charity: water

Last week we received an email from Susquehanna University's Program Coordinator, Brent Papson, sharing this really awesome vision update from LeaderShaper Brian Maehl. What a great example of putting one's passion into action.

My LeaderShape vision was to create college programming and organizations to help bring clean drinking water to people in developing nations. I started a club to benefit the charity: water organization on Susquehanna's campus last year before LeaderShape, and took the lessons I learned from LeaderShape to dream bigger and make the club even better on campus. Our biggest event last semester was the charity: ball, which took an event that the charity: water organization hosts in NYC every year and dialed it down to fit a college campus. That event alone raised $6,048 and can be seen at http://mycharitywater.org/SUcharityball2012 . The profits from the event will give 302 people clean drinking water in a developing nation.

This event caught charity: water's eye in a big way. In fact, they followed up with us and created a blog post on our campus club and the charity: ball. The blog post can be seen here: http://www.charitywater.org/blog/ctw-su-charityball/. This event also caught the attention of the founder and CEO of charity: water, Scott Harrison. As a result, I went into the New York City charity: water headquarters this summer and met with Scott to discuss university programming for charity: water, and had the opportunity to speak in front of the entire charity: water staff. They also made a video about fundraising tips, and asked me to be in it! The video and information is seen at http://mycharitywater.org/p/toolkitTipsAndTricks.

This summer, after our meeting, the organization asked me to become a charity: water Citizen. This means that they will connect me to other fundraising campaigners around the country in order to help them get the most out of their campaign. Due to my age level, they are going to be connecting me with other university clubs across the country, which is an absolute dream come true. 

Next year, fellow 2012 Susquehanna University LeaderShaper Matt George and I will be taking a step back from the club and instead start to look at other universities. We want the Susquehanna club to be sustainable and, as a result, we will have other members take leadership positions. This leaves Matt and I to be consultants from afar. Matt and I will take this opportunity to do tours of other colleges and universities around the state, giving assemblies on how to set up a charity: water club on a college campus and how to effectively fundraise. 

Brian Maehl

Susquehanna University