I'm challenging all of you to reach a $2000 goal. As an incentive I will get a water tattoo if you do!

Help me celebrate 26 rotations around the sun by donating $26 to this great organization!

Giving is great and all, but we are bombarded with crowd-funding and donation requests constantly. So why, aside from your deep abiding adoration of me (and that donating is easier than trying to pick out a present) should you donate to this? I decided to make a little challenge for all of you.

If you can manage to raise the $2000 goal I will make my way to the local tattoo parlor and get a water symbol tattoo.

Why water? Well charity: water answers that question really well I think: http://www.charitywater.org/whywater/

Water is an essential part of human existence, and clean water is necessary for any community to thrive. But it isn't the only thing we need. This year marks the beginning of a campaign I'm undertaking. Each year I will ask you to donate to a charity symbolizing one of the four elements. Each time we reach the set goal I will get that element tattooed on myself.

So what do you think? Are you up for the challenge?

Donate to my campaign for water today, and tomorrow you can see your contribution immortalized on my skin.

If you want to know what else your contribution does, charity: water has you covered. 100% of every dollar you raise will directly fund water project costs, helping people in need get access to clean water. And when the project you helped fund is complete, you and your donors will get a report like this: https://my.charitywater.org/p/myprojectsview?project_id=ET.GOH.Q4.09.048.213

Interested in doing more than donating? I am still accepting tattoo designs - let me know if you want to submit something!

Don't have $26? That's fine - help me spread the word by sharing this! Want to up the ante? consider donating your birthday: https://www.charitywater.org/birthdays/
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Want the whole story? Keep reading:

Inspired by charity: water's birthday pledge, and in an effort to magnify individual giving, I decided to pledge my 26th birthday to water.

As an incentive to get my family and friends to donate I decided to up the ante. I decided if we were able to leverage $2000 out of everyone I would get a water symbol tattooed somewhere on my body. Seems like a good incentive right? You make your pocketbook hurt a little & I’ll make my skin hurt a lot. All in the name of a good cause. So began my search for tattoo ideas.

While looking for a symbol that would be both meaningful and beautiful I noticed that most symbols came as part of a set of all four elements, and sometimes a fifth (love, spirit, soul etc). Well I’ve got lots of skin, it being the largest organ and all, and it just so happened that in 5 years would be my 30th birthday. How serendipitous.

So after a little thought (probably not as much, as such a decision might warrant) I decided that for my next 5 birthdays I would ask for donations to charities that symbolized or embodied each element, and to immortalize these contributions on myself.

My hope in this project is two fold: One is to activate and mobilize my community into thinking more about giving: why it is important, how it impacts them, and how to do it more effectively. Secondly I wish to inspire a deeper thought into what it means to give, and to inspire a younger generation into looking at giving differently. To encourage everyone to come up with creative ways to support, influence, donate, and propel causes that inspire them. To challenge my generation to step away from our parent’s & grandparent's idea of tithing or giving because we ‘must.’ But instead re-discover the joy of propelling our world into a happier, more perfect future.

Oh and a selfish number three- hopefully I will get some beautiful, meaningful body art in the process.

If I've inspired you please consider sharing my cause or donating to my current charity today!