At the age of 18, I moved to New York City as an act of rebellion against my parents, and became a nightclub promoter. I would bring the rich, beautiful, famous people to different clubs, charge them a whole lot of money for alcohol and then move them on to the next place. I did that for 10 years in over 40 venues, and picked up all the vices that come with it, from smoking to drinking and pornography. It was a really dark descent into hedonism and decadence.
During an opulent vacation in Uruguay, where we were spending huge amounts of money, flying private and betting thousands of dollars on hands of blackjack and baccarat, I remember thinking: ‘Is this how it’s supposed to feel? Is this as good as it gets?’
It struck me like the game of musical chairs. For the first time, it was like the music had stopped, I looked around and there was no place to sit. It was a very disruptive moment that led me to explore morality, faith and spirituality; I made a decision to radically change my life. I sold everything I owned, cleaned up my life and volunteered on a humanitarian mission in Liberia, as a sort of tithe for the years I’d selfishly wasted.
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A mission takes shape
My true ‘Aha’ moment came during my second year of volunteering, when I realised the root cause for so much of the sickness we were seeing was that half the country was drinking contaminated water. I thought: ‘I am going to make it my life mission to bring every single human on earth clean water before I die.’
The people I went to for fundraising at the time could all get behind the idea of clean water, but they didn’t really trust charities. There was a cynicism and a scepticism towards institutional philanthropy. For many people, charities were opaque when it came to where the money went and they weren’t communicating enough on the real-life impact they had.
That’s why I came up with the ‘100 per cent’ business model behind Charity:Water, which means we promise the public that 100 per cent of all their donations to us go directly to life-saving water projects. In order to make that possible, we fund the charity’s own staff and running costs through significant donations that come from visionary philanthropists, business leaders, entrepreneurs and generous families.
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Growing The Well
Today, this group of private donors is known as The Well. Its visionary members include Angela Ahrendts, a formerly CEO of Burberry and a former senior vice president at Apple; and Ajaz Ahmed, founder of AKQA and a former winner of the Spear’s Impact Award. Today, The Well is made up of 136 families from 15 countries, and their contributions range from £65,000 a year to more than £1 million a year. We are currently in growth mode, aiming to bring the number of members to 200.
By supporting The Well, those families and individuals make it possible for millions of people to donate money in the purest way. So far we’ve brought clean water to more than 20 million people. That means empowering women and girls who would otherwise have to walk miles even to access dirty water; it means powering local economies; it means investing in health; and it means making climate-vulnerable communities more resilient to floods and droughts.
My mother was an invalid, so I grew up helping her and I always knew I had a sense of service. I got lost for 10 years, but really I was just promoting the wrong thing. Now, instead of nightclubs, I promote a message of compassion and generosity.
As told to Livia Giannotti
This article first appeared in Spear’s Magazine Issue 96. Click here to subscribe
