Zack Parker, Walu International
Would you like a glass of walu? That’s the question Zack Parker, CEO and founder of non-profit organization Walu International, asked the developing world when what started as a graduate business-school project, sprouted into a real-world, rapidly-progressing humanitarian aid organization. After a surf trip in Papua New Guinea, Parker—a San Diego State University grad student—decided to return with some much different pipes in mind. Walu International has since begun operations to improve the water and sanitary conditions in the coastal communities of the region. Parker and his team at Walu, which inherited its name from a family joke dating back to when his younger brother failed to pronounce the word “water” correctly, are gearing up to expand their development services, as well as their awareness-building surf competitions to other communities, with hopes that one day, the answer to Parker’s question for communities around the world can be: “Yes. But clean ‘walu,’ please.” We caught up with Parker to discuss his newest ideas for expansion, how he’s juggled finishing school while running a non-profit, and his plans for reaching the action sports community.
Zack Parker, Walu International talking to women from Papua New Guinea
You were in business school when you first had the idea for Walu. What motivated you to start the organization?
Me and my best friend went on an 8-month surf trip around the world, and we stumbled upon this little village in Papua New Guinea, Lido. It was really interesting, because when we asked where the bathroom was, they pointed down to the beach. We decided, well, that’s where we’ve got to go to the bathroom. So we finished out our surf trip, and it wasn’t ‘till I came back home that I decided that I wanted to go back there and do something about it. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I knew that I wanted to go back and do a surf contest AND…, but we didn’t know what the “and” was yet. Originally, it was computer labs and schools, and then we finally focused in on toilets, clean water, and hand washing.
The company is relatively new. When did things really get going?
I started the organization like 13 months ago, and roughly nine months of that I was finishing grad school. I was doing stuff on the side. I was working and in school, and it was pretty tough. It wasn’t really until this summer that I was like, “alright, I really need to make some things happen.”
What have you done to help improve the water and sanitation practices in Papua New Guinea?
We talked to Doctor Dave Jenkins, who’s the founder of SurfAid International. They’ve been doing this for 10 plus years. We had these toilets we were going to build and these water systems, and he told us: “Don’t bring any of that. All you’re going to do is mess it up for someone who wants to make a positive change in the future. Because all that is, is just a little Band-Aid. You give them this water filter and you give them this toilet, and then you go back there the next time and their kids are rolling the water filter down the hill. They just don’t get ‘why.’”That’s like for us to go convince everyone here in Pacific Beach to go shit on the beach.
So what do you do to convince them that what they’re doing is unsanitary, and is making them sick?
There’s this book called “Nudge,” that we refer to a lot, and it’s kind of like the glass is half full approach. They use different examples about changing the way people think, without actually telling them to do something. It’s like this psychological nudge, as they call it, which triggers people to do something differently without going through the traditional, “don’t do this, it’s bad!” And so we don’t go over there and do that. We use a completely unsubsidized approach, so we don’t actually give them anything. It’s just the educational process. What education enables them to do is to find their own problems and come up with their own solutions. Then it also allows them to pass on the information on to future generations, so education actually exponentially grows over generations versus other approaches.
What are the key differences between running a non-profit organization and a for-profit company?
We don’t pay taxes would be the glaringly obvious answer. When it comes down to actually operating a business, like line-by-line expenses, revenues, how much you’re making, how much you’re spending, it’s no different. The main difference is that businesses, their benefit is profit, and our benefit is social good. I would say there’s probably a misconception about how non-profits are run. Sometimes you get someone who is so blinded by their cause and everything that they want to do. They’re so focused on getting this done, that they don’t really think about a more effective way to make it happen. Where we find our specialty is on the business side of it back here. The marketing, and branding, and building awareness—creating a fun image of our brand, versus very depressing. A big difference right now is that none of us get paid!
That is a pretty big difference! Any plans for a paycheck in the future?
Yeah. Eventually, if you grow your revenue stream to a large enough size to where you can justify paying yourself a salary, then that’s when people start getting paid. People who run non-profits like Goodwill or Red Cross are getting paid. A lot of people are getting paid pretty well.
What have been your most successful marketing strategies?
We’re going to create this commercial. Someone’s in their truck. He grabs this cup of coffee, grabs his newspaper off the passenger seat, opens the door. He cruises down to the beach, opens his newspaper, pulls his pants down and pretends like he’s going to take a shit. I mean, he’s not actually going to, but then it’s gonna cut over to—like, “what if we all used the beach as our toilet?” Something short, that’s catchy. If we can create these advertisements of all different shapes and sizes, then we could go to someone like TransWorld Business and say: “Hey, we have all these different ads, if you have an extra spot?” They can fill an extra spot with one of our ads, [and] get a tax write-off.
You’ve collaborated a little bit with some pretty big names in the surf industry, like Rip Curl. What is it about these partnerships that are most beneficial for both Walu and the company?
We try and consider ourselves a different way of advertising for them. How can we get more eyes on their logo associated with us for only $1000 rather than $4500? We put together our pitch, and it’s like “here’s what we do, and here’s what we can do for you.” We don’t expect companies to give us handouts without getting anything in return, so if a company were to give us $1,000 worth of merchandise, then what we would do is put them on our flier. Our flier in turn goes out to more than 350,000 people via online web sites and social media. So they get positive PR by being associated with our brand. It’s kind of a mutually beneficial relationship, because more so than their products, they can give us sort of the media reach that we need. Like Rip Curl for instance–they’re our head sponsor. They sponsor the trips, they sponsor the surf contests when we’re over there, and their social media of 300,000 people plus is way better for us than a box of t-shirts.
What are your plans for the future in regards to additional collaborations?
We have a partnership that’s just getting finalized right now with Glacier Water. They’re the nation’s largest vended water company—they’re everywhere. This holiday season, they’re putting together this bag—it’s like a reusable shopping bag that you take to the store [with] a one-gallon water bottle in there and a sport water bottle. It’s got our logo and Glacier Water’s—they’re selling it online as this “Holiday Gift for Good,” and X percentage of the sales price will go to Walu International. Do we think that these holiday bags are going to be the Tickle Me Elmo of Christmas this year? Probably not. But they’re going to be launching this package, so it’ll be on 25 to 30 networks–so it’s like the morning news show–and then they cut over to like “Holiday Gifts for Good!” They have four products, and we’re one of them. So that’s gonna go out to about a million people over TV, almost a million people on the radio, and then all the web sites. That’s huge for us.
What is your ultimate goal for Walu? Where do you see the organization in five years?
Ideally, five years down the road, I want people to view Walu International as sort of the water and sanitation experts. And then when people see our logo, they say: I want to see what they’re doing next, and I want to see their next funny commercial or creative advertisement. We’ve got a new logo coming. Thom McElroy, he’s the guy that made the Volcom stone, is just kind of taking it on as a private project. He was just like: “Hey, I like what you’re doing, here’s what I can do for you.” It’s going to be like the bathroom–you know, like the boys and girls? The stick figure? I really want to use that in there somewhere. So I sent him that, because everyone knows what that is. It’s like already been marketed for us. So that’s sort of our idea, that maybe someday people see our logo, maybe they chuckle a little to themselves and say, “I know Walu International. They do awesome things.”
