My running gives running water? Really?
From swing-tag to tap. How the Janji story works
An interview with George McGraw, Founder and
Executive Director of DigDeep.
I’ve got
questions.
I’ve just
bought some great new running gear and I’ve got questions.
They’re not
about the fabrics. The fabrics are great. Not about the style – I love the fact
that they are different from most of the normal running brands who, on the
whole, follow a cycle of basic palette colors. Red this season, blue the next (which
also seem to cycle between the big brands).
No, my questions
are about what’s going on behind the shorts and tee-shirts? There’s some big promises being made and I
want to understand how they live up to them?
The swing-tags
on this Janji gear start the claims. Here’s the statement: “Provides
a year of drinking water in Tanzania.”
Nothing about moisture wicking, guaranteed performance improvements, or
how you can be ‘just like Mike’. OK, so
somehow I’ve just given a year’s drinking water to someone in a distant
country? Really? How does this all work? How exactly does my running give running water to
someone?
I went on a journey to find
out. Rather than
ask the Janji guys, I went to the end source: the supplier of the promise. George
McGraw is the founder and Executive Director of Dig Deep, a human rights
organisation focusing on bringing water to North America, where, much to my
surprise, nearly 2 million Americans who don’t have access to water.
George’s introduction to Janji was a classic
“friend of a friend” meet up. “I know
someone you should catch up with” was the line. With that meeting of Dave
Spandorfer and Mike Burnstein, the Janji founders, the connection began. “We
work with lots of social impact enterprises, says George, but the strongest ideas create niches for themselves.
Running is such a strong social good niche. Janji provides a unique way to do
that”.
The key
thing I wanted to know was how this promise from ‘swing-tag to tap’ works. George confirms that when I buy the tee shirt
Janji gives a portion to partner providers who deliver the water project in
specific countries. “It’s simple. Every time a purchase is made a portion of
the wholesale purchase price goes to our water project,” explains George. “The total project (that Janji is supporting
through DigDeep) costs US$400,000 which will serve at least 480 people for at
least 6 years.”
More specifically,
the DigDeep project is building a new water infrastructure. The project is broken down into construction of
a new 2000 feet “tremendously deep” well, a fill station, and a trucked water
program. Forget the old open ended concepts of a donation “giving water for
life”, this is specific and broken down to minute detail.
It makes so
much sense for Janji to exclusively support water projects. Running and water
are, of course, synonymous. Runners know
all about the importance of hydration.
At my last marathon water was everywhere, including coming from the
skies! Smiling volunteers hand out cups of water to keep me refreshed and the
water usage in a race alone would be enormous, but the tangible difference here
from your Janji purchase is that “you’ve
got a piece of the larger water project”. I think it is more important to
focus on this rather than getting hung up on specifics of dollars and cents. George puts it well, “it’s your gift and it’s giving someone a life that they could only
dream of before, and this gift is helping to fundamentally defend their human
rights. That’s your piece.”
Now I've
changed my thinking about this purchase from being ‘just another running tee shirt’
to thinking of as contributing a small
part of a bigger project, and one that is also changing lives. Of course, I haven’t forgotten that I also get
the benefit of the tee shirt for as long as I wear it.
Commenting
on Janji as a partner George affirmed their involvement: “One thing that I’m really proud of them for, they don’t mess around
with numbers. They wanted to be very confident about the water project. And
they were quite conservative in their messaging – the true impact of the
project will be at least 2 to 3 times that. Transparency is everything. It all
goes to the projects. We give really detailed reports.” “We’re excited to work with consumer goods
companies like Janji because they have the relationship and the conversation
with – in this case – the runner.”
George
signs off with an encouragement for anyone considering buying Janji gear: “You’re
going to buy yourself something high quality, responsibly made, and helping with
every step you take.”
From this … ……. to this?
Yes!
I had two
last questions. What’s this funny sounding word “ Janji” mean? I didn’t need
much of a search other than Google: “Promise”
in Malaysian, Indonesian and Phillipino.
Last
question then. This Janji swing tag doesn’t say “just do it”, or ‘athletes are
awesome’ or ‘reach for the stars’, it says “run for another”. What’s that all about?
This time the source is Janji’s own website:
“Our promise (“janji”) is to use the power of running to fight
the global water crisis.”
So there you go. I’ve checked it
with the main man and got the thumbs up.
Janji = promise. I can promise I’ll think differently about buying
running gear from now on.
Andrew McKenzie
April 2015
