It was earlier this year that my path began to branch into something different. Through a few rough patches this summer and needing to keep my mind occupied, I began to watch a lot of Ted talks and read a tons of blogs. Most of the talks that I enjoy watching have to so with how to change the world. One of the ones that caught my eye was the one by Simon Sinek on the Golden Circle and the ideas that people don't buy what we do, but why we do it. I then went on to discover Gary Vaynerchuck where I learned the importance in adding value to your audience before asking them anything. From T4T and Brene Brown I learned about the power of being vulnerable in sharing your story.
All this information was being poured over me and I wanted to figure out how to put it all to use. I went around evangelizing how this could relate to customer service, or to marketing, or to sharing Jesus. The idea was that by doing a few of these ideas you could make a bigger impact in the world. I've always been about doing good and inspiring others to do the same.
I began meeting with my friend, Martin Yan. Martin and I began to encourage each other with these grand ideas that we had been learning. We both began to do things in our company that could add value to our customers that had not been there already. For me it is customer service and blogging about how our customers could better serve their customers. As we spent time tossing inspiring blog posts and videos to each other during the week, one that he sent to me was a keynote from a marketing conference that he had attended. It was about this guy who had, in his life, been convicted to help provide clean water to everyone in the world. He created an organization called Charity:Water.
So, I immediately went out and donated thousands of dollars to his cause? Absolutely not. My first thought was, "There are plenty of people doing this. I don't need to." Martin told me that he would be participating in the Giving Up Your Birthday campaign and asking his friends to donate his age in dollars to Charity Water. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't give up mine because there was no way an introverted guy like me could raise much money.
As I thought about it more, I came to the realization that this would be the perfect way for me to tell my story. Charity Water could provide me the opportunity to share what God has done in my life as well as invite others to help make a difference.
It was then decided that I would start my campaign.
My goals were twofold. The first was to work hard to tell my story to as many people as possible. The second was to invite everyone to join me in making a difference for good in this world.
Here are the steps I took to attempt to achieve this goal:
1. Create a campaign where I shared my story, my purpose, our (my friends, my family and myself) purpose, and an invitation. The invitation was literally a tiny part of everything else.
2. Set a high goal that I probably could not meet.
3. Create a good note to send to all of my friends of how they have impacted my life and invite to view my story
4. Personalize each message that I sent to each person of how they have personally touched my life
5. For my birthday I bought 108 donuts for my coworkers and invited them to read my story
6. Every person that asked about my birthday, I used that opportunity to share about charity water.
7. I normally turn off my wall for my birthday because I think it's an impersonal way of saying "Happy Birthday". This time, every person that wrote 'Happy Birthday' on my wall got a personal message of how they have been a blessing to my life and then an invitation to check out my story or to thank them for donating and encourage them to pledge their birthdays. I received over 70 wall posts, so I spent most of my birthday evening responding to them.
In every interaction I had, rarely asked for them to donate, I only asked them to read my story. My hope was that them knowing the value that they added to my life with the value that I hopefully added to their life would cause a kind of engagement that would not only encourage them to give, but would exhort them to join into having the same desire to change the world.
In 8 days I was able to raise $3,330 from 71 different friends and family members
All this, for what? Raising money is never the end goal. I believe that true value is if I can inspire others to do good. I believe that it is more valuable for me to inspire 10 people to give up their birthdays for clean water. They would not only raise more money than I could, but they could also inspire others to do the same and a cascade movement can happen.
In the end I’m not about raising money, I’m about inspiring the masses to care.
This is my Charity:Water story.
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