More than 2 billion people across the world lack access to safe drinking water. And roughly 3 billion people don’t have access to hand-washing facilities with soap.

Those stark figures inspired industry philanthropy group PromoCares to launch its latest fundraising campaign to coincide with World Water Day. The Water4Good event launches on March 22 and runs through June 30, with the goal of raising enough money to purchase one to three water towers to be constructed in disadvantaged schools and communities in Mexico, with the help of the nonprofit Planet Water Foundation. Each water tower costs $20,000 to build, which also includes community education.  

“Every person’s right to clean water, better health and hygiene is not political, not debatable,” said Scott Pearson, a PromoCares board member.

Pearson started working with Planet Water through his consumer brand Xact, a B Corp that has committed a minimum of 2% of funds to go to the nonprofit. In the last four years, Pearson says, his company has raised enough money to build five water towers, providing 10.5 million liters of clean water to around 3,500 people in India, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Providing clean water is an ideal giveback for the promotional products industry, Pearson added. “This industry as a whole, we pull many, many resources out of many countries,” he said. “One of the things we’re driving is if we’re pulling resources out of a country, we feel that the industry should also be putting resources back into a country.”

The Water4Good event will bring attention, education and action to the global water crisis. Contributors will be able to create teams through tiered sponsorship levels with 100% of funds going directly to the Planet Water Foundation. For each level, contributors will receive perks, whether it’s getting their name on a water tower, an opportunity to help build one of the towers or branded merch. PromoCares says its secondary goal with this event is to create teams that include distributors, suppliers and service providers to strengthen relationships throughout the industry.

Planet Water says it’s looking forward to partnering with PromoCares on the initiative. “With a pressing need for clean water access in the region, each AquaTower project will support up to 1,800 students and community members with access to clean, safe water,” said John Deotrakul, director of global communications and development at the Planet Water Foundation. “The AquaTower also provides the recipient school with handwashing facilities and is deployed together with a comprehensive water health and hygiene education program to help raise awareness of healthy hygiene habits.”

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