charity: water: Activating the Next Generation of Supporters
I built a customer-acquisition campaign to bring college students into charity: water as recurring donors. charity: water is a real nonprofit, but this was a capstone I developed through the Global Career Accelerator, not a live initiative for the organization. I owned the positioning and the full funnel, from organic social and influencer strategy to paid social and a campus ambassador program.
View the full project deck (PDF) →
The positioning
charity: water’s recurring program, The Spring, asks for an open-ended monthly gift, which feels out of reach on a student budget. I built the campaign around The Current, a $1-a-month program tied to a student-led movement, so giving reads as affordable, social and made for the activism-minded college audience I was trying to reach. That reframing sits at the top of the landing page and carries through every channel below.
Organic social
I built the Instagram presence at @jointhecurrent around three content pillars, each aimed at a different reason a student might give:
- Proof of Impact
Field stories, photos and the 100% model that show exactly where every dollar goes.
- The Current on Campus
Student voices and simple ways to start or join the movement at your school.
- Water, Explained
Quick, shareable facts on the global water crisis and why it matters to your generation.
Then I wrote a post for each pillar, keeping the copy short, hopeful and built around the $1-a-month ask:
- Proof of Impact
Ever wonder where your donation actually goes? With The Current, 100% of your gift funds a clean water project, and we show you the proof. Start giving $1 a month, link in bio. #charitywater
- The Current on Campus
Clean water, powered by students like you. The Current is a $1-a-month movement you can bring to your own campus. Tap the link in bio to join. #charitywater
- Water, Explained
696 million people still live without clean water. The good news: change can cost as little as $1 a month. Learn the facts and join The Current, link in bio. #charitywater
Influencer marketing
For influencer work I wrote the content guidelines first: a short, personal TikTok about why the creator gives to clean water, ending with an invite to join The Current for $1 a month. Each post had to show the creator on camera, real charity: water project footage, the $1-a-month ask and the @jointhecurrent handle on screen, in a tone that stays hopeful and genuine and focuses on the good a dollar can do. I then set the criteria I used to pick creators:
- Reaches the audience: a mostly US, Gen Z college following, ideally at activism-minded campuses.
- Fits the cause: posts about activism, sustainability, nonprofits or campus life, so clean water feels natural, not random.
- Authentic and engaged: a micro-influencer with roughly 10,000 to 100,000 followers, high engagement and real values, so the $1-a-month ask reads as a genuine recommendation rather than an ad.
Paid social
On the paid side I built an interest-based audience to introduce The Current to college students who do not know it yet and drive first-time sign-ups.
To make the spend work harder, I paired that with a retargeting audience of people who visited the landing page or engaged with a post but did not sign up. They already showed interest, so a simple reminder of the $1-a-month ask and the 100% model gives them a low-pressure reason to finish. Because they are already warm and cost little to reach again, they are the audience most likely to convert.
Campus activation
The last piece was a student ambassador program, modeled on how brands like Red Bull and Amazon Prime Student win students early and keep them for years. I proposed three on-campus activations to turn attention into sign-ups:
- A Walk for Water on the quad, where students carry jerry cans the distance many kids walk each day for water, then sign up for The Current right after.
- A pop-up refill and clean-water tasting station at club fairs and orientation, staffed by student ambassadors who explain the $1-a-month program.
- A $1 Challenge with student orgs and Greek life, where chapters compete to recruit the most monthly givers to The Current.
What I Learned
Building the campaign end to end taught me how a single idea, a $1-a-month gift, can hold a whole funnel together when the organic posts, the influencer brief, the paid targeting and the campus events all repeat it in their own way. The hardest and most useful part was writing for a specific audience: everything had to sound affordable and student-led, because that reframing was the entire reason the campaign could work.