GOOD IDEA: Will Smith wants water for his birthday

Posted on November 23, 2010 by Cause Effect Agency

This year, Will and Jada Smith are giving up their birthdays in exchange for donations to charity: water, an organization dedicated to providing safe drinking water for people in developing countries. Visitors to their dedicated campaign page will find a video message from the couple asking for online donations instead of presents, and encouraging others to donate their own birthdays using the mycharitywater fundraising tool.

Launched in 2008, mycharity: water is an online fundraising platform that allows individual users to create and publicize their own short-term charity: water fundraising campaigns. Participants create personalized campaign pages where donations can be tracked, and the site provides downloadable resources to help promote the campaigns online. When a goal is met ($5,000 or more), fundraisers and contributors receive photographs and GPS coordinates of the water project they helped to fund.

This isn’t the first time a celebrity has publicly passed up gifts in favor of charity :water donations. Last year Alyssa Milano launched her own mycharity: water campaign in connection with her 37th birthday. When the goal of $25,000 was quickly met, it was raised—and reached—twice more before the campaign ended with a total of $92,568 in donations.

So far the Smiths’ campaign has raised over $101,000, and brought in over 1,600 pledged birthdays for charity: water. As an added bonus, Will and Jada have said they will travel next year with the three biggest mycharity: water fundraisers to Africa to visit the projects they’ve helped to fund. To launch your own campaign, visit mycharitywater.org.