What if every step you took could help someone gain access to clean water for life?
That’s the idea behind Well Aware’s inaugural H2gO Challenge, a campaign launched in April 2025 that brought together hundreds of participants to walk, run, and fundraise for clean water access in East Africa.
The initiative invited people to walk 30 miles over the course of a month, while raising awareness of the daily trek many women and girls make to collect water. But this campaign wasn’t just symbolic. It was an interactive, peer-to-peer initiative powered by CauseVox that raised awareness and created tangible change.
Meet Well Aware
Based in Austin, Texas, Well Aware has completed over 130 sustainable water projects, reaching more than 350,000 people in East Africa. Their approach extends beyond building wells. Each project supports lasting health, education, and economic development through local engagement.
From Shower Strike to the H2gO Challenge
If you’ve followed Well Aware, you might know them for their long-standing Shower Strike movement, where supporters commit to skipping showers until they meet their fundraising goals.
But in 2025, Well Aware decided to take a bold step in a new direction.
Enter the H2gO Challenge, a month-long, fully virtual event that invites supporters to walk in solidarity with East African women and girls, learn more about the water crisis, and raise funds for impactful solutions.
Unlike typical fundraising events, the H2gO Challenge was immersive and globally accessible. Participants logged miles and raised contributions through personalized pages built on CauseVox’s platform.
Participants could:
- Share their unique fundraising story and set personal goals
- Track mileage throughout the month
- Follow a visual journey through six of Well Aware’s partner communities
- Watch their efforts impact lives in real-time
Using CauseVox
From day one, Well Aware was able to count on CauseVox’s intuitive tools and team support to bring the challenge to life. With the platform’s drag-and-drop editor, they built an engaging campaign site without any coding.
By the end of April, the H2gO Challenge had raised over $200,000.
We recently sat down with the Well Aware team to dive deeper into what made the H2gO Challenge flourish.
A Campaign Site Designed for Impact: A Tour of the H2gO Challenge Platform
The success of the H2gO Challenge didn’t happen by accident. The campaign website, created entirely with CauseVox, served as the event’s digital hub. With intuitive navigation, customizable fundraising pages, and interactive storytelling, it kept supporters engaged and streamlined the entire giving experience.
Main Campaign Page
Using CauseVox’s drag-and-drop tools, Well Aware crafted a homepage that drew people in right away. A bold hero image, campaign tagline (“30 miles in her shoes”), and a clear call to action set the tone.
Well Aware’s H2gO challenge landing page
Additionally a live progress bar tracked:
- Total dollars raised
- People impacted
- Miles logged
Supporters could browse individual and team fundraisers, read donor messages, and explore the stories driving the campaign.
Well Aware’s features a carousel of powerful statistics on global water access and its impact on women and girls.
Rotating facts like: “2.2B people globally lack reliable access to safely managed drinking water.”
and “40% of those without an improved source of drinking water live in Sub-Sahara Africa.”
added depth and urgency to the experience.
Peer-to-Peer Page Design
Each person who signed up to participate in the challenge received a fully customizable fundraising page. Templates included a photo carousel, space for a personal appeal (such as “I’m traveling 30 miles this April to end the walk for water in East Africa.”), and a progress bar
Example of a personal fundraising page
Participants logged their activity directly on their page. As miles were added, a custom progress bar (created with CauseVox’s Bespoke services) showed a digital runner advancing through six Kenyan communities.
Digital journey through the six Kenyan communities
Each stop along the route unlocked stories and images, making the experience dynamic and inspiring.
One of the stops along the route showed that Kahuho Primary School now has clean water thanks to a new borehole well completed in 2024, impacting 5,000 people.
Pages also included a feed of donations with supporter messages.
Overall, the personal peer-to-peer fundraising pages empowered participants to share about Well Aware’s work, tell their story,and offer donors a clear view of their impact.
Multiple Site Pages
Well Aware expanded their H2gO Challenge site with multiple pages, each designed to guide and inform. Let’s take a look at each one.
Leaderboard
The Leaderboard featured two distinct sections: one highlighting top fundraisers and another recognizing participants with the most activities logged. Users could filter by individuals, teams, or organizations, and sort results by total dollars raised or percent of fundraising goal achieved. Real-time progress bars, a search-by-name function, and multi-page browsing made it easy to explore participants. Feedback from participants showed that they especially appreciated having both leaderboards available.
The “Most Activity Logged” board, on the other hand, showcased participant avatars, names, and detailed mileage tracked against goals. This intuitive layout made it easy for users to track their progress and stay motivated.
FAQs
The FAQs page provided clear answers to common questions about the challenge.
It covered topics such as how to participate, how to track activity, accessibility options, donation methods, international participation, and how donation matching worked.
Toolkit
The toolkit brought together all the essential resources for participants in one place. It included graphics, templates, water facts, fundraising tips, and impact materials, making it far easier to navigate than digging through a shared Google Drive.
About Well Aware
The About page provided more context about the organization and its mission to deliver sustainable clean water in East Africa.
It also linked to additional resources, including their water projects, team, technology, and new sanitation initiatives.
Automated Matching
During the campaign, Well Aware ran two matching gift periods, sponsored by corporate partnerships. With CauseVox, they were able to automate matching on the campaign page, instantly showcasing each doubled donation along with the matching sponsor’s name.
This transparency encouraged more giving. Donors were more likely to contribute when they saw their $20 gift could now help twice as many people.
Matching also helped fundraisers reach their goals faster while giving sponsors a real-time view of their support’s impact.
Sponsorship Opportunities
CauseVox made it easy to manage and feature corporate sponsors of all types. Well Aware set up appealing sponsorship packages and showcased sponsor logos prominently throughout the campaign site.
Some sponsors also created their own branded fundraising pages and invited employees to participate.
This internal engagement strategy worked! Most of the first-time fundraisers in this Well Aware campaign were employees who joined through their company’s team page.
CauseVox’s Partnership: Tools, Support, and Real People
To Well Aware, CauseVox was more than a platform. It was a reliable partner. As a small, mission-driven team, they needed intuitive tools, flexibility, and responsive support.
Dani Daspit, Well Aware’s Development Director, has led several peer-to-peer campaigns and chose CauseVox for the H2gO Challenge based on past success:
“Using CauseVox saves our team time and bandwidth. And as a small team, bandwidth is literally everything to us.”
With the drag-and-drop editor, they built a custom campaign site in under a day. Additionally, the custom progress bar became a highlight for many.
CauseVox didn’t just make the campaign easier to manage, it helped their fundraisers thrive too. Dani herself participated and surpassed her personal fundraising goal, topping her past record from Shower Strike.
Dani’s takeaway:
“Our team loves how much human contact we have with CauseVox. We are personable people and want to work with people like us. There are so many other platforms where you have to go through so many hoops to just talk to a real person.”
Results That Matter: Turning Miles into Impact
In just one month, participants moved, shared, and fundraised to support clean water access in East Africa.
Here’s what they achieved:
- Total Raised: $206,310.75
- People Provided with Clean Water: 10,315
- Miles Logged: 3,973.8
- Active Fundraisers: 198
Every mile and dollar made a lasting difference for thousands of people.
Ready to Run Your Own Peer-to-Peer Challenge?
Whether you’re planning a walk, run, or something entirely original, CauseVox helps you create a branded, supporter-driven campaign that raises more with less hassle.
