There were days Brandon sat in the neverthirst office and wondered if he had made the right decision.
After originally pursuing a career in medical sales, he sometimes found himself asking how he ended up here, in fundraising for a small non-profit.
Brandon first learned of the water crisis in 2009, after a student told his wife, a high school math teacher, about the 1 billion people who lacked access to safe drinking water. Shocked by the need, Brandon and Kim found neverthirst and began sponsoring water projects in Sudan. In 2010, neverthirst asked Brandon to visit the projects firsthand.
On that trip, one particular moment stuck with him. Off to the side of a village, about 20 yards away, he noticed a mound of dirt surrounded by rocks. Unsure what it was, he asked, and their translator shared that it was the grave of a one-and-a-half-year-old who had died from a waterborne disease–simply because they did not have safe water to drink.
“I knew my kids would never suffer from something like that. That’s when it was no longer statistics,” Brandon said. “These were names and faces and stories of people living day to day without access to clean water. And a lot of them had never even heard about the hope found in Jesus.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the Lord really set my life on a different trajectory at that point.”
Following the trip, Brandon and Kim were moved to do more. They started volunteering for neverthirst, put on huge garage sales, made shirts to advertise the need, and ran half marathons and 5ks with the 1 billion individuals in mind. They encouraged people to ask questions about the water crisis and to give towards ending it.
“I was kind of like a free employee for neverthirst,” Brandon said. “I was telling everybody I could about the water crisis.”
In 2012, neverthirst had grown, and Spencer Sutton, the Executive Director at the time, approached Brandon about joining neverthirst in a full-time, fundraising and donor relations role.
“The last thing I wanted to do was leave it. I had a great boss, a great team. Spencer said, ‘well, you know, hey, just pray about this’,” Brandon said. “There was a lot of uncertainty when you leave a big, safe corporate company and go to a two-man nonprofit, at the time. But the Lord was faithful.”
Brandon left his stable, dream job in medical sales and joined the team in Development, a role he’s now held for over 14 years– one he has loved and the Lord has undeniably used.
“This job has brought me the greatest joy,” Brandon said. “To see what I get to see–with the poorest of the poor in the world and with some of the wealthiest people in the world–and to see how the Lord is using each and every one of us to play a role in making his name known amongst the nations.”
“I really believe my role in the body of Christ is to be that connector–we really view ourselves as a conduit for people to live out their faith through giving.
I tell people all the time that I think part of the celebration in eternity will be how the Lord wove all of our lives together, ultimately for his glory.”
