When Alyssa Milano decided to raise money for charity: water instead of receiving birthday gifts this year, she set what she thought was a lofty goal: $25,000.
Charity: water — an organization dedicated to bringing life’s most basic necessity, clean drinking water, to people in need all over the globe — made it easy for her. They allowed Milano to set up a web page where friends, family and fans could donate to the cause with a few simple clicks in celebration of the former Charmed star’s 37th birthday.
Then, something magic happened: Last week, Milano alerted her nearly 500,000 Twitter fans to her goal, and those Twitter fans came out. In droves.
"My first goal was $25,000," Milano recalls. "We reached that in five hours."
Tearful and overwhelmed, Milano raised her goal to $50,000 — and Tweeted again.
Six days later, that goal was reached.
"So I thought, ‘I’m gonna go for $75,000!’" she says with an audible thrill. "And $75,000, that’s [enough to put clean water in] 15 communities. That’s 750 families that we can give clean water to. Like, 4,000 people."
With three days to go before her Dec. 19 birthday, she’s already well on her way: As this story was written, Milano had raised close to $62,000. (And the campaign will continue for a full week beyond her actual birthday.)
"It’s been really overwhelming, and really a great lesson in people’s generosity," Milano tells Tonic. "Sometimes we forget that people have kindness in their heart and that they’re generous."
Using new technology to spread the word simply made her task a little easier.
"I have almost half a million [Twitter] followers," she notes. "The amazing thing that happens is if you Tweet about something, and your followers re-Tweet it, you’re creating this cyclical chain of information that’s just unbelievable — and this campaign has proved the power that Twittter has. It’s really amazing."
The rest of her fund-raising success, she says, has a lot to do with charity: water itself, an organization held its fourth annual star-studded charity: ball Monday night, bringing clean drinking water to more than a million people.
"Somehow they’ve made it, for lack of a better word, sexy to donate for clean water and sanitation, where that was always a really hard thing to raise money for," says Milano, who worked as an ambassador for UNICEF starting in 2003, sometimes finding it difficult to get people involved.
"Charity: water has made it easy for people to give and raised awareness for how important it is for people to have clean water," she says.
For someone who started her acting career as a youngster on Who’s The Boss, has enjoyed a long career in Hollywood, and is now busy celebrating life as a newlywed (Milano married Hollywood Agent David Bugliari this past August), "giving up" her 37th birthday in order to help others really didn’t seem like much of a sacrifice at all.
"I have the things that I need," she says. "I don’t need anything else. If we could do something that’s a collaboration not only with my friends and family and business associates, but also give my fans an opportunity to give back?" To her, the answer came easy. "The thing that I feel is that, innately, everyone wants to give, but sometimes they don’t know how. If you make it easy for them and show them the way, they’re going to give."
The proof is in the pudding. Or, rather, the Tweeting. "It’s a lot of money, very quickly. I’m totally overwhelmed," Milano admits.
But she’s also determined to hit the high bar of her $75,000 goal. "I’ve been relentless!" she says with a laugh. "I send out emails every day. People probably think I’m a little crazy."
"That’s okay," she adds, suggesting a much better word for her passion: "I’m tenacious."
To Donate to Alyssa Milano’s charity:water campaign, CLICK HERE.
Photos of Milano in Angola (2004) courtesy Alyssa Milano
By Mark Dagostino for Tonic.com
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