1. What can $2 do?

2. How can I thank and honor clients and friends of Pistachio Consulting this year?

3. What do I want most of all for Christmas?

Well Wishes.

I want to make a big difference. To save kids lives. It’s a tough year though. I don’t want to ask much of any one person. I realized just $2 from each of my Twitter readers would be $25,000. If everyone who reads this – YOU – gives just $2,Charity: Water can build an entire water project for a school or hospital in Africa.

Betaworks and Tipjoy liked my idea and will 1) waive ALL fees for their “micropayments via Twitter” tool, and 2) match up to $10,000. Twitterers can donate NOW using this widget:

Fill in your Twitter username and password. Click “give & tweet.” Then click “Pay” to fund your tipjoy account ($5 minimum, you can pay anyone on Twitter with it). Or tweet

p $2 @wellwishes for (your message here) via @tipjoy

and then set up your account at TipJoy. The $10,000 match is on the @TipJoy donations only, so PLEASE give it a try. Follow our TipJoy progress here. You fund your @tipjoy account with a simple PayPal transfer, $5 minimum, and can tip anyone at all with your balance.

or donate via PayPal or Credit Card to our page on the Charity: Water site. (Charity: Water has asked for a $10 minimum due to their fees).

When else can you make SUCH a difference for just $2? Are you in? Can you spread the word? Can this become a new way of “many hands/light work” using new tools and communities?

C L E A N W A T E R

Last year I returned from India with dysentery. I was easily cured. But I’d seen so many kids living in squalor there, and I learned that for impoverished kids (like baby beggar whose insistent touch demolished my resolve the night I shot this) diarrhea can be a death sentence. 5,000 kids die EVERY DAY for a lack of clean drinking water.

Today 5,000 children will die of totally treatable illness because they lack clean drinking water. Tomorrow, 5,000 more will die. and the next day… and… That’s 35,000 children between now and Christmas. Yeah.

Safe water is a fixable problem touching MANY important issues:

children’s health and welfare

women’s rights

environmental degradation

international development in impoverished nations

equitable access to education

Unsafe water ruins health and opportunity and leads to military and economic conflict. Children suffer worst. Infant mortality is severe. Girls are kept from school to carry water for their families. Women suffer violent attacks and rape at remote water sources. Thousands of children, 90% of them under 5 years old, die from related infections. Every day.

These videos from Charity:Water provide even more answers: why water?

W H A T C A N W E D O W I T H $2?

Though I’m asking YOU to donate, this project is my holiday token of thanks FOR YOU. Backwards, HUH? I could just donate to thank Pistachio’s clients, blog readers and Twitter friends. In honor of all of YOU.

But my donation alone isn’t enough to make a difference. We need leverage. We need you. We need $2.

Give because my tweets make you laugh or think. Give for the holidays. Give because I’m tilting at windmills again. Give a re-tweet or a blog post. Give me lip about this insane idea. Just. Take. Part?

From this moment until midnight on Christmas Day, EVERYONE who reads this, PLEASE chip in $2 and spread the word. I’ll personally donate 1% of the total no matter how high this goes (at least $250).

H O W ?

You can use Tipjoy to donate AND spread the word right on Twitter.

OR

Direct: You can donate ANY amount via credit card or PayPal right at the Charity: Water site.

I’d be so incredibly stoked to see 12,500 tiny donations from all over the web come together to make my Well Wishes dream come true… It just takes $2. Won’t you?

W H Y C H A R I T Y : W A T E R

Charity: Water allocates 100% of donations to its projects and oversees each one. We’ll get to see the fruits of our effort directly. Our fundraising page at their site is here. Also,please watch and share some of these incredible videos.

W H Y T I P J O Y ?

I Twitter-researched our options. Tipjoy stood out for: 1) for tiny donations 2)contributions right on Twitter. With an account you can pay anyone with a Tweet. 3) They are matching $10,000 of your @tipjoy donations!!! You do it with the widget above, or just by tweeting:

p$2 @wellwishes to build wells and save children’s lives (via @tipjoy)

Then you set up and fund ($5 minimum, but spend it anywhere) a TipJoy account.

I’ve personally met John Borthwick of Betaworks and Ivan Kirigin of Tipjoy. Both responded to my Twitter question out and, err, tipped the scales by waiving their fee AND promising to match $10k worth of donations dollar-for-dollar. Thanks to Betaworks and Tipjoy, this could mean $35k – nearly TWO entire water projects – for Charity: Water.

Betaworks is a well-known and reputable incubator in New York, and John is an early investor in Twitter, Summize, Bit.ly and many other startups. Your credentials are safe. This is highly legit.