New Partnership Helps Owners, Employees, and Clients Do Good Together

Co.tribute and Lifewater make corporate responsibility personal — and it’s better for business.

Co.tribute, an employee engagement platform, and Lifewater, a non-profit providing water and sanitation in Africa and Asia, have partnered to help connect businesses with communities in need around the world. The Co.tribute platform allows employees and clients to direct funds to campaigns with selected non-profit partners through the employer’s account. Through Lifewater, participants will be helping children and families get safe water and sanitation at their home and school.

Co.tribute allows employees, companies, and their clients to engage deeply and experience the real-time impact of charitable giving. Studies show that both employees and consumers are more loyal to companies that are engaged in charitable giving. Employees are more likely to stay at a job where they are engaged, and consumers are more likely to switch and stick to a brand associate with a good cause. When employees and consumers are engaged with a company, retention, productivity, and profits increase.

“I think business can be done better,” says Brett Skinner, Co.tribute’s Senior Director of Impact Partnerships. “I have friends going from job to job, looking for more purpose in what they do. Co.tribute is meeting a market need to help businesses become more profitable while helping employees feel like their work is making a difference in people’s lives.”

Through the corporate account, employees can choose causes to support with the company’s charitable funds, secure matching funds, or contribute their own money to the causes. Skinner reports that Lifewater was selected as a non-profit partner because of its focus on deep impact and accountability, demonstrating a real passion for serving people around the world in a profound, lasting way. “We only choose partners that we can personally get behind, and we’re passionate about the work Lifewater is doing,” he says.

Through partnership with Lifewater, companies open the door for employees to make a difference for vulnerable children and families living without safe water and sanitation. Worldwide, 748 million people do not have safe water and 2.5 billion do not have improved sanitation, a situation that perpetuates the cycle of poverty and disease. Since 1977, Lifewater has helped communities end preventable water-borne disease through improved water, sanitation, and hygiene, serving over 50,000 last year alone.

“Co.tribute’s model is a powerful engine for change in workplaces and around the world,” says Lifewater President/CEO Justin Narducci. “It’s harnessing the converging interests of businesses, employees, and consumers to make a lasting and measurable impact in the lives of others. Providing water and sanitation to families is the first, and perhaps biggest, step out of poverty.”

Lifewater uses funds raised through Co.tribute to support water points and latrines in communities and schools in southern Ethiopia, where droughts are frequent and high rates of child mortality persist because of the unavailability of safe water and sanitation.

Co.tribute offers its platform to corporate clients for no costs or fees. Thought its focus is on global impact, Co.tribute is working with regional non-profit partners to allow employees to connect with local volunteer opportunities through the platform as well.

Lifewater International is a non-profit Christian water development organization dedicated to effectively serving vulnerable children and families by partnering with underserved communities to overcome water poverty. With experience in more than 40 countries since 1977, Lifewater serves people of all faiths, focusing on contextually appropriate water sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) development. For more information, contact Christine Zurbach (czurbach@lifewater.org) or visit www.lifewater.org. Lifewater International is based in San Luis Obispo, CA.