to give. I wanted it to be huge, unreal, something no other businesses had the guts to do. So I figured, why not send half the profits to charity? But that wasn’t enough. Then there’s the issue of transparency, because with % of profits the customers don’t really know exactly how much they are giving. In fact, the amount donated could be next to nothing if the business has small profits.

So we did the unthinkable and decided on giving half of sales (half the entire the list price) to charity. No other business even jokes around with these kinds of ideas. Even non-profit fundraisers that sell stuff and give “all proceeds to charity” usually recoup all their costs before donating anything. Example: because we’re just getting started, WeDrink is in the hole a good deal of money, but that didn’t stop us from making our promised donations.

WeDrink is way to really make things happen. It’s a way to solve the Global Water Crisis on all fronts, through raising money for wells in Africa, habitat restoration on both of America’s Coasts, and promoting the disuse of plastic bottled water.

All that’s missing is you.

80% of all disease in the world is caused by unclean drinking water.80%.

Let’s put an end to that.

I’ll be making more in-depth posts about each aspect of WeDrink, so keep in touch for more coming soon. And I’m always open for suggestions, so feel free to let me know what you think!

Best,
-Andrew