At Harmony Labs, we’ve long argued that the future of audience engagement lies beyond ad-based models. Most media still approach audiences like they’re selling toothpaste or energy drinks, pushing out messages instead of pulling people into stories that matter.

But real audiences can’t just be targeted; they must be engaged, included, and inspired. That’s where creators come in.

Creators hold unprecedented global reach. Their audiences cross political and geographic boundaries. With a single upload, whether it’s a livestream, a short, or a social post, creators can mobilize communities in nearly every country for lightning-fast action.

No creator embodies the shift away from traditional engagement approaches more than MrBeast. Together with science creator Mark Rober, he’s pioneering a new era of creator-led fundraising with #TeamWater as the third major campaign that replicates the successful models of #TeamTrees and #TeamSeas.

The results speak for themselves:

• $40 million raised in one month: enough to bring clean water to 2 million people for decades.
• We tracked nearly 19,000 videos from over 12,400 YouTube creators fueling the campaign.
• 2 billion+ combined views, with $1 as the most common donation amount.
• Major platforms like YouTube not just hosting but amplifying the effort with matched donations and milestone celebrations.
• Helped launch new features on platforms: Youtube’s collab feature and TikTok’s Charity Giving feature
• Set the single livestream charity fundraising record, raising $12 million in 18 hours

Through a massive wave of cross-creator participation and a simple, tangible goal (“$1 donated provides a person with clean water for a year”), it made the call-to-action clear and drove participation at scale.

The campaign shows what’s possible when thousands of creators organize together in the attention economy: messy, collaborative, and deeply human. What we don’t yet know is how far that impact reaches beyond fundraising, which is exactly what our new project is designed to evaluate: how creators harness influence, and where it begins to drive deeper social change.

In the coming months, we’ll be working with Matt Fitzgerald, a seasoned social impact leader and #TeamWater’s Co-Founder , to study how this campaign came together, and to explore whether its model can help future advocates move from advertising to organizing, from messaging to mobilization.

Fundraising must evolve with shifting media landscapes. And organic media co-production, where creators and audiences make meaning together, is the future. At Harmony Labs, we’ve spent years refining our approach to reaching audiences with organic media, and working on the core measurement infrastructure storytellers need to shift narratives in this new media era.

Watch this space for more insights we’ll be sharing from #TeamWater to help organizers, funders, and creators harness these ripples into waves.

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