Scott Harrison: From Nightclub Promoter to Charity Water Founder
About This Episode
Scott Harrison shares his journey from a New York City nightclub promoter to founding Charity: Water, a non-profit that has raised over $750 million. He discusses applying entrepreneurial strategies like radical transparency, high-end branding, and the '100% model' to revolutionize traditional philanthropy.
Episode Description
Show Notes
- 03:20- Introduction to Scott
- 14:05- Working in Liberia
- 20:55- Start of Charity Water
- 28:20- Scott's approach to marketing charity
- 37:05- Michael Birch story
- 42:57- Cost of giving water for 1 person
- 48:20- Practice saying yes
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- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.
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- Additional episodes you might enjoy:
- #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits
- #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future
- #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto
- * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett
- #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates
- Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More
- How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More
Links
- *Charity Water
- *The Spring
- *Shaan's 35th Birthday donation
- * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.
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Check Out Sam's Stuff
- * Hampton
- * Ideation Bootcamp
- * Copy That
Check Out Shaan's Stuff
- * Power Writing Course
- * Daily Newsletter
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Key Takeaways
Implement a '100% Model' by separating operational overhead into a private bank account so public donations can go entirely to the project, eliminating donor cynicism.
Utilize 'Proof-of-Impact' by leveraging technology like GPS coordinates and photo documentation to show donors exactly where their money was spent.
Adopt the marketing philosophy of lifestyle brands like Nike or Apple, focusing on inspiration and overcoming adversity rather than using shame or guilt to solicit donations.