Global Marathon Aims to Raise Billions for Clean Water

Inspiration, in the form of joggers, zipped past Jin Zidell as he strolled by a lake near his home

in Kentfield, Calif., a few years ago. “The idea of running around the world for safe drinking water flashed into my mind,” says Mr. Zidell.

A retired businessman who says his idea of a big run is from “the bedroom to the bathroom,” Mr. Zidell would seem to be an unlikely catalyst for such an event.

Still, last month in New York, 20 runners, ranging in age from 23 to 60 and representing 13 nationalities completed his inaugural Blue Planet Run. The 96-day marathon circled the Northern Hemisphere to raise awareness of and donations for projects to help the estimated one billion people worldwide that the World Health Organization, in Geneva, says lack clean water.

Mr. Zidell, who made his fortune in scrap metal, real estate, and other businesses, says he has poured $7-million, half his net worth, into the Blue Planet Run Foundation, in Mill Valley, Calif., which oversees the global event, scheduled to occur every other year.

The group has so far distributed $1-million in grants to 135 water projects overseas run by nonprofit groups, including WaterAid America, in New York, and Water for People, in Denver.

The foundation’s goal is to help 200 million people get permanent access to clean water by 2027. Mr. Zidell says he will have to raise $8.5-billion to accomplish it.

“We will make it,” says Mr. Zidell, despite the fact he will be 89 years old by then. “People say to me, ‘Jin, no one has raised $8.5-billion.’ But no one thought we would do a run around the world.”

Corporate Gift

The group has already reeled in a major donor: The Dow Chemical Company, in Midland, Mich., spent “many millions” to help pay for much of the inaugural run, and also spent “a multiple of that” publicizing the event, says Mr. Zidell.

“We felt they had a big, bold mission that was going to deliver something needed: advocacy and awareness for the water issue,” says Bo Miller, the head of Dow Chemical’s foundation, who declined to specify the size of the gift. “And they created a captivating vehicle to do that.” Two Dow employees also participated in the Blue Planet Run.

Among other large gifts: The group received $100,000 from the Marigowda Nagaraju, M.D. & Renuka Nagaraju Charitable Family Foundation, in Troy, Mich., and $40,000 from the Kwyjibo Charitable Foundation, in Los Angeles, whose founder, Matthew Klein, served on the board of an environmental group with Mr. Zidell.

The Nagaraju family foundation, which supports water and education projects in southern India, made its grant to the Blue Planet Run Foundation in support of Sunila Jayaraj, an Indian-born runner who participated in the global run and is now studying for his doctorate in water-management resources from Eastern Michigan University, in Ypsilanti.

A book about the water crisis, with images from the run, is scheduled to be published in November. The actor and environmental activist Robert Redford wrote the introduction, and the book will include donation slips for Blue Planet.

“My hope for the book is it will do for the water sector what [the movie] An Inconvenient Truth did for the climate-change sector,” says Mr. Zidell.

The group could earn additional revenue, he says, because several media companies have expressed interest in airing some of the 500 hours of videotape from the run.

‘A Big Splash’

While many charity leaders agree that more attention should focus on the dire need for clean water in developing countries, not everyone is convinced that Blue Planet Run, which featured the actress Hilary Swank at its kick-off event in June, is the right way to do it.

“I don’t know that Hollywood getting involved and a one-time run is going to build individual sustainable donors who are going to give to it for life,” says Marla Smith-Nilson, founder of Water 1st International, in Seattle. “Whenever you make a big splash like that, it’s hard to sustain it. You really need an organization that builds lifelong donors.”

Mr. Zidell says he hopes that the group’s mandate to pass along 100 percent of donations to water projects will help persuade more people to support its work. Mr. Zidell and corporate sponsors pay for the group’s administrative costs.

“It takes off the table any discussion of ‘What are you doing with my money?’” he says. “It’s going to projects.”

To keep costs down, the Blue Planet Run Foundation created an online peer-review network instead of hiring staff members to help decide where its grant money should go.

To receive a grant, charities must read and rate at least five other grant applications and be available to other groups to exchange information about their work. If a project gets rated well, but its sponsor group does not evaluate other projects, the group doesn’t get the money.

The foundation hopes the process will foster collaboration among charities working on similar issues.

The online grant-making process “could be a very innovative new way of using the Internet to match donors with needs,” says Peter H. Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, in Oakland, Calif., and an expert on water.

While Mr. Zidell has long been involved in environmental groups, none have captured his attention and checkbook to the extent of Blue Planet Run, which he says has given him a deep sense of purpose.

“There is a boat sitting there with 200 million people on it, it’s got a hole, and it’s sinking,” says Mr. Zidell. “Blue Planet Run has a job to throw those people a life jacket.”