Dear Matt,

NDP cordially invites you to its 5th Annual Fundraising Benefit, to be held at John J Kennedy Library and Museum on February 18th in your home town of Boston.

We loved your recent video posting on water.org. As one of the founders of Water.org, I’m sure you appreciate the fact that we’ve been supporting your organization’s cause since the beginning. There will be live music, free food, and you will get two free drink tickets.

I asked our fundraising director if we could comp your ticket, but unfortunately he’s a bit of a scrooge. “Michelle Kwan had to pay for her ticket last year. Every member of NDP has paid for their own ticket every year since our first event. Giving Matt Damon a discount would set a precedent of favoritism and inconsistency. Can’t help ya, Rich. Sorry.” You do get a discount if you attend the wine and beer tasting first, and another discount if you bring a date, so that’s pretty good…

NDP would be honored if you could make the event.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

Rich

As reported most recently in The New York Times article titled Starving in Somalia, The Horn of Africa is currently experiencing a drought worse than any it has seen in the past 60 years. The Neutral Development Project commends organizations like Water.org who are doing all they can to relieve problems related to water shortages and and poor sanitation. Indeed, NDP has given the vast majority of its fundraising proceeds to Water.org since we started five years ago.

And yet the main causes of the world water crisis continue to be a subject of debate. Documentaries such as Blue Gold and Tapped point to the destructive effects of infrastructure development by private corporations on water tables across the globe.

While small relief projects devoted to helping people in dire need are certainly necessary, NDP believes that we must all seek to increase our awareness of the larger structural determinants of environmental health, of which water is of course the most critical ingredient.