Two college students founded Ripple in 2020 with the goal of employing entrepreneurial skills in an effort to benefit underprivileged communities. We learned about their mission at a conference last year, and we just knew we needed to work with this organization!

Ripple has a simple mission. For every 2,000 water bottles sold, Ripple builds a well in a community that doesn’t currently have easy access to the human right to clean water. We are joining Ripple in its mission to build as many wells as possible!

We are the ripple

Ripple began in 2020 in a college dorm room. Joe Knopp had been running a successful dropship business through an internship, but something felt off. He wondered how he could use his entrepreneurial skills to make a bigger difference in the world. Inspired by the book “Start Something That Matters” by the founder of Toms, Blake Mycoskie, Joe decided to take on one of the world’s biggest challenges—the water crisis.

After doing some digging, Joe discovered how much it would cost to build a well. Along with his roommate Chip, Joe decided he would find a way to raise enough money to build a single well. With that, Ripple’s mission was born: serving others by leveraging high-quality product lines to solve real-world problems.

To start out, Joe took a leap of faith by spending everything he had saved from his dropshipping business to buy the 2,000 water bottles needed to raise enough money to build Ripple’s first well. After finally receiving the shipment of water bottles—that Joe and Chip stored in their dorm room!—they were able to sell the lot within six months. With the proceeds, they built the first modern solar-powered well for a remote village in Uganda.

Since then, the team has built more than 20 water wells in low-income countries and given more than 50,000 people access to clean water, supporting multiple schools, orphanages, and even an entire hospital.

Ripple’s name stems from the idea that your choices and actions create ripple effects every day. You can choose to do something—like buy a Ripple water bottle—that can eventually impact thousands of people on the other side of the world.

How VaVa is Making a Ripple

Our founders ran into the Ripple team at a conference, and it seemed like a partnership waiting to happen. We were so inspired by how Joe and Chip are using entrepreneurship to make the world a better place. That mission aligns with what we’re doing here at VaVa Virtual. Every day, we support entrepreneurs who are making a big difference in their communities.

We loved what Ripple is doing, so we knew we needed to support them by trying to build a well!

Our Team

We started by sending our whole team some Ripple swag! That was a great start.

Our Community

Next, we are working to get our whole community involved. That means you! Help us build a well!

Not only are you supporting communities that need it the most, but Ripple bottles are high-quality (think Hydroflask) and keep your drinks cold or warm for the long haul. On top of that, Ripple is transparent about their pricing, so you can be confident your purchase is making a ripple.

Our CLIENTS

In addition to spreading the word about Ripple, we incorporated Ripple into our new client referral program.

When one of our wonderful clients refers a friend or colleague, we send our referring client a Ripple water bottle of their choice. If they make a second referral, we send them another bottle to share. This mission is all about spreading the love, after all! For any subsequent referrals, we donate $50 in our clients’ names to help reach our goal of building wells even faster!

Join Us In Giving the Gift of Clean Water

If you are just as inspired by Ripple’s mission as we are, help us build a well.