WaterForward

Just as a heads up:

"Charity evaluator GiveWell published a review of charity: water in December 2012. Their overall conclusion was that charity: water "stands out from other organizations we have considered in some respects (such as conducting evaluations that include frank discussions of problems), but we remain uncertain about the humanitarian impact of their work and the relative effectiveness of their partner selection process."

http://www.givewell.org/international/charities/charity-wate...

Hmm, $40 million to 'benefit' 2.5 million water. That statistic doesn't exactly state if those 2.5 million now have access to clean water. However assuming that, then the charity can provide access to clean water for $16/person. Assuming furthermore that it'll cost the same amount to give water to the remaining 800 million people, it should cost about $12.8 billion to give access to clean water to everyone.

The total foreign aid per year is more than $100 billion, so using effective foreign aid access to water could be solved easily. Unfortunately, foreign aid is extremely inefficient.

I really despise this sort of tug-on-heart-strings, give-no-details-how-you'll-help charity marketing blitz.

Reading through this review it seems like this is a problem that extends far beyond their website. I would urge everyone to read the review before promoting this charity any further.

They want you to use email because they want to get your email address and opt you in to their email list. (Note that you opt-in by default unless you specifically choose to opt out.) The messages that go to the friends are a nice side benefit, but they're not really the point of the exercise.

A valid, working email address is very valuable to fundraisers, because they can then hit you up directly in future for additional donations. Can't do that if you tell people to go offline and call their friends.

This also answers the question elsewhere in this thread of "why not ask people to share it via Facebook/Twitter instead of email?" In those cases there's an intermediary (Facebook/Twitter) who can stop your marketing messages. So your email address is more valuable to them than, say, your Twitter handle.