Akvo doesn’t fundraise to consumers directly – we create web and mobile tools, and build networks of partners that can harness these tools to reduce poverty. To date, we’ve focused on promoting our big vision to more progressive NGOs and funders through our poster visuals.

Yet for some time, we’ve wanted to create a short trailer or animation – something we can show to kids or grandma – indeed something I can show to my mum – and they’ll get what we do right away. It should be something that teachers can share with kids in campaigns like Walking for Water. So after several faltering starts, we’ve finally got our first video trailer.

Bring it on…

Inspired by their work to promote Live Earth in the Netherlands, we commissioned Amsterdam-based Upstream Advertising to create this short animation. Upstream develops video material for leading global consumer brands.

Where it goes / develops from here depends on everyone’s feedback. Tell us what you think. Do please share the trailer with anyone you think will be interested.

Mark Charmer is a co-founder of Akvo and directs its communications.

A great highlight of Sunday’s Live Earth was the high profile our Dutch media partner Veronica TV gave us at the event in Amsterdam. The coverage, a 35 minute programme broadcast in the Sunday early evening prime-time slot just before the football, when noone has much else to do, left us all cheering, as we watched it inside Bar Hesp on the Amstel Canal.

Watch it here, or by clicking on the image below.

The programme’s in Dutch, but even non-Dutch speakers should get the picture of what’s happening. It’s got it all – great Dutch celebrities, fun / glamorous interviewers, footage from last month’s Walking for Water, interviews with kids, lots of buzz about the Prince of Orange, a comedy scare at the finish line, and a load of demonstrations of low-cost water technologies in the centre of the stadium. The Akvo profile is high – there are interviews with Mark Westra (definitely our own hero of the day), and with Peter van der Linde and Jeroen van der Sommen (our chairman).

It goes without saying that this wouldn’t have happened without the talented guys at Upstream Advertising, including Henk and Dimitri, who turned Live Earth Amsterdam from a possibility into a really successful day. Thanks guys.

Here are some more pictures from the first part of Sunday, when the TV crews were around – before we knew just how many people would turn out to run. (Click on the collage below to view the full set)

Update 23 April 2010: There’s another great photoset from our friends at UNESCO-IHE here, too, with greater emphasis on the run itself (when I was running, not taking pics!).

Mark Charmer is a co-founder of Akvo.

*** Update at 8:40am Sunday – This morning we were informed that the Prince cannot now reach Poland due to the ash cloud over Europe, so will now come to the run after all ***. Last month the Prince of Orange’s office announced he would be participating tomorrow (Sunday) in the Live Earth Run for Water in Amsterdam. Unfortunately we heard this week that he must attend the funeral of the Polish president Lech Kaczyński, scheduled for the same day.

His office kindly sent Peter a statement in Dutch earlier today, which we thought we’d share with everyone:

“Komende zondag zullen wereldwijd mensen samenkomen om 6 kilometer te rennen voor veilig drinkwater. Als voorzitter van de VN Adviesraad voor Water en Sanitatie wil ik graag iedereen oproepen om deel te nemen en een succesvolle dag toewensen. Het belang van veilig drinkwater, dat dit evenement nastreeft, heeft mijn volle steun.”

A loose and unofficial translation (by Peter) into English is as follows:

“This coming Sunday people across the globe will come together to run 6 kilometres for safe drinking water. As chairman of the UN advisory panel on water and sanitation I would like to encourage everybody to participate and enjoy the day. This event stresses the importance of clean drinking water, which has my full support.”

It’s really great to hear this. Every Live Earth event around the world – and it looks like there will be at least 180 cities – is raising money for Akvo projects, so it will be an exciting day.

In particular, we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible tomorrow morning at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. We gather at 11am, and start running at midday. Here’s the lowdown on what’s happening. The weather forecast looks great right now. See you there.

Related reading: The Prince of Orange describes Akvo to the press (18 April 2008 – exactly two years ago, to the day).

Words can’t describe how cool the venue for this Sunday’s Live Earth Run for Water is, in Amsterdam. So I thought I’d share some pics.

I spent time there yesterday afternoon in the sunshine with Peter van der Linde and Anna Norén. Anna’s come up from Barcelona to help with public relations at the event. She’s the person that big UN conferences call up when they need a hotshot PR. I’m really glad she can be here with us this week.

Click below on the collage to check out the pictures.

Here I interview Peter at the stadium about what will be happening on the day.

Come and see us on Sunday. We’re gathering at 11am – with the run (or walk!) starting at 12 noon. Come and say hi or DM me at @charmermark and join the after-party, too. Which is done by Upstream Advertising (so I bet it’ll be good).

Mark Charmer is co-founder of Akvo.

It’s busy here in Amsterdam as we enter the final days before Live Earth. Read on for a quick low-down on what’s going on, for friends and media who want to pick up the story. Get in touch if you need more info, or want to join us on the day.

Photo: Anna Norén and Peter van der Linde of Akvo check out the 1928 Olympic Stadium – the venue for Sunday’s Live Earth Run for Water, in Amsterdam.

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It was my great honour yesterday to walk with Dutch schoolchildren, who were raising awareness of global water issues and raising hard cash to fund water and sanitation projects through Akvo.

I was with Luuk in Eindhoven, home of Philips (and the compact disc!). Peter and Kathelyne were at Katwijk, on the Dutch coast. Mark Westra was in the Eastern city of Arnhem.

We’ve described the format of Walking for Water already, and the organisations behind it (it’s led by Aqua for All). It’s a concept that Live Earth is now helping us extend globally.

You can see the projects that the kids were funding here on the Walking for Water Project page, in Akvo.

The video below gives a sense of what the Katwijk walk was like.

Spending time with kids always fascinates me – they’re clear cut, unladen with the sentimentality that adults have towards poverty and development. They’re not interested in symbolism and really can’t be fed propaganda like adult campaigners can – they’ll do it their way. Luuk and I had huge fun walking with the 35-strong Eindhoven Internationale School, led by the wonderful Fiona Knol. One of nine schools on the Eindhoven walk, her kids were great – they’d raised more than €1,500. This was to be tripled by corporate and institutional funders. Overall, the Eindhoven event alone raised more than €25,000.

Here Luuk and I talk with the kids to find our how they raised money (click on the image below or this link to see the video).

I also had the chance to meet Agnes Ovington, who was organising her 8th Walking for Water event. Eindhoven is where Walking for Water started out, and here I talk to Agnes about why the concept is so powerful (again click on the picture below).

You can see my Flickr photoset from the Eindhoven walk by clicking on the collage below. There’s also a great photoset by Mark Westra of Arnhem here, images by Peter from Katwijk here, and Kathelyne’s pictures from the same event here..

We’ll do a wrap-up blog to set out what was raised where, next week, along with further interviews with people involved, to help organisers elsewhere in the world harness this really powerful, really fun way to educate kids and raise money for water and sanitation projects.

Update: On Thursday night, it was announced that the Dutch walks were on track to raise €1.2 million ($1.6 million) in total.

Mark Charmer is co-founder of Akvo.

Updated 29 March 2010: Added link to Kathelyne van den Berg’s photos.

Computers are meant to make our lives easier. As Thomas Bjelkeman reminded me recently, “Mark, the aim is to get the computers to do the work, so you don’t have to.”

Akvo makes it easy to structure large numbers of development projects online in a visual, friendly manner, that until now would have cost the partnership, marketing and web teams at a typical NGO a lot of time and money to design, build, populate and maintain with information. Using Akvo, every project can be listed in one place, and specific or sample projects, or sublistings, can be featured in many others.

Witness the launch, today, of the Walking for Water landing page. Walking for Water is a great campaign where school kids learn about the issues facing many of the world’s poorest people, who lack access to clean water – here’s the background. Next month, tens of thousands of kids will walk 6 km with 6 litres of water on their backs, raising money from friends and family, to fund real-life water projects in the developing world. Now in its 9th year, it’s a huge success story. Last year’s campaign, in the Netherlands alone, saw 18,000 kids from 380 schools raise €1m for water projects, at fairly low organising costs.

Putting all projects online, in one place

Akvo has made it possible for the campaign to feature, for the first time, all the projects that Walking for Water will support, online, in a really flexible way. All of the projects get entered once, in Akvo.org, using the simplified partner admin pages we’ve built.

Here are some stats (as of today, Friday 12 March 2010):

22 projects.

12 countries, all in developing nations, all in rural or slum areas.

Project sizes vary between €2,400 and €397,287.

33 project partners involved.

€970k total project value (and rising)

This is the second introduction of a campaign-specific landing page – the first, in October, was Live Earth. Akvo landing pages are one of the ways we’re evolving our system to fit really comfortably with a campaign partner’s existing branding, while they gain the benefits of our carefully designed online tools.

It adds a top level, super-smart way to front a multi-project campaign. Normally projects are also then featured online elsewhere on the organisation’s website – so right now there’s a listing on the main Walking for Water website, and it’s easy to embed banner ad-style “widgets” on other sites, such as here and here. These latter examples are important – we’re creating ways for individuals and small foundations to feature projects online really easily.

It could go further. Schools (or indeed the kids themselves) can even ‘embed’ widgets on their own blogs, if they have one, by choosing a project and then clicking “get a widget”. As updates to the projects happen, either in the field or from the fundraising side, all instances of the project online also get updated automatically.

See it happen – every project, in every location

By using the Akvo.org system, Aqua for All is helping the kids see the actual project they’re funding – not just a few samples. 2010′s ten-year olds have completely different expectations of development projects and expect far more in terms of images, maps and status updates than kids did even five years ago. This is about instigating direct connections to real places and real people.

It’s going to be really interesting to see what kind of dynamic is triggered between schoolkids and the projects. We’ll be able to follow that progress over the coming months, right here.

Making it easier to get every project online, looking good, in a format that can be easily updated and expanded is a central goal for us. Featuring all projects online, every one of which is enabled to share and serve photo and text updates directly from the field, is something that’s only now becoming possible, practical and affordable for NGOs and campaigners. It’s great to have been involved in making this happen for Walking for Water.

Mark Charmer is a co-founder of Akvo. He’s based in London.

Related reading: Nicholas Kristof’s Advice for Saving the World (interesting piece on the power of direct person-to-person storytelling).

Walking for Water is a fundraising and awareness-raising concept where school children aged 10-13 walk 6 kilometres, carrying 6 litres of water in a backpack. This event is held during the week of World Water Day March 22nd. Funds are raised by the kids themselves, mainly as donations from friends and family. It’s a perfect community initiative to build excitement and engage our youngest generation in the month immediately before Live Earth’s global Run for Water. Here you can see how Live Earth is promoting the concept on their website

The money raised is used to finance water projects in developing countries. As a preparation for the walk, teachers and guest lecturers educate the children about the importance of clean water and adequate sanitation in developing countries. The March 2009 event raised one million Euro for international water development projects, with low organizational costs.

The concept of Walking for Water was pioneered in the Netherlands by NGO Aqua for All, and has grown in popularity every year since it started 8 years ago. From just a few hundred children walking at the first event, 2009 saw 18,000 children from 380 schools walk for water. A Dutch child typically raises about 30 Euro through the programme. This really adds up. Dutch kids raised over half a million Euro in funds in 2009, which was then matched by a Dutch development fund, to total over 1m Euro. In 2010, 30,000 children from 640 Dutch schools are expected to participate.

Watch this video to get a flavor of the 2009 Dutch event.

Bringing projects to life online

Ten-year old children have completely different expectations of development projects and expect to be able to see and follow what they’re funding online. Walking for Water is now using internet tools to engage kids at this new level. Now, projects that are funded are chosen from organizations which can share progress during the implementation phase, such as Akvo. Akvo provides a wide choice of water and sanitation projects, and shares project progress online direct from the field teams concerned, using short text updates, photos, and video. Children can follow their projects online, for example this one: Toilets and Water for Dumja.

  

The money raised by Walking for Water is used to implement low cost water and sanitation solutions in developing countries such as the ceramic water filter shown above.

Open, easy, out-of-the-box concept, designed to be repeated by schools anywhere.

Aqua for All has now opened up Walking for Water as a concept that can be replicated and improved upon by any organization around the world who wants to host their own Walking for Water event – to raise awareness on water issues in developing countries, and to raise funds for water projects. Groups such as NGOs, municipalities, churches or Rotary Clubs can function as a ‘Support Center’, and use the concept to organize Walking for Water events for one or more schools. The money raised can be used to fund your own project or you can choose one of the projects in Akvo. Here you can read more on how to get involved. Aqua for All and Akvo have prepared guides that describe how to organize a Walking for Water event. Three guides are available: one for support centers, one for schools, and one for guest lecturers. Enjoy organizing you own Walking for Water event!

In 2010, schools around the world can join Walking for Water and through Live Earth this concept can become a worldwide phenomenon. The most important characteristics of the Walking for Water concept are:

• Walking for Water is a sponsored walk for children typically aged 10 to 13 years.

• The Walking for Water events are held during the week of World Water Day (March 22nd) and create a perfect awareness raising event to help frame and promote Live Earth’s Run for Water events on April 18th, 2010.

• Children walk 6 kilometres with 6 litres of water in their backpack (the average distance children and women in developing countries walk each day to fetch water).

• A guest lesson is given at the school by a water professional, or a representative of the support organization. An important goal of Walking for Water is to raise awareness amongst the children concerning the importance of clean water and adequate sanitation in developing countries.

• Family and friends sponsor the child’s walk. The collected funds are used to finance a water or sanitation project in a developing country. Organizations can choose a project of their own, or can choose a project from www.akvo.org.

• For more information contact Marieke Roekx (Aqua for All) or Kathelyne van den Berg (Akvo)