Founder and CEO of nonprofit charity: water and author of Thirst.
Scott Harrison spent 10 years as a top NYC nightclub promoter selling $1,000 Cristal and $25 vodka Red Bulls, until half his body went numb and he realized his life's only achievement was getting people wasted.
“Puffy's at table 1, Jay-Z's at table 3, and I'm at table 2 thinking I'm a rock star because we have prettier girls at our table than Jay-Z or Puffy.”
Harrison decided his life needed a complete inversion, not a small course correction: do, think, and say the 180-degree opposite of everything for the last 10 years and see how it plays out.
“This was like, do and think and say the 180-degree opposite of everything you've done and thought and said for the last 10 years and see how that plays out.”
Steal thisWhen a situation is broken at the core, don't tweak it. Define the literal opposite of your current path and run that experiment.
Harrison applied to ten humanitarian organizations and was rejected by all; one finally took him only if he paid $500 a month to volunteer as a photojournalist in Liberia, the poorest country in the world.
“And then one organization wrote me back and said, if you are willing to pay us $500 a month to volunteer, and if you're willing to go live in the poorest country in the world, a country I'd never even heard of called Liberia”
On Harrison's third day on the hospital ship, 5,000 people stood in a stadium parking lot before dawn competing for just 1,500 surgery slots, meaning 3,500 would be sent home untreated.
“there were 5,000 people standing in the dark in the parking lot waiting for us to open the doors.. And that was such a powerful moment for me realizing, oh crap, we're gonna send 3,500 of these people home without seeing a doctor, without any answer for their affliction.”
Dr. Gary told Harrison that a billion people drink dirty water every day, one in six people alive on the planet, and that half the disease in Liberia came from dirty water.
“And he said, yeah, I know. And in fact, a billion people drink this water every day. 1 in 6 people alive on the planet.”
Instead of taking a vacation, Harrison printed 108 before-and-after surgery photos in a donated Chelsea gallery, invited his club friends, and raised about $100,000, then went back to show donors the impact.
“I put together 108. Of my before and afters in a gallery. And I invited everybody from the clubs to come in and we raised about $100,000. And then I went back on the ship to show people what we had done with their money.”
Steal thisPair a vivid before-and-after with a live audience, ask for money in the room, then close the loop by showing donors exactly what their money did.
In its 17th year, Charity: Water has raised $750 million and helped 16.8 million people get clean water.
“We've raised $750 million and we've helped, uh, 16.8 million people get clean water.”
Quoting Nick Kristof, Harrison argues that toothpaste is peddled with far more sophistication than all the world's life-saving causes, and that Colgate out-stories Doctors Without Borders.
“Toothpaste. Is peddled with far more sophistication than all the world's life-saving causes.”
Harrison rejected shame-and-guilt fundraising and modeled Charity: Water on Nike's inspiration, Virgin's whimsy, and Apple's design, because Nike sells shoes with stories of overcoming adversity, not by telling people they're fat and lazy.
“Nike doesn't sell shoes by telling people they're fat and lazy. You know, Nike sells shoes by telling inspirational stories of people overcoming adversity.”
Harrison rejected shame-and-guilt fundraising and modeled Charity: Water on Nike's inspiration, Virgin's whimsy, and Apple's design, because Nike sells shoes with stories of overcoming adversity, not by telling people they're fat and lazy.
“Nike doesn't sell shoes by telling people they're fat and lazy. You know, Nike sells shoes by telling inspirational stories of people overcoming adversity.”
Harrison rejected shame-and-guilt fundraising and modeled Charity: Water on Nike's inspiration, Virgin's whimsy, and Apple's design, because Nike sells shoes with stories of overcoming adversity, not by telling people they're fat and lazy.
“Nike doesn't sell shoes by telling people they're fat and lazy. You know, Nike sells shoes by telling inspirational stories of people overcoming adversity.”
Days from winding down, Harrison gave an unsmiling presentation to Bebo founder Michael Birch; two days later Birch wired $1 million into the overhead account, 13 months of runway, and Birch's family has since given over $20 million.
“But 2 days later, he emails me at midnight and he says, hey, I really enjoyed meeting you. I just wired $1 million into your overhead account. And I remember logging on to the bank. And I saw it, 1,000. It was 13 months of overhead funding.”
Days from winding down, Harrison gave an unsmiling presentation to Bebo founder Michael Birch; two days later Birch wired $1 million into the overhead account, 13 months of runway, and Birch's family has since given over $20 million.
“But 2 days later, he emails me at midnight and he says, hey, I really enjoyed meeting you. I just wired $1 million into your overhead account. And I remember logging on to the bank. And I saw it, 1,000. It was 13 months of overhead funding.”
Across 22 countries, Charity: Water's actual average cost to give one person clean water was $39.67 last year, covering 10+ years for the life of the project.
“And I think last year was— it's $40 to give one person clean water on average. We work across 22 countries. I think last year's actual was $39.67.”
Harrison turned his 32nd birthday into a fundraiser asking people to give $32, and the donate-your-birthday idea has since raised over $100 million by getting more than a million people involved.
“the birthday idea raised over $100 million by getting over a million people involved just in that simple idea. And that's now been taken by lots of other charities.”
Steal thisTurn your birthday into a fundraiser: ask everyone to give your age in dollars to a cause you care about.
Daniel Ek told Harrison his fundraising model reset to zero every January 1, so Harrison built The Spring, a monthly giving subscription averaging ~$30/month that helped triple the organization over five years.
“He said, why don't you build a community of people who will sign up every single month to give what they can? And that's The Spring. Um, that now has members from 149 countries and is really the core of so much of our growth. The average is about $30 a month”
Steal thisReplace one-time-revenue-that-resets-to-zero with a recurring subscription community so growth compounds instead of restarting each year.
Shaan recounts Scott Harrison's playbook for recruiting world-class people into a nonprofit at one-tenth their salary: take the candidate AND their spouse to dinner and deliver the Steve Jobs 'stop selling sugar water, change the world' pitch.
“And he's like, how do you convince somebody to leave their, you know, million-dollar job at Google and like, you know, "Come work for 1/10 of that for me and like save the world." And so I used to, he'd always be in San Francisco, we'd catch up and I'd be like, "So what are you in town for?" And it's always that, he was like, "I'm taking, you know, the person I want and their husband or wife out to dinner and I'm gonna tell 'em, you know, the Steve Jobs line of like, you know, stop selling sugar water and let's, you know, come change the world."”
Steal thisTo close a hard recruit, get their spouse to the dinner and sell the mission, not the salary.