Charity Water Is Pioneering The Future Of Fundraising—And Fighting The Women's Crisis You Didn't Know Existed

Forbes

24-04-2025

Dirty water wall
Fourteen-year-old Grace walks miles under the scorching sun, her shoulders straining under the weight of a jerrycan almost half as heavy as she is. The water she's collecting is visibly contaminated—murky and teeming with bacteria. It's likely making them sick, but her family has no alternative. This is her reality for hours each day, 365 days a year—time that should be spent in school is consumed by this grueling task, essential for her family's survival.
As I remove the VR headset at charity: water's Experience Lab in Franklin, Tennessee, the contrast is jarring. My reality includes clean water at the turn of a faucet. Hers includes a daily choice between getting an education and staying alive. She is one of 703 million people worldwide who still lack access to clean, safe drinking water—a crisis that impacts nearly one in ten people on the planet. The immersive experience leaves me with a question I can't shake: What can I do about this?
The charity: water Experience Lab begins with a holographic greeting
Every day, women and girls around the world spend a collective 200 million hours gathering water—time stolen from school, work, and community life.
"The burden falls to the mothers and the girls," Scott Harrison, founder of charity: water, told me during our interview for The Failure Factor podcast. "Instead of becoming educated, leading their communities forward, they're just senselessly walking for unhelpful water."
The statistics are stark: while men might spend just six minutes gathering water, women in the same communities can spend fifty-four minutes, according to UNICEF research. Even more devastating is that after all those hours walking, the water collected is often harmful to their health—even deadly.
"In every culture I have ever experienced in the world, it is always the women and the girls.' Harrison explained during our conversation. "It's not unique to Africa or India or Asia or Central and South America. It's just the role of women to go get the water."
Traditional fundraising relies heavily on statistics and guilt, but charity: water's Experience Lab represents a radical shift in how charitable organizations connect with donors—blending empathy-driven storytelling with the power of experiential marketing to inspire action. Located in the renovated Factory complex in Franklin, Tennessee, the lab uses immersive technology to powerfully 'teleport' visitors into the lives of those affected by the water crisis.
The experience lab features a "water walk" in a room heated to 90 degrees
The exhibit is as artistic as it is impactful. A striking wall displays nearly two hundred glasses filled with water in various shades of brown, yellow, green, and murky blue—each representing actual water sources people drink from around the world. Backlit against pristine white, the display is both beautiful and disturbing, with a simple yet powerful message on the adjacent wall: Drinking water shouldn't have color.
In another room, heated to 90 degrees and scented to simulate the smell of an African village, visitors pick up two weighted jerrycans and walk on a treadmill surrounded by floor-to-ceiling LED screens—viscerally conveying a reality no statistic could. I've written about empathy for years as a therapist and executive coach, but this experience collapsed the distance between knowing and feeling.
Research shows that virtual reality experiences significantly increase empathy and the intention to donate compared to traditional media. Psychologists call this 'narrative transportation'—a state where our mental processes become fully absorbed in a story, creating neural pathways of empathy. The Experience Lab epitomizes this process, allowing us to virtually live Grace's struggle rather than merely hearing about it, which drives action.
Scott Harrison, founder and CEO of charity: water
Scott Harrison's journey to founding charity: water is itself a compelling narrative of transformation. He went from being a high-end New York City club promoter to a humanitarian committed to solving the global water crisis.
His wake-up call came when he realized the emptiness of his seemingly glamorous life. As he shared in our podcast interview: "I was in Punta del Este. And I remember the time, my girlfriend was in the cover of a fashion magazine and I had a BMW and a nice loft in New York... and you just kind of get [what you imagined you wanted]. You're like, is this it? I should be enjoying this a lot more."
This realization led him to volunteer as a photojournalist on a hospital ship in West Africa, where he witnessed the devastating effects of the water crisis firsthand. In 2006, he founded charity: water with a mission to bring clean water to everyone on the planet and to reinvent how charities operate.
Beyond the innovative Experience Lab, charity: water has reimagined the charity funding model itself. They operate with a "100 percent model" where every dollar of public donations goes directly to funding water projects, with no overhead costs deducted.
This approach addresses a core issue Harrison identified: donor mistrust. "According to USA Today, forty-two percent of Americans just said they didn't trust charities," he shared. "I started asking people and they said, 'Well, I don't know where my money goes.'"
To solve this, Harrison created two separate funding streams: public donations that go entirely to water projects, and a smaller group called "The Well"—entrepreneurs and visionaries who fund all operational costs including staff salaries, office rent, and even the Experience Lab itself.
With this model, charity: water has raised over a billion dollars, funded more than 185,000 projects, and provided safe, clean water to more than twenty million people across twenty-nine countries.
When communities gain access to clean water, the transformation for women and girls is immediate and profound. Time previously spent collecting water becomes time invested in their independence, future, and well-being. The VR experience shows this transformation in Grace's community—residents cheering and crying as clean water flows from a newly installed pump. But as the headset comes off, a sobering reality remains: for every community like Grace's that now has clean water, countless others still wait.
Women in Sub-Saharan Africa spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water—equivalent to a year's worth of labor for the entire workforce in France. When freed from this responsibility, women can pursue education that increases their earning potential by as much as twenty-five percent for each additional year in school.
This ripple effect—improved health, increased education, economic empowerment—makes clean water access one of the most effective ways to address gender inequality in developing nations.
Writing a check may ease our guilt temporarily, but what Harrison has created goes beyond transactional charity. The Experience Lab transforms philanthropy from a distant act of giving to an emotional connection—a relationship that lays a foundation for monthly donations.
Guests are transported to Grace's Ugandan village through a virtual reality experience
As I left the Experience Lab, surrounded by others grabbing tissues and lining up at the 'Give Shop' (a playful take on 'gift shop'), I saw clearly the genius of Harrison's approach. By allowing us to momentarily step into Grace's life, he's made her struggle impossible to ignore.
If you're reading this while sipping—or having showered, watered plants, or washed your car in—clean water, you're already part of the solution. The only question left is what you'll do with that privilege.
Megan Bruneau, M.A. Psych is a therapist, executive coach, and the founder of Off The Field Executive & Personal Coaching. She hosts The Failure Factor podcast featuring conversations with entrepreneurs about the setbacks that led to their success. Listen to her episode with charity: water founder Scott Harrison on Apple and Spotify.