How Virtual Reality Is Inspiring Donors to Dig Deep for Charitable Causes

One evening last December, 400 men and women in tuxedos and gowns met at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to take a trip to a small village in Ethiopia. Few of them had ever been to the East African country before, and while they were scheduled to depart that evening, nobody had a plane ticket. In fact, they wouldn't need one for the nine-minute virtual visit they were about to make.

The group was gathering at the Met for an annual black-tie fundraising banquet benefiting Charity: Water, a New York nonprofit that builds water projects around the world, providing access to clean water for thousands of people every year.