This month, the bottled-water company Humankind Water beat out over 4,000 other products to reach the "top ten" in an American Idol-style contest run by Wal-Mart called Get on the Shelf. The contest pitted start-up companies and entrepreneurs against each other, as voters submitted a million votes in total to tell Wal-Mart which product they would like to see, as the title suggests, on the shelf of their local superstore.
Now, the top 10 products are competing against each other again, in a second round of voting that ended yesterday. The top three finalists will be carried on walmart.com, and the overall winner will also "get on the shelf" in select Wal-Mart stores.
Get on the Shelf is the first contest of its kind by a major retailer, according to The Wall Street Journal's Market Watch. It's also an opportunity, says Humankind Water founder T. J. Foltz, to help right one of the major wrongs in our world: the lack of clean drinking water.
We've seen the statistics so many times we've almost become immune, Foltz says. Some 10,000 children die every day from a lack of clean drinking water. Sitting on his couch one morning two years ago, praying, Foltz says he came up with an idea: launch a bottled-water company that gives 100 percent of its net profits toward clean water efforts around the globe.
Foltz's background isn't in business or marketing. "I've spent most of my adult life in youth ministry," Foltz says, although he's also worked for Scripture Union and the philanthropic adviser Geneva Global. And Foltz did not set out to make Humankind Water overtly Christian.
"We very intentionally did not put crosses and hallelujahs all over the bottle, because we wanted anybody with a heart for philanthropy to buy our water," Foltz notes. "At the same time, however, anybody who Googles 'T. J. Foltz' will find a youth speaker."
"There are areas of the world where people are literally dying for a drink," Foltz says. Meanwhile, the bottled water business is a multibillion-dollar industry—if some of those billions of dollars of profit could be moved to support clean water for those who don't have it, "we could virtually eliminate the clean-water crisis."
Clean water efforts ranked number 1 out of the 10 most cost-effective aid strategies, according to Christianity Today's February cover story. And Humankind Water is partnering with water relief organizations whose track record is already proven: Water Missions International, Ethiopian Rainwater Harvesting Association, Ugandan Water Project, Living Water International, and Blood:Water Mission.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK6L2gfi91U
The key is sustainability, Foltz says. As a part of that, "we don't dig our own wells," he says. "That's not our area of expertise. And not every area in need of clean water calls for the same solution." So Humankind Water instead gives money to relief organizations who know best how to handle the water crisis in their specific area.
"You don't have to dig a well in Haiti," Foltz says by way of example. Water is plentiful, and it's filthy—often little more than sewage. So the best course of action is to filter that water, not dig new wells. Humankind Water will donate 100 percent of its profits to other clean-water nonprofits, who in turn will do the on-the-ground work appropriate to specific areas in need of clean water.
Humankind Water saw their very first bottle of water in October of last year. Then in late January, a friend of Foltz's e-mailed him about Wal-Mart's Get on the Shelf contest. "Our entire marketing plan got put on hold, and we went all in on plans to try and win this competition," Foltz says. "Literally a half an hour after I got that e-mail, we were strategizing on how we could try and win this thing."
The irony of using Wal-Mart as a means to effect positive change isn't lost on Foltz. "Wal-Mart has a bit of a reputation for being ruthless," he says. "I don't think that selling water in Wal-Mart is a perfect vehicle. But I think it's one that will work." Why? Because 84 percent of Americans shop at Wal-Mart, according to the Pew Research Center. And the recent Wal-Mart bribery scandal notwithstanding, money spent on Humankind Water, no mater where it is spent, will directly impact efforts to provide clean water.
"I have no heartfelt affinity for Wal-Mart one way or the other," Foltz concludes. "But it's the biggest retailer in the world. There is no higher priority than saving children's lives, especially children who are dying needlessly. I'm not going to wait for [Wal-Mart] to be perfect, if we have an opportunity [now] to work toward the greater good."
"I don't feel like I need to be Wal-Mart's defender. What we're trying to do is we're trying to sell this product in the biggest outlet that we can, to make the most money we can, to save the most lives."
Watching the video on the Humankind Water website, Foltz's passion is evident. "If we win this contest," Foltz says, "and we save these tens of thousands of lives, that will multiply itself out. There will be generations, because of what we have done."
What do John Wayne, aliens, hobbits and Japanese anime have in common? They all caught my eye this week…
The Dude as The Duke
Sounds like True Grit is going to be remade. By the Coen Brothers. Staring Jeff “The Dude” Bridges. Need I say more!?
George Clooney Has a Great Fall
No, not that kind of fall. Clooney has two films coming out soon, Up in the Air and The Men Who Stare at Goats. The first, from Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking and Juno) is a story about a man who resists real human connection, and the second is a decidedly quirky look at the world of a psychic military regiment during the Iraq War. Up in the Air is getting such great buzz that it has been pushed up to a November release. Check out those trailers.
District 9’s Sharlto Copley May Have Been Offered A Role in the A-Team
I bring this up only to shake my head in amazement at how daydreams really can come true. Did you know who Copley was before District 9? Of course you didn’t. He was a non-actor and friend of the director who insisted Copley was right for the part. And now, suddenly, he is a star on the rise. It can’t be called a big break when you haven’t even been trying! Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you…
The Long Road for The Road
First the mixed reviews began pouring out of the festivals about this highly anticipated film, and now it appears Dimension Films will be pushing back the release date of The Road…again…to November 25th 2009, already one of the most crowded weekends on the fall calendar. Uh oh.
Lord of the Rings Lawsuit Settled
Not that it comes as a surprise, but the final hurdle has fallen away and The Hobbit is set to surge into production.
Getting Stoned
The New York Times had an interesting interview with Oliver Stone about his upcoming sequel to his wildly popular and prescient Wall Street. But can Stone capture lighting in a bottle twice? Many are saying Michael Moore’s new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, is already behind the economic times, so what will we make of another look at the financial sector which has figured so heavily into the economic news of the past year?
Akira to Become a Live-Action Movie
I just got back from Japan and had a conversation in which the idea of turning this very anime classic into a live-action film was discussed. It’ll never happen, was the consensus. Don’t tell that to the screenwriters behind Children of Men!
Rambo…Again
I don’t know what’s worse: that they are making another Rambo or that it’s going to be sci-fi (warning: bad language at this link) …
