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Many people watched The Diary of Bono and Chris Tucker: Aiding Africa on MTV in 2002. They watched Bono, Tucker and then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill tour a newly built well in Uganda, and learned more wells could be built for only a thousand dollars at a time. Each could save hundreds of lives; many Africans are dying of diseases spread by unclean water. They heard Bono say, "I just wanted to show what a little amount of money can do to a lot of lives."

Many of the people who watched that show felt the way U2 fan Joanna Sanchez felt afterward: "Maybe there is something I can do." Sanchez spread the word among online fans that she wanted to start a fund to build wells in Africa. "It was like wildfire. In a matter of six weeks fifty people had joined" a mailing list on Yahoo Groups discussing the project, according to Julie Cook. Cook was among those who watched Diary and felt the tug to do something. She surfs sites for info on U2 and chats with fellow fans, but the band's example makes her feel she should also be giving something back. "When I'm looking up U2 stuff on the web sites I'm thinking, 'Why am I spending my time on this?' I'm totally addicted but I feel guilty! We really, really do want to help."

Cook talked to @U2 recently about the African Well Fund, the project started by U2 fans who shared a desire to aid Africa in a concrete way. Only a few months old, the fund has already passed a significant milestone. A thousand dollars has been collected, enough to build their first well. Cook said they were aiming high: "I think there's a potential to reach a hundred thousand dollars. I want people to think the sky's the limit. How many people can we potentially give life to?"

The African Well Fund is not its own non-profit organization. (Starting a non-profit from scratch involves quite a bit of paperwork and an initial investment of several hundred dollars.) Instead, the group of fans who joined Sanchez's mailing list researched existing groups that could use money efficiently. Africare, founded in 1970 and recently endorsed by Kofi Annan, showed the most promise. On a charity ranking scale (www.charitynavigator.org), Africare scored as high as any non-profit can for their reliability and how wisely they spend their money. They also promised to allow the African Well Fund to keep its own identity. They would send out quarterly reports and hold conference calls with the fund's organizers.

"And they have their own employment structure in Africa," Cook said. "They have people working for their organization that are African. They train locals as well on maintaining the wells once they're built. There's a lot of wells built ten, twenty years ago that are nonfunctional. No one was educated on how they could be operated safely." The African Well Fund group became convinced that Africare-sponsored programs worked.

All this sounded good, but what perhaps clinched the deal was what happened when one of the organizers called Africare's office. She mentioned that she represented a group of U2 fans who had been inspired by Bono's activism. Her contact at Africare said "Really? Bono's downstairs in our offices right now."

"We thought maybe that was an omen!" Cook laughed.

The African Well Fund's relationship with an existing non-profit means they never have to deal with donated money themselves. Their web site directs potential donors to Africare's site. Africare, once they've established a visitor wants to give them money, asks, "How would you like to help?" A dropdown menu offers as one of the choices "I am a donor from the African Well Fund website." Anyone who visits Africare can choose this option, not just U2 fans. Cook made clear, though, that the fund would always have U2 fandom at the heart of its identity.

"We felt that that there's a huge untapped base out there that we could work with. As you know U2 fans are pretty sharp and socially active. We have a specific base we want to target. We figured if we were singled out [as a separate fund within Africare] we could target that base more effectively."

As a new group, Cook said they were trying to strike a balance between making pests of themselves and not making enough noise to be heard. "We don't want to over-promote, but you have to keep it up. One thing we're going to do -- someone donated an autographed picture of Bono. We're going to put that up and have whoever donates a minimum amount of money will be entered into a drawing; we'll choose one winner out of everyone who donates."

"We are really just getting started, we're open to lots of ideas, there's got to be people who have great ideas, there's some brilliant people who visit these U2 sites. I just wish some of those people would knock on our door."

To find out more about the African Well Fund, visit their website at www.africanwellfund.org or join their mailing list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/u2sangel2001/. Find out more about Africare at www.africare.org.



© @U2/Pancella, 2003.

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