Welcome to Awarepreneurs, the world's longest running social entrepreneur podcast. I'm Paul Zelizer, your host. If you could take a moment and hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps our guests help more social entrepreneurs, and it costs you nothing. Thank you so much. Today our guest is Curt Avery, and our topic is how to 100x your social impact. Kurt Avery is the founder and president of Sawyer Products, a company at the forefront of innovation in outdoor protection and humanitarian aid. With a background in marketing for Fortune 500 companies and an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, Kurt launched Sawyer with a mission to develop practical life-saving solutions, most notably in water filtration and insect repellents. Under his leadership, the company has grown into a global force serving both outdoor enthusiasts and vulnerable communities around the world.

Through partnerships with over 140 nonprofits in more than 80 countries, Sawyer has helped provide clean water to millions, significantly reducing waterborne diseases and improving health outcomes in underserved areas. Kurt's approach to business is deeply rooted in purpose, faith, and impact, a philosophy he shares in his book SawyerThink: How a Small Company Disrupts Markets and Changes the World. Curt and his company have been featured in major outlets including the New York Times, Yahoo Finance, and Newsbreak. And on a personal note, this may be one of the few times where I can say that this product has probably— it has certainly protected my well-being and may have saved my life. I've been doing backcountry adventures in the western US for Gosh, since 1988 when I came out to Colorado for the first time. I currently live in New Mexico and I was running with my buddy this morning, a trail runner, and he also said there are many times that if we didn't have Sawyer products, we both would've gotten very sick and potentially might not be here. So Kurt, it is just an absolute honor to have you here. Thanks for coming to Awarepreneurs.

Well, thank you. We'll make sure we add you to the list of people that we, uh.

You have impacted my life for sure. For sure. So, so I know what Sawyer Products is because I'm a weirdo outdoors guy who's been doing that for a long time. But if somebody doesn't know what Sawyer Products is, let's start there, Curt.

Well, we, we're in the outdoor solution problem. So the two big ones we do are insect repellents and water filtration. We are state-of-the-art, top of the line. Everything we sell is the single best product on the market. We're kind of a niche. People know the big brands, but on water, we are the big brand and repellents were kind of number 4, but we're what the military uses. They don't go anywhere without Sawyer because they, they need that protection and level. And, uh, we're innovative, so our stuff is different than the way— so the water filters, we got that from kidney dialysis.

If you can clean blood, you can clean water, so why not? So we're really the first ones to bring hollow fiber membrane technology to point of use, or, you know, right before the water goes in your mouth technology. Well, once we had that, you know, guys, we got the two biggest things. You know, those mosquito nets, we kind of invented that. We, we, and, and we do, we treat the clothing now. And so, so much of the world dies of mosquito bites and bad water, and we got the two solutions. Why not? I mean, you know, so that's how we got into it. And we really got on the water, we got our notoriety in the Haitian earthquake of 2010. We sent a couple hundred thousand down there, and that's all the— that's what they used.

And cholera outbreaks, boom, within same day. Cholera can kill you in one day, but as long as we're there, no cholera can get through the filter and stuff like that. So we got— we were put on the map basically because of that. And so now we are the single biggest used filters. We, we do 3 to 5 million people a year get clean water for the very first time between us and our partners. We do, we do a lot of it ourselves too. And you talk about rewarding, I mean, it's just life-changing. Yes, certainly.

In, when you're in the southwestern U.S., there's sometimes a choice between drinking, you know, filtering water from a dirty cattle, you know, metal container that has green slime floating in it, or not having water, which isn't a good idea in the desert Southwest. Right. So, and we pretty much know in certain spots that there's at least Giardia, maybe other things in there in those tanks. So that's how I can say it was, you know, very high degree of certainty that I would have had some very significant health problems if I hadn't known how to use your product.

So yeah, Yeah, it can knock you out. for sure.