IDL41 Season 1: Challenges, Values, and Identity in Leadership with Scott Harrison
Is your worth defined by the success of your company? How do you cope with burnout in leadership? How can you approach challenges in leadership and grow instead of shrink?
I am really excited to share the experience of interviewing Scott Harrison, a true leader, and innovator. Scott founded a non-profit organization for bringing water to people around the world; charity: water. He's also written a New York Times Bestselling book Thirst. Today we talk about overcoming leadership burnout. How do you step back from a business, or organization, gain perspective, and then try to make things work?
Scott spent almost 10 years as a nightclub promoter in New York City before leaving to volunteer on a hospital ship off the coast of Liberia, West Africa as a volunteer photojournalist.
Returning home to New York City two years later, he founded the non-profit organization charity: water. Turning his full attention to the global water crisis and the world’s 785 million people without clean water to drink, he created public installations and innovative online fundraising platforms to spread international awareness of the issue.
In 14 years, with the help of more than 1 million donors worldwide, charity: water has raised over $557 million and funded 78,350 water projects in 29 countries. When completed, those projects will provide more than 13 million people with clean, safe drinking water.
Scott has been recognized on Fortune magazine’s list of 40 Under 40, Forbes’ Impact 30, and Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business, where he earned the #10 spot. He is currently a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and author of the New York Times Bestselling book Thirst.
Connect with charity: water on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Donate to bring water to people in need.
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
Burnout in leadership
Separate your identity from your job
Leadership evolution
Burnout in leadership
Being at the forefront takes energy and consistent pushing.
“We can morph and do things to get the ball moving but at some point, there’s going to be this pressure, and it’s either going to take us down or is it going to launch new growth?”
Challenges provide space for growth and change. They allow you to step back into old ways or move forward into new ones.
However, one can act and make the best decisions when you are not constantly grinding. Space and rest are necessary to handle stressful challenges with a clear mind.
Separate your identity from your job
“So, that’s probably one of the lessons I try to impress on people - you don’t want an entrepreneur that’s depressed when something bad happens to the [organization], or only elated when something good happens to the [organization]. You want a little more of that removal.”
Remember that you are a person first before you are the company. If the company goes through a difficult time, that does not mean that you have any less value as a human being.
The company is an organism that is created from a collective effort. It is the accumulative energy and focus of multiple people, and it exists because of them, but it is separate from them.
Avoid sacrificing every ounce of energy and passion that you have for the company, because that leads to burnout, and to unnecessarily harsh sentences on yourself.
Leadership evolution
Integrity is one of the most important values because it shows a commitment to making the right decision no matter the circumstance.
Leadership can change for the better when you lead with integrity. Any leader can bring people forward, but the value of the place you take them to is based on the decisions that are made along the way.
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
Visit the charity: water website
Connect with charity: water on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Donate to bring water to people in need
Connect with Scott on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn
Check out careynieuwhof.com
BOOK | Scott Harrison and Lisa Sweetingham – Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World
BOOK | John C. Maxwell and Rob Hoskins – Change Your World: How Anyone, Anywhere Can Make a Difference
BOOK | Ronald Rolheiser – Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity
BOOK | Simon Sinek – Infinite Game
The Impact Driven Leader YouTube Channel
Join the Impact Driven Leader Community
Connect with Tyler on Instagram and LinkedIn
Email Tyler: tyler@tylerdickerhoof.com
About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
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Go look at your organization. What is resonating? What are the things that people are gravitating to? Put more resources behind them.
Scott Harrison
Podcast Transcription
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
Hey, welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof, so glad to be with you today, as you're listening in. What a treat, this special conversation I have with Scott Harrison. Scott is the founder of Charity Water. In this segment, in this conversation, man, we start with, he relocated to Nashville, kind of understanding all those things. You got to be about 25 minutes from an airport. You're going to pick that up, hear that, but we really dig into his experiences and the highlight of the conversation, which I love these conversations. I have notes I go through and I do those things. I don't necessarily give them to our guests, but it's amazing how all of those questions I had showed up throughout our conversation, whether it's challenges in leadership, the value of story, how you are shaped by the challenges you go through, how values are the foundation of leadership.
You guys have heard that from me many, many times before, as I've gone through and going back to change the world with John Maxwell and how those values really are the foundation to everything we do. So I'm excited for you to listen in. I'm excited for you to catch this episode, this conversation with Scott. There's a lot of amazing, great leadership principles. We're going to have great, a lot of items in the show notes to learn more about Charity Water, one of the truly great organizations out there in the world, trying to make a difference. We'll catch up at the end of the end. We'll get through all that stuff, but enjoy this time, take some notes and listen to this great story that Scott shares.
Looked at moving to Nashville. This is maybe two years ago. It was pre-COVID and the things that you hit on there is we were looking at much the same as Spokane. We have pretty good size airports, big enough and we're 25 minutes away. We're like, all right, if we're moving anywhere, we have to be no more than 30 minutes away. We lived in California for a while so to drive to LA is two hours to the airport. It's just like, this is a pain and get used to that 25 minutes. So I understand exactly what you're going through. Then we looked at that Franklin area, that greater area. It's like, oh, that'd be really nice. It just, what we looked at is like what we would give up that we love about Spokane to move to Nashville. It just wasn't enough because it was trying to make, like, to like, but we wanted more of like, what I love about the Nashville ---
[SCOTT HARRISON]
I mean, you should move to Norway, if you're going to do it right. Or Cape Town, South Africa. I mean.
[TYLER]
Totally. Cape Town would be amazing. I've never been South Africa, but that is one of the spots I'd love to go to.
[SCOTT]
So Tyler, I've been to 70 countries. I've been to South Africa. I've never been to Cape Town and it's one of the few places I'm pretty sure I could live happily that I've actually never visited. You've got mountains, you've got the ocean, you've got the wine country, which is nearby, but I've actually never been there.
[TYLER]
The head producer of this podcast, she works for an American company, but she lives in Cape Town. So several of the people, and there's a point I said, like, I would love to go to of South Africa. I think I would enjoy it. Just they broaden your horizons, type of thing, to see something different, which I love. I know from your story and reading Thirst a couple years ago and this pleasure, I'm so thankful that Brad connected us, have read that story and we're going to have a fun conversation today. But it's just learning all the things that you've learned and from that story, getting ready for this and listening to it. There's a lot of rich things that I know are part of your life story that sometimes I look back and it's like, that's so good to revisit and asking yourself, it's like going back to now 15 years.
[SCOTT]
Yes, last week was the 15th anniversary.
[TYLER]
What does that 15 years, what does it all mean to you now?
[SCOTT]
We've raised a lot of money now and I think with any startup or with any nonprofit the first, call it period of years, maybe five years, you're just not sure if you're even going to survive. So you've got this big dream, you have this big vision, you're always achieving far less than you would hope or believe is possible, but you're also kind of near death. You're about to run out of money and you don't really know what you're doing, because it's just new. Is there product market fit? Are you going to find the right people? Are all the details going to come in place? So I'd say the first five years was just kind of survival. Then the next five years were really about growth and while we're going to make it but then we kind of hit this 10 year lube where we realize what got us to that level. And I think we'd raised 250 million. So we'd had some success in our first 10 years, but then we realized that we would need another big shift to get to where we wanted to go, maybe said more simply what got us here would not get us there. So then there was ---
[TYLER]
You found that at that 10-year period?
[SCOTT]
That was at year 10. Actually it was in year nine where after eight years of kind explosive growth, we had a down year. We raised less money than the year before. And it was kind of the big shot across and okay, you know, not everything we touch will continue to turn to gold. What we realized at that time, we were asking people to donate their birthdays to Charity Water. This had raised like $80 million. It was a fun idea. We would have kids that instead of hosting a birthday party or accepting gifts, they would ask for their aging dollars. So a seven year old would say, "Hey, just donate $7 for my birthday." A hundred percent of the money will go to Charity Water and it'll help people get clean water and they're going to prove it. And you're going to see a satellite image of the well that we built.
So we have this kind of great model that helped us scale, both awareness and money, but then it became very quickly commoditized based on the success. And Facebook causes started saying, "Hey, don't write on my wall about raising money for charity." And Crowd Rise and Classy and all these companies started to rise up go, Fund Me right in the crowdfunding space. And I'll never forget, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Heifer which is a ---
[TYLER]
Yes. I'll tell you why in a second.
[SCOTT]
Their thing was like goats and sheep in catalogs. They would send you the Christmas catalog and instead of buying stuff like from Sky Mall you would purchase goats, sheep, cows, and stuff for villagers. Well, I get this email from Heifer asking me to donate my birthday for heifer and I'm like, okay, it's over.
[TYLER]
Oh, it's our idea.
[SCOTT]
Is over. But all that to say, so kind of two things happened there, the commoditization of that, which made us really happy, we wanted to see every charity on the planet using this birthday idea to engage their supporters, to grow the network of their good work and awareness. But the biggest problem Tyler was that it was a non-repeat business. People would only do one birthday for Charity Water. So unlike maybe the sponsor, a child model where you've got this kind of decade long relationship with the organization, with the child, we had a one and done, it was great. Hey, I donate. My first birthday raised $3,100, let's just say, pat of myself and the back told all my friends good job. Then people would actually use their birthday for another cause. So some of that would keep the theme of the birthdays, but I already did the Charity Water thing. I'm not going to go back to that second year. So the big, sorry, this is more than you asked for.
[TYLER]
Dude, no this is perfect.
[SCOTT]
You're like, look back on 15 years.
[TYLER]
No, this is great. What happened with that shut across the bow, I was very fortunate to take the Spotify founder, Daniel Eck, to Ethiopia, actually to see wells that he'd funded through his birthday. We were sitting in the back of a land Rover, we were Northern Ethiopia and I remember he said something to the effect of dude your business model sucks. He's like January one, like you wake up at zero? Everything you did the previous year rolls all the way back to zero and you got to do it all over again and then you have to grow? Well, Spotify's not like that. I get a bunch of people to subscribe and then I just keep growing on that base as I deliver them valuable music content.
So something so simple, I was like, okay, year 10, 10th anniversary, let's build that subscription membership giving community. That took us, just in five years from about 35 million a year to a hundred million this year and helped us become by far now the largest water charity in America and the largest in the world when it comes to actually funding clean water projects for people. So that was kind of, so now I'm at this point, looking back on 15 years and we've raised 600 million. We've helped 13 million people get water, but there's 771 million people who need water. So our little portion is 156. It's 1.7, 8% or so of the work that needs to be done. So mainly the observation is I can't believe how little money we've raised in a world washed with capital.
I can't believe how few people we have brought on board the Charity Water mission. Clean drinking water for humans is a human universal inarguable common good. So Republicans can think this is a good idea. Democrats can think this is a good idea. Independents and libertarians, Jews and Christians and Muslims and atheists, everybody can say, "Hey, people need clean water." So I feel like we've done so little and I guess I hope that the best is yet to come. I saw a great stock chart of Amazon the other day. It was 27 years of Amazon and the first 20 years is just a flat line and then it goes up over the last seven.
The crazy thing is Jeff Bezos only created 7% of Amazon's total value in the first two decades. 93% of the value was created in the last seven years. So I hope that there might be some aspect of that to Charity Water. You know, we're showing up for 15 years, we're learning from our mistakes, we're building trust through transparency with our community. And you're putting yourself in a position to be able to grow and scale your impact.
[TYLER]
So, I mean, that was amazing. Not what I think you expected to probably just talk all about, hey, give me a 15-year recap, Scott, but it opens up so many great questions to say observations at least. One, as you mentioned this 20 years, this hockey stick type growth, which is a lot of people understand it happens. And too often that first five years people struggle like, oh, it's not worth it and they don't continue on. So as this is a leadership podcast and there's so many elements of leadership that you shared there is in that 10 year period, when you did see that down, what did you have to like kind of reemphasize was the directive and your vision to make sure that people stuck with it?
[SCOTT]
I think it was more coaching myself. I was the one that wanted to quit, or I wanted to take myself out of the game as the leader, because I felt like I'd failed. So much of my identity was in the numbers. And again, maybe a little different than a traditional business, the numbers didn't make me rich, didn't make my employees or my shareholders rich. The numbers helped people get the most basic need in life across 29 countries. So there was a real sense that I had failed them. We had gone from helping, that year eight was our high watermark. We gave a million people clean water in year eight and in year nine we gave 820,000 people clean water because we raised less. I'm like, this is the wrong direction of impact.
So for me, it was, well, first of all, I hadn't taken a rest. It had been 90 flights a year, 200 speeches a year, just this flurry of activity, trying to just push the momentum forward. I didn't have kids so I was able to kind of do that and my wife was working alongside me as a creative director. So it didn't necessarily feel so out of balance until then suddenly one day you wake up and you're like, I'm freaking exhausted. I mean, I'm really tired and mentally exhausted. You've carrying the weight of this whole thing, honestly, this feeling of global responsibility and we were employing over a thousand people around the world. If our money stopped, those jobs would go away. Many of those jobs would go away.
So look, I actually took, I tried to take a month off and wound up in three weeks, but that I felt like a win. I hung out with some church leaders and some kind of spiritual mentors and I got the next idea. I kind of distilled that conversation that I'd had with Daniel just a couple months previous in the Land Rover and said, let me come back with a renewed energy. Let me try this out. And even if I was going to hand over to the leadership of the org, I'd rather do it on the upwards trajectory, not on the dip. So let me see if I can come back and change the trajectory. I also needed to do a lot of configuration. I was managing too many people. I'm a terrible manager. So having a one on one with me, I mean, it's like nails on a chalkboard.
So I had to then reconfigure and elevate a COO who wound up effectively running the day to day of the company for the next five years, so that I could really focus on the creative ideas, the innovation, the vision. I'm trying to think five and 10 years out, and I'm just not great with the day to day. So I was able to kind of also get new life realizing that I was being drained by taking on some of these management, so many of these management responsibilities that were deeply against my skillset and then trying to optimize for that, again, with the council of some very wise mentors who've been through this.
[TYLER]
Man, I think, having gone through some of that myself and working with my wife and that's a whole different conversation and podcast, that I can imagine you guys met and then got married, which is different than us, but really that idea of burnout. And I think you captured it and I know Carrie has a new book coming out, talking about some of those things. But what I covered from you is something that I picked up too, is when you are doing things that you're not great at, in other words, I can do it, but I'm not great at, what I've found is that's when people get it burned out.
And they have to make that switch. I think if I could distill this down, you had this baby, you had this idea, wholly your thought and you get to this point and you're like, I'm doing all this stuff because I'm doing all this stuff because it's mine. I need to trust someone else to do it even though they may not do it the same way. But the only way for this to live is if I do that. The only way for me to live is if I do that, but that's so hard. If you could share your ---
[SCOTT]
That's right. The trust is the most important thing and that I actually failed by trying to bring some people from outside the organization in and this situation was actually someone who I'd been working with for five years, who I had built a deep level of trust, I traveled with to the field, I knew her family. Her husband was actually was my first CFO. So there was kind of a deep level of trust and that was really important to then be able to say, okay, here's this huge amount of responsibility. There's a huge amount of people. Then let me go out and actually try and drive growth through vision, innovation, new ideas, new products, creativity.
[TYLER]
Which is what you, I mean, you read through the book, Thirst, you watch what you've done, dude, that's your superpower. If you go back to the days of promoting clubs and all the things you did, it was like, "Hey, I have this creative vision. I'm going to get people there." It's not the Xs and Os as I've picked up from your book and stuff that I've read, but it's understanding, hey, we can morph, we can do things, like you said to get the ball moving. But at some point there's going to be this pressure and is either going to take us down or is it going to launch new growth?
[SCOTT]
That's good.
[TYLER]
I mean, and to me, that's what I observe and that's what I see. I know that you share that. Here we are 15 years and you are serving on lot of other boards whether it be on news story, whether it be some of these other organizations that you're heavily involved in. How much has that conversation come into your conversations with them and say, "Hey, this is what I'm helping to coach you through," even before you get there so you don't end up, kind of almost in a back against the wall moment.
[SCOTT]
I mean, a lot of these orgs are really new and they can grind for eight to 10 years.
[TYLER]
[crosstalk] You just keep working dude.
[SCOTT]
And I think also what was so helpful for me and honestly, many of these social entrepreneurs that I've gotten the chance to mentor, they don't have kids. It really changes with kids and the responsibility of a growing family. Many of them are single. Many of them are getting engaged. Often they'll find a partner who wants to travel who, actually wants to be engaged in the work and that just makes it easier to go a lot harder and a lot faster. I think the thing that I try to coach them is, I'm a big Ronald Rolheiser fan. I read Sacred Fire every year, one of my favorite books about kind of the seasons of life. I guess what I would coach them is to make sure they don't have too much of their identity in the organization or the company.
I mean, this goes true for anybody. If you're leading a church, you're leading a company you are more worth more than the numbers. I remember when we had down year nine, I talked to my dad and he had been a middle class businessman for 30 years. He said I didn't have 30 years of up into the right growth. You go through these, these seasons, these s-curves, and you are not your numbers. So he said during that down year, did you compromise your values in any way? I said, no. Did you work hard? Yes. In fact, I was so proud of that year, you know, of everything we accomplished, of everything the team accomplished. The numbers just didn't come in in the same way. So I think that's probably one of the lessons that I try to impress on people, is you don't want an entrepreneur that's depressed when something bad happens to the org or only elated when something good happens to the org.
You know, you want a little more of that removal and that's really hard because as you said, I mean, Vic and I, my wife, Victoria, we have said, this is our baby. Charity Water was our first baby for 10 years. Then we had a couple more. When our baby was sick, when Charity Water was sick, it was very, very difficult. You would have those sleepless nights. And I think this is true. If it's your church or your something you started or something you care so deeply about, trying to just find a way to say, "I am a husband, I'm a son of God, I'm a friend, I'm a father. I also lead an organization, but I'm not just the success or failure of the organization."
[TYLER]
To me is identify, as you're saying, those values are your foundation. And once you're again, solidified on that foundation, it allows you to go and see different. And like you said earlier, which I totally believe is what got you here won't get you there. And too often, I think whether it's entrepreneurs, especially when you've had that success, you're like, well, this is the only way to do it. I can only do it this way. I only know this way. And almost there's this fear of, oh, if I go do it different, that means I'm going to leave my "values." Even though I think there's a part of what I know about you and have heard about you, is this innovativeness about you to say, oh, if it's not working well, no problem. Let me just go do something else. That's what I think got you started in it.
[SCOTT]
You have to be willing to kill stuff that's not working. I remember many, many years ago I got to speak at catalysts and Andy Stanley said something like fund what's working. Don't fight it. Fund it. Find the things that are working. And I think every once in a while we have these pet projects and they're not working and we just kind of keep trying to throw more money at it and no, but I know it's going to work eventually. What I remember from that talk was go look at your organizations. What is resonating? What are the things that people are gravitating too, and put more resources behind them? And maybe they're not your idea. I mean, when you get to my age, like hopefully none of those things are my ideas because that means that you've really built an organization with a value of creativity, with values of innovation that are happening all across the org. So I think that's maybe easier to do in the later stages where you can look at that as a win and a little harder when everything is so personal early on.
[TYLER]
Well, I think as part of that is you've built this team though, as you've talked about. If you go in with that, my thought and opinion is if you go in with the ide. So often when you start, you don't have it, but if you have the idea, "Hey, want people around me that are going to be creative, are going to see challenges as great opportunities and we rely on that together," as opposed to you just got to follow me. Just follow me, everyone get behind me and follow me as opposed to we're going at this together hinging on those strengths and you're like, "Hey, I can throw a party with nobody else but I need you to come in. How do we make it long lasting? How do we make this have a bigger impact?" Those are the things, again, what I hear from you and reading from you is the learning lessons that I pick up.
[SCOTT]
And we look at Charity Water as an invitation. I think many charities in the past have used shame and guilt pedal their wearers, to motivate people. And we try to just create something that is, magical is not the right word, but so inspirational, so aspirational that people want to be a part of it out of a sense of positive hope. Then we just keep inviting them. We invite children, we invite people towards the end of their life, we invite business people. We invite all these different people from all these different walks of life and communities to bring their time and their talent and their money to what we're doing. But it is this idea of hope and opportunity versus shame and guilt.
[TYLER]
It's the power of story.
[SCOTT]
It is. Storytelling is very important.
[TYLER]
Well, I mean, it's something that, again it's---
[SCOTT]
The words matter too. We're very careful about the words that we use. I could say help me end the water crisis or help me bring clean water to every person alive. So people are typically more drawn to the positive help. Hey, let's work together to create a world where every man, every woman, every child alive has access to the most basic need. Do you want to join us on that mission? Come on, come on. It's going to be awesome. And when we're done, we're going to look back and say, we did something really incredible here. We provided life. We transformed that. We helped people flourish in the most basic way through clean water.
[TYLER]
I think as you say that, it's a melding of two mentors of mine, John Gordon and Simon Sinek.
[SCOTT]
It's funny Simon and I texted literally five minutes ago. We were texting this. He's a good friend and a long time supporter and I was in John's podcast a couple weeks ago. So I love both of those dearly.
[TYLER]
They have both impacted my life tremendously, had the opportunity to, John has been a host guest on the podcast. I'm still working on Simon, hopefully at some point, but his book is part of our book club this month. But this idea of, this power of story, this just cause, this worthy ideal, but paint it in such a way that it brings joy to you because our world is negative. And if the story isn't positive, it only goes so far but if it's a negative story, it just, it loses its steam. It's full of angst. As you just said, and as I think about what done such a tremendous job of telling this water story, that's bigger than just water, it's how it ties into the other organizations that I know that you're kind of linked with, is this holistically people deserve better. Not because they are worse off or anything else, but as people, Scott, you deserve better, Victoria, you deserve better Tyler. I deserve, but we all do. And if we're committed to that as part of a story, man, that could be so fulfilling and fun. It goes beyond us.
[SCOTT]
Amen. I love it.
[TYLER]
I mean, to me, that's why I do what I do. It's this idea of having an impact as a leader is beyond us. And I know, and I can just see your desire and that pivotal moment in life was I'm sick of just trying to go through the motions of what's life supposed to be? There's got to be something bigger. So take those that maybe aren't familiar with your story, just how that came about and now looking back even 20 years, almost later, how pivotal that's been to where Scott is today?
[SCOTT]
Well, my story just in brief I was raised in a very conservative Christian and family. I was born in Philadelphia. When I was four, my mom became sick, seriously disabled and she was for the rest of her life. I went into a caregiver role. So I was that good Christian kid taking care of mom, playing piano in church and in Sunday school. I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up so that I could help sick people like my mom. Then at 18, I went through this classic cliché, obnoxiously cliché rebellion, where I moved to New York city and I started smoking and drinking and sleeping around. I wanted nothing to do with the church or faith or values and morality. Now that was my turn to explore the opposite.
That led me down a path of deep, moral and spiritual bankruptcy of deep disillusionment. I became actually one of the biggest nightclub promoters in New York city. I worked at 40 different nightclubs throwing some of the biggest parties with models and celebrities and flying around the world to Milan and Paris for fashion week and getting to travel on private planes and all this. It was just kind of meaningless and at 28 I had real crisis of conscience. I wrote Crisis of Faith. I wrote about this in the book. There's a lot more there, but I basically changed my life and said, I need to become opposite. I don't need a small course correction. I don't need to pivot. I need to literally find what is the 180 degree opposite of every single thing that I do and think and the way that I ---
[TYLER]
And it was so clear.
[SCOTT]
It was actually.
[TYLER]
It was so clear.
[SCOTT]
So my big idea was, okay, well, sell everything I own and do one year of, try to find an opportunity to serve a humanitarian organization, mission for one year, almost as a tie of the 10 years, 10% back from the 10 years, the decadent decade. At first, I read about this in the book, but nobody would take me, World Vision wouldn't take me, Save the Children wouldn't take me, Doctors Without Boarders ---
[TYLER]
They are like, "No, not good. He's dying.
[SCOTT]
I mean, who wants a freaking NYCLU promoter? What would I do? How would I be useful? And I was really fortunate this one group called Mercy Ships took me on as a volunteer photo journalist. I paid them $500 a month for the pleasure of along with all the other crew that was kind of the way that they helped raise money through their volunteers and that took me to West Africa, to a country called Liberia where not only did I see extreme poverty for the first time; this was a country that had just come out of a 14-year war. There was no electricity, there was no running water, but I really came face to face with the water crisis specifically. And I learned half the people in the country were drinking dirty water, and this was responsible for so much of the sickness and disease and death that we were seeing.
The year turned into two years and at 30 years old, I came back to Manhattan and said, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to try to work the rest of my life to solve this one problem, to try to bring everybody on earth clean water. And I'm going to try to get people to care about this issue. I'm going to try to build an organization that can be efficient and effective and stewarding these funds and delivering water to people who need it. At 30, I didn't know any better Tyler. I was like, I don't know anything about philanthropy. I don't know any other humanitarians, but I'm just going to start. And it actually started with a party at a nightclub, day one of Charity Water. My only idea at the time was to throw my 31st birthday party and to charge everybody 20 bucks to come to it.
That night a lot of people came and we blew the air with an hour of open bar. So 700 people came and they tossed 20 bucks in, and at the end of the night, we had $15,000. We took a hundred percent of that money and we funded our first couple water projects and then we sent back the proof of what that money had accomplished to all 700 people. We said, here are the people now drinking clean water in Northern Uganda because you gave $20. And that feedback loop, that's become such of Charity Water's DNA and really has allowed us to grow such a big community over the last 15 years, just showing people. So simple, like showing people what we did with their donation.
[TYLER]
Yes. Can I put a pause right there? So for everyone listening, anyone that's ever given money to a birthday cause it started because of Scott's 31st for birthday in Liberia. Is that fair?
[SCOTT]
Yes, sure. I'm sure people were doing birthdays. It certainly wasn't a thing on the internet.
[TYLER]
Yes, exactly. And that was just good credit. It's good.
[SCOTT]
That was 15 years.
[TYLER]
So when you do that next time, just think about Charity Water and Scott.
[SCOTT]
We're happy for people to have that idea.
[TYLER]
Yes, it's cool. It's cool. Talk about just real quick, some other elements of leadership that you've grown through and you've gone through here just as part of that is like, it's been a big journey, but I'd love to just know a little bit about that leadership journey for you from you. We shared a little bit about it, but this nightclub promoter to now this almost billion dollar organization, what challenges have you gone through that you could help our listeners and from life, just Scott's wisdom like, oh, this is something I really would love to impart.
[SCOTT]
Listen, I think integrity is the most important thing. So integrity, even over every other value has been important for me, because there are so many opportunities to do the wrong thing in a very small shade of gray. The mission, I'll just give you one example. We have this hundred percentage, so this sounds crazy, but from day one I had this vision that we should promise the public that every penny, Dollar, Pound, Euro, million dollars and any money that was ever given to Charity Water should go directly to help people around the world get clean drinking water. Should directly fund those projects. They should never pay for my salary or the office or the flights or the phone bills or the whole staff salaries. But that a hundred percent can go straight to the field. So to do that, I had to open up a separate bank account and then go find a different group of people to pay for all that overhead, those unsexy staff salary costs and the flights and the toner for the Epson copy machine.
So for 15 years, we've operated with a dual bank account model. KPMG audits these separately and writes an opinion every year that we publish in our website. We had this moment early on. So first of all, it worked and people loved the idea that if they only had a hundred dollar to give they knew all hundred dollars would go to Malawi or Cambodia or Bangladesh or Ethiopia to directly fund the water project and construct it. But it was really hard getting people to pay for overhead when it's just an idea in the beginning. When we had this moment, Tyler, when we had $881,000 in the water bank account, and this was going to go out and build, let's say 80 water projects, but in the overhead bank account, we were about to miss payroll and we were effectively insolvent.
I remember the advice I got from so many people who learned of our predicament was, "Hey dude, just go borrow from the $881 and put it back later. Move from the $880,000, go make your payroll for the next couple months and then buy yourself some more time." I just remember thinking, if we touched one penny of the public's money, the whole thing, there'd be a crack at the foundation, a lack of integrity at the core. I was actually going to shut the organization down. I was talking with lawyers about unwinding Charity Water, 7,800 grand to the field and then just saying, "Hey, this a hundred percent model just didn't work for us." Maybe trying again or trying something differently. But I just remember it was never an option. I wasn't willing to compromise my personal integrity or my promise to the public or the organization's foundation of integrity just to survive, which you could argue, we would've been surviving at least for a noble cause.
Well, as it happened a complete stranger walked in the office right around this time and sits with me and he donates a million dollars to the overhead account. So we went from effectively bankrupt to a year of working capital and we used that extra time to build today what's a pretty sophisticated overhead giving program with 129 families who all support specifically the overhead of Charity Water. So had it ended differently, at least I would've had my integrity. There probably wouldn't be a a big Charity Water as it is today, but I think we've had, so that's just one clear example. We've had so many examples of cutting corners, so many opportunities to cut corners and we just try to make these black and white decisions.
Just one other detail that nobody knows about. But I said early on, well, if we're really going to say a hundred percent, then don't we have to pay everybody's credit card fees? Because if you give a hundred dollars on your MasterCard, they take 2% and I get $98 and they're like, but we promised Tyler that we would send a hundred percent. So let's just, in perpetuity, always go to the overhead donors and pay back those credit card fees." Well, that sounded like a great idea. Now it's like $650,000 hours every year that I have to go and raise for overhead just to give to American Express and Visa and MasterCard for the public's donations.
I guess you could argue that, Tyler, you would never expect me to, you'd be happy if the $98 that I got from you went to the field, but for me, I'm like, we just need to take it to the next level, like a hundred percent of the hundred dollars that you gave, that you intended to give. Then that's our problem to go and cover those fees. So there's just so many examples. Then you kind of build this into your culture and this comes up at meetings. It's like, well, let's just make sure there's integrity in that or in that messaging when it goes up on the website or let's just make sure this donor really understands the risk of what could happen there so that there's integrity. So that I think, there's others, but I think that's the one that I would probably share.
[TYLER]
I love it and I think my belief is that values are the foundation to great leadership and in every way that you can walk that out again, you can have a situation that deals with integrity later. But you've seen the example in the hardship that we've gone through. I mean, that's worth so much and I appreciate you sharing those stories because I believe all of us, whether it's in our personal life, and as I think you alluded to earlier, the hardest person to lead is yourself, which I believe that's the challenge for all of us, much less others. But if we lead ourselves with integrity, it's a lot easier for others to go through that entire relationship as well.
[SCOTT]
Agreed.
[TYLER]
Yes. Man, thank you so much for your time. I've loved this conversation. I learning more about you and Charity Water. I'm excited for all the listeners to learn more about it and your book, Thirst, which is a great read. Listen to tell more about your journey. And I love this journey as you recap for us, those experiences, that 10 year journey. I really appreciate it and thank you, man.
[SCOTT]
And I will say, for anybody that picks up Thirst, a hundred percent of all that money goes straight to the organization. So I can never make a penny from that book. I wanted it to be hopeful and helpful to the next social entrepreneur, somebody who might have a cause, maybe it's water, maybe it's something else they deeply care about. So some of the tools, some of the things we've learned along the way. Then I also wanted to grow the movement of Charity Water because a lot of people listening woke up this morning and you took water for granted. You had your long shower, you brushed your teeth, you used that clean water for your coffee and that's just not the reality for 770 million people. So we're working to change that. And the best way Tyler people could just learn more about us is probably The Spring, which is that subscription membership community that I mentioned. So there's some cool videos online about our work. They could just go to thespring.com, which is kind of the new landing page.
[TYLER]
Well, I thank you again. Thanks for being such an influence to so many of the other guests and continue doing what you're doing, man. I appreciate the time.
[SCOTT]
Yes, thanks for having me on, Tyler.
[TYLER]
One of the cool things that I loved about Scott and I picked up in his book, Thirst, which I highly recommend, I mean, it's a great listen, he really goes through this life journey of being this club promoter and what all that looked like, but you can really see how those skills and talents really brought him to where he is at now. I think I love that piece of the conversation, understanding when he focused on doing what he was great at all of a sudden, it wasn't this like overwhelming desire. Once he let go of some of that stuff to someone he trusted, how has the organization really grew? I believe that and as I've experienced that myself, as you get through this 10-year mark, you get through this period of what's this about, almost taking a time to stop, retreat, to get away, to seek advice from other people and just say, what if, what could it look like? How can I do what I'm supposed to be doing?
I love that piece that Scott shared, and truly, I believe this is when we have a positive story, a story of something that is to change the world, not how we're better than our competitor. We've read the book, The Infinite Game from Simon Sinek as part of our book club and going through that. It's like having this just cause that's bigger than you. Man Scott touched on all of that and to me, that is why Charity Water has been such a successful organization. It's why one simple donation can lead to a lifelong giving that will make Charity Water pretty much live forever. And I heard about that after we cut, but I wanted to share that here. To me, that's something bigger and that's sticking to your values, the integrity that he shared about, but it's also, hey, get out of the way. I think that's one of the greatest lessons a leader can learn, is get out of the way, have a bigger story. That's what it's about. Thank you guys for joining.
A reminder, we still have the Impact Driven Leader book club. You can read books with us such as The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek, Change Your World by John Maxwell. Those have been two books featured, but it's also once a week, we get together on Zoom as part of the round table to have conversations much like what Scott and I just had where we're talking together about challenges we're having, what are we going through? What are those experiences? How can we help each other grow as leaders? Because just like he shared, he had to get counsel and advice from others. It was from Daniel that he got this idea of a subscription model for giving, which now is everywhere.
And I think those challenges that we get, when we can find people that have similar values, that have similar desires to make an impact, that's when we all get better. So I invite you to take a look at that, come join us on the round table. We're finishing off 2021 in grand fashion and gearing up for an amazing 2022, where I know the round table is going to bring so much value to people. Not because of me. Absolutely not. I'm not the one. It is everyone else that shows up and gives their all. So go take a look at that, theimpactdrivenleader.com, where you can see more about that stuff and the round table.
Thanks for listening in. If you got value today, if you'd love to share some of Scott's story, I would love for you to share this episode with someone else. Give me a rating, give me a review, comment about the episode, what you loved, what piece of the story that you got from Scott, that was really impactful. I would love to know that. Share that wherever you listen to podcasts in the comments and review session. Would love to read that and learn more about what value you got. Thanks for being here and until next time have a good one.
