WE DID IT!

Thank you.
Thank you
Thank you.

For spreading the word.
For your donations
For your continual support of this campaign.

Every single one of you helped contribute to this campaign, and we wouldn't have been able to meet - and exceed! And exceed AGAIN! - our goals without you. I'm humbled and grateful and so inspired by the real-life impact that we made in people's lives.

In Twelve Days, we raised, $10,245.
We helped 512 people.
We had 135 donations.

I was able to celebrate with the charity: water team this past Monday night in NYC at the charity:ball, which the photo above is from. That's Lane Wood, my friend who got me involved with this amazing charity to begin with, and it was a delight to be able to give him a huge hug and let him know that we - all of us together! - contributed over 10k in twelve days. The campaign still officially has 15 more days, should you want to donate a bit more. 

As this season winds down, know that you all gave me the best gift I could ask for: clean water to 500+ people. Wishing you all an amazing holiday season, and my sincere gratitude.

When I started this campaign nearly two weeks ago, I had a lofty goal: $5000 to bring clean water to 250 people.

We hit that in FIFTEEN MINUTES. And that was just the beginning.

Since then, every single day, we've continued to spread the word and continued to get donations. Some - like the awesome Michael Gluhanich - have donated every day. Many of you have given multiple times. But every single one of you, whether you've given a dollar or a hundred, whether you Retweeted this or Liked it on Facebook, have helped us get where we are today: less than $300 away from our revised goal of $10,000. And I know we can do it.

Just yesterday, we had eight donations that pushed us even closer to the goal. And the winner from yesterday's donation is Alex Van Buren, who wins - wait for it! - a year of RDIO (my new musical obsession). Thanks for your donation & I know you'll LOVE RDIO!

Don't forget that tomorrow we'll choose the Grand Prize winner, who will receive a ticket to tomorrow night's star-studded charity: ball, which is SOLD OUT. Every person who donates through tomorrow at 1pm ET will be eligible, so let's keep the donations coming! 

The impact we've made is staggering.
Your graciousness is humbling.
Your willingness to embrace and share this cause is inspiring.

You made me so proud to know many of you, and have the chance to 'meet' many new friends this Holiday season.

Thank you. 

Do you see what I see? (Gettin' all Christmas Carol-y on you today.) 

We've surpassed $9000! At the time of writing this, we've had 114 donations, helping 454 people and raised $9092. Just $908 to get to $10k. 

WE.
CAN.
DO.
IT.

If everyone just gave $10 more, we'd meet the goal! And with two more awesome prizes - including a year's subscription to RDIO and one other fabulous gift that I'll keep mum for now, not to mention a ticket to Monday's charity: ball here in NYC, there's a huge incentive to donate and spread the word. Help us out, won't ya?

Speaking of prizes, turns out you DO love the Sonos as much as I do...nearly 1/2 of our donations were received in just two days! And the winner (thank you, Random.org!) is none other than Scott Frans, who I know is a huge music afficionado so it's only fitting. Thank you, Scott, for your donation; thank you, Sonos, for your amazing S5 donation, and thank you EVERYONE for your contant support. Twelve days is a long time to keep asking for your help, and I'm so grateful.

Two more days, we're almost there. Let's do this.

I've gone back and forth on deciding whether or not we should 'officially' raise our goal from $5000 to $10,000...we met the original goal so quickly, that I've decided: 

YES.

We're approaching $7000 and still have a few days to go, but I think we can do it! And to help spread the message, tomorrow I'm giving away TWO prizes; one to someone that donates and one to someone that shares via Twitter. Simply write a compelling/funny/awesome Tweet and include the link to http://bit.ly/12daysgiving and VOILA! The randomizer will do its magic and we'll announce two winners tomorrow.

Speaking of winners, many thanks to Meredith Hermann who won gorgeous, handmade letterpress cards courtesy of Paperwheel Press. (Thanks, Elizabeth!) You can use them to send notes to everyone you know about how great charity: water is. Or, you know, write love poems on them. Your call.

And stay tuned, tomorrow's prize is one of the biggies!

A week ago, I was putting the final touches on this site.

Today, we're approaching $7000. We've had 57 donations and have helped 345 people. And we have another six days to do even more, hopefully meeting the $10,000 goal to help 500 people. I'll keep saying it: every single dollar helps.

But what happens when this campaign is over? How can we ensure that we're continuing to make an impact to this awesome organization? There's a ton of ways to stay involved, and even if right now isn't the best time to donate or spread the word about this campaign, you can personally get involved in the future. You could:

- Start your own campaign. As I can attest, it's super simple to set up.
- Volunteer. There are monthly volunteer nights in NYC that you can attend (and I urge you to do so; the team is pretty awesome!)
- Get your school involved. Have your school help a school in need.

You can find out all of the ways to get involved here.  

On to today's prize. The winner of a customized pair of Nike kicks (um, *I* want shoes made just for me!) is none other than Ryan King. Thanks, @rk, for supporting charity: water and for generally being awesome.

And thanks to all of you who keep spreading the word...the best is yet to come!

Turns out the weekends are a slow time for charity. Which I completely understand, especially this past one, given the: 

- Icky weather
- Holiday parties
- Christmas-tree procurement
- Challenge of coming up with new curse words whilst stringing 2000+ lights on a Douglas Fir

...and that was just *MY* weekend. But now the weekend's over, we're back to the daily grind (sigh) and have just one week to get to our new goal of $10,000. So we have about $3300 to go! Totally, completely do-able...if everybody who went to this site on the first day just gave THREE MORE DOLLARS we'd easily hit the goal. Let's do it, shall we?

On to the prizes...Saturday's prize goes to the most charitable Dad around, Michael Gluhanich, who has donated $10-20 day since this campaign began. Sunday's winner is Charles Adams, who I've not met yet am so grateful for the his donation. Both win who signed copies of Tim Ferriss' new book, 'The 4-Hour Body' (which isn't yet released and which I hear is FANTASTIC.) May it help you both become Superhuman, as it claims! (And MANY thanks to Tim for donating the prizes.)

Happy Monday, y'all, and thanks for continuing to head towards our goal!

End of the first "week" of the contest, and I couldn't be more pleased! We've had at least ten donors each day, and have surpassed the $6500 mark. Y'all have been amazing about spreading the word and donating...thank you.

One thing that I'm noticing from many of the donors is that they often comment that they wish they could give more. While I completely understand that sentiment - heck, I wish I could give my entire salary to charity: water! - know that what I keep saying is true: EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR HELPS. If you can give a dollar, that's awesome. THANK YOU. If you can give fifty, also fantastic. And if you can help by telling two new people about this campaign, that helps just as much. I'm just so grateful for everyone continuing to share this message and help out where they can.

So with that, it's time to announce yesterday's winner. Breaking the apparent streak of "Former NYC-ers who now live in San Francisco and are good friends with my ex", a trend I find quite amusing from the prize randomizer, this winner has never lived in New York City, but does hail from the awesome metropolis of Marietta, Ohio. It's none other than my good pal Ali Watkins, who wins a choice of two items from the amazing Willotoons.com. Ali, congrats...pick your loot wisely! (I'm a size medium.) :)

Happy weekend, everyone! Let the giving continue!

Yesterday was a big day, not just for our little Twelve Days of Giving campaign, but for charity: water as a whole. They announced that they hit the $5,000,000 mark with donations just from the Mycharity: water campaigns (of which this is one) FIVE MILLION DOLLARS...this brings clean water to 250,000 people. And over $6000 of those funds came from you. Again, so grateful and happy that this message is resonating with you, and that you're not only so generously donating, but are also taking the time to share it with your friends and family. A special thanks to Laura Gluhanich's father, Michael, who donated yesterday and my very own Dad, who is apparently leading a one-man publicity machine in Baltimore and contributed today. Cool Dads are the best.

So while I'm giving people props, I figure it's time to announce yesterday's winner. (Mental drumroll, please!) My fabulous random prize generator chose yesterday's 11th donation, none other than the fabulous Connie Hwong. Courtesy of the absolutely awesome guys from Virb (which this site was built on in literally hours, it's that easy!) she wins a year's free subscription to Virb.com, which I'm sure she'll use to create a blog with awesome music, awesome fashion and just, I donno, everything awesome. If only I hadn't gotten outbid a few years ago, I would have given her aweso.me for the domain. Thanks, Connie, for putting us over the $6000 mark yesterday and perhaps it was you who helped get charity: water to $5M. Something's telling me it must be you.

Let's keep it going - I want to hit $7000 today! (We're nearly halfway there!)

In a word: Wow. As I mentioned last night, I'm so moved and humbled and inspired by your response to this little campaign and how much you embraced it.

But, as The Carpenters so aptly crooned, "We've Only Just Begun". We've met our goal - which I'm now calling our Original, Not-Nearly-Aggressive-Enough Goal - but have eleven more days to continue to make a huge impact. So let's not stop here. We've shown what we can do in one day; let's see what we can do in twelve.

If you've already donated, THANK YOU. You made me cry at work, and for once it had nothing to do with a boy, heartbreak, or my new car being smashed.

If you haven't yet donated, perhaps bypass your daily Blue Bottle addiction (I'll send you some Sanka...same stuff, right?) and donate that $4 to this campaign. Every single dollar helps.

If times are tight - which for so many of us, they are! - help this campaign by sending it to your friends and family. Post it to your Facebook wall. Tweet it out. Heck, walk over to your neighbor, hijack his computer and type in the URL. Basically, spread the word however you can. The more people that know about it, the closer we get to reaching our next goal...$10,000. We've got about $4200 to go, and if yesterday is any indication, I know we can do it.

So let's, shall we?

Oh, and before I forget, it's time to announce yesterday's Prize Winner! As I mentioned in the earlier post, I'm drawing a random winner each day for a variety of fabulous prizes. (If this was a Showcase Showdown, these prizes would be in the one where Rod Roddy would use his "A NEW CAR!" voice instead of the one where he announced the boring new bedroom set. Faux wood doesn't really inspire authentic excitement, after all.) So I took all of the people that donated (17 of 'em!), put them through a randomizer, and the winner is none other than: 

JESPER ANDERSEN! 

He wins an Apple Gift Card, and also the award for the best Tweet of the Day: 

Thanks, Jesper. You're rad. 

Thanks, everyone. You warm my heart. 

I try to drink eight glasses of water every day. "Stay hydrated," my Mom would tell me as I was growing up, and I groaned when she vetoed my glass of New Coke and replaced it with (bo-ring!) water. But I've always held myself to that standard without giving it much thought. And - admittedly - most days I fail. Yet those reasons are never once because of lack of access to clean water. Until recently, I never even considered that. Naive? Yes. Taking what I have for granted? RESOUNDING yes. So I was (over)due a wakeup call, and it came in the form of charity: water. 

I had heard about the organization from a few friends, and saw that they were getting involved through last year's Twestival. I checked out the site briefly, thought "Huh. That seems like a good cause" and promptly went about my day, doing all the things that one does and that 'good cause' faded into the back of my mind as the charity with the best-designed website and the praise of some of my friends on Twitter.

Then during SXSW last year, just mere weeks from throwing our annual Digg/Diggnation party at Stubbs, I was approached by the guys at Square who offered to use their devices to take donations, and they suggested charity:water as the recipient. Within hours, we jumped on a call, and everything was in place. I'd long been wanting to involve a charity into these events I was throwing, and this seemed like a great way to rally hundreds of people to benefit a good organization. Lane Wood, one of the fabulous crew at charity:water, got on stage to talk about the cause; we raised over $5000 that night in five and ten dollar increments. Enough to build a well to provide clean water for a village for twenty years. We helped.

But it wasn't until a few months ago when I attended a small gathering here in San Francisco and heard Scott Harrison, the founder of charity:water, speak about the organization he created, that it hit home. Learning how lack of clean water causes more deaths every year than ALL VIOLENT ACTS, INCLUDING WAR. Seeing the images of what water-borne diseases can cause. Hearing the stories. And learning how small donations can literally change lives.

So during this season, when many people begin their annual countdown to the holidays, I'm doing my own countdown: The Twelve Days of Giving. Every day, from Dec. 1-12th, we're taking donations for charity:water to help provide clean water to villages - hundreds! - of people in developing regions. Every penny that is donated goes directly to building a well in these areas. And to add a bit more of an incentive, I'm giving away a prize to someone who has donated that day, a very small way to say thanks for helping with this cause that is so important to me. Be sure to add your Twitter handle or email in the comments when you donate so I can get in touch with you to offer - at the very least - a note of gratitude.

Please join me during these Twelve Days of Giving. I'll be updating this site every day, not with depressing stats (ok, maybe a few IMPACTFUL points) but with insights, stories, images, and an update on our progress towards the goal of $5000. I can't do it without you...thanks for your help in changing people's lives.

- Aubrey