In September 2006, Charity:Water founder Scott Harrison threw a party to celebrate his birthday and the launch of his new nonprofit. He charged his guests $20 and raised $15,000 for clean water projects. Since then,17,000 people have celebrated their birthdays with Harrison, raising nearly $9 million through the organization’s birthday campaign. The concept has caught on, and many hosts are now forgoing gifts and donating party proceeds to other charities as well.
Another group that’s helping the cause is New York-based nonprofit Msterio, which provides blank dolls to parents, organizations, and schools for kids to decorate at birthday parties and events (a pack of five dolls costs $75). Once decorated, the dolls are sent back and then onto the next party location, eventually ending up in the hands of children in need. The kids can track their doll’s travels on the group’s website. “I always had a passion about connecting people,” says founder Nozomi Terao. “How can we help those children who want to travel? We came up with the idea of creating dolls so the dolls could travel to carry their own special messages.”
