How giveWater works

You search the internet using givewater.com

Paid search ads generate income for giveWater.

giveWater distributes a portion of our profits from those ads to our charitable partners.

Our charitable partners use the donated funds to provide clean water and sanitation.

giveWater was started by Michael Feeley after reading Thirst and then unexpectedly meeting its author – Scott Harrison, the founder of charity: water, while taking a tour of their NYC offices. His book, seeing their offices and meeting Scott inspired Michael to want to do more.

Michael has spent his 20 year career in the search and digital advertising space and decided to combine his passion for both, search and charity into giveWater as a way to donate more funds to the various water organizations that aim to tackle this important problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does giveWater make money?

Like all commercial search engines, our charitable search engine makes money when a user searches and then clicks on a paid search ad. The search provider then shares a portion of the click revenue with us. We when give a portion of the profit from all our aggregate clicks to our charity partners.

Should I click on a bunch of search ads to help out?

No!!! Please only click on listings that you are generally interested in as a result of your search query. Multiple non-interest clicks can actually harm our business.

Is Givewater.com a non-profit?

No. We are an LLC. We share the Toms Shoes philosophy that for profit or “social enterprises” companies can do more good by operating as a for profit company. We currently donate a portion of our profits to our partners. We do our best to minimize expenses to maximize our giving.

What are giveWater’s primary expenses?

Our primary expenses are web hosting the homepage and corresponding information pages. We offload our SERP (search engine results page) to our search provider to avoid the majority of data and tech costs. We also advertise giveWater on the various social networks and Google in an effort to get exposure and increase users switching their default search engine to giveWater.com.

How much does giveWater provide to its charitable partners?

Like all businesses it depends on the month on our various expenses for that month. We do plan on publishing our monthly contributions in the near future.

How does giveWater calculate the amount of money it takes to provide clean water to someone for a year?

Based on a research study funded by Bill Gates, indicating the average cost per person for ongoing water is $3-6 per person, we have elected a $5 cost as a simple average as recommended by one of our charitable partners.