Hear from long-time supporters of Water4 and be encouraged by their faith, commitment, and investment in ending the water crisis, through a solution that works, once and for all. The Wilsons Lynn and JoAn Wilson are dedicated volunteers of Water4 who were there when we first got started in 2008. They’ve been loyal to the cause since then, and Lynn even received an award for his incredible commitment and time as Water4’s “Chief Executive Volunteer”. We wouldn’t be where we are today without them! “Why do you give? Because you’re proud of what you’re giving to, and you see that you’re still ..read more

This is the story of Water4’s first official well and how it’s still pumping water today. In February of 2009, less than six months after Water4 was officially incorporated, founder Dick Greenly visited Zambia to help teach Carmen Brubacher and her team how to manually drill wells. Together, they chose to dig a well at the newly built community school called the Makasa School, to ensure kids could have safe water while they learned. At the time, Water4 used the manual “sludging method” to drill the well, moving a pipe up and down with a pulley system in a hole filled with water, loosening an ..read more

Thanks in part to members of the 4Collective, Water4 missional businesses have the tools, training, and support they need to fight the water crisis on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people. Last year, these businesses employed over 650 people, provided 1,751 new water projects and impacted over 260,000 people through safe water. 4Collective is a special group of Water4 supporters who share our commitment to making a world where all people have access to safe and Living Water a reality. Membership in the 4Collective is by invitation only to those who’ve demonstrated a significant and cons ..read more

Every home, school, and clinic, always. You will see this often if you follow Water4 on social media, if you look around our website or if you work with us at all. It’s a slogan meant to convey that our goal is to provide clean water in communities holistically. Not just at community walk-up points but also in homes for private family use, in schools so that children aren’t drinking clean water at home but dirty water at school, and in healthcare facilities. It’s this last one that gets less attention than the others. Western charitable givers have gotten used to images of children in rural ..read more

What The Customer Thinks: Customer Attribution and the Role of Safe Water Enterprises in Social Impact Evaluation Safe Water Enterprises (SWEs) yield massive social impacts around the world, but how should they measure those impacts? In selling water products and services SWEs have daily interactions with customers, making us the best suited to find out, and then deliver, exactly what customers want. That’s our contribution to social impact. Check out this new report examining how our Community of Practice concluded that quantifying the social impacts of SWEs is best left to expert research ..read more

Field Research Note: Can Low-Risk Debt Help Safe Water Enterprises Become More Profitable? Background: Market Innovation: Water4’s household connections, called NUMA Nows, provide safe and convenient water at a customer’s home when they need it. Nows reduce the time a household spends fetching water which may be why, on average, Now customers purchase three times as much water as kiosk customers. Water4 enterprises operate more than 1,700 Nows across Sierra Leone, Ghana, Zambia, and Uganda. The majority of these Nows are managed by 4Ward Development West Africa (4Ward), Water4’s enterprise p ..read more

Water4 Field Research Note: The NuPump proves an improved, safe solution for community water points while still subsidy reliant Market Innovation: In January of 2022, Aquaya published a study on the willingness to pay for the NuPump, an innovation from Water4’s Research and Development Team. The Water4-invented NuPump is an in-line hand pump chlorinator with an erosion-based system that uses a chlorine cartridge and a small sediment filter. NuPump was created with rural health clinics as a primary target, but also desiring to test whether rural communities would be more likely to pay fo ..read more

Walk4Water4 is Water4’s largest annual event. Held in Oklahoma City, OK, it is in the backyard of Water4 headquarters and gathers hundreds every year to walk 3.7-miles in support of the millions of women and children that make the journey to fetch unclean water daily. This year’s walk, Saturday, October 1st at Scissortail Park, plans to build on the success of its predecessors, offering a memorable, family-fun experience while raising $505,000 for safe water through Water4. However, we know not everyone can make it to Oklahoma to join us. That’s why we want to bring Walk4Water4 to you! We’ve ..read more

We know that wealth and generosity look different for every person. It’s not just about the money in your bank account. At Water4, we don’t want to just ask for money “now” and “often,” but to better help you achieve your philanthropic goals by considering creative and long-term forms of giving. That’s why we formed Legacy Circle. Legacy Circle is our planned giving program that allows donors to add Water4 to their estates and make a bigger impact than they ever thought possible. Planned giving is a flexible giving option for the donor while providing long-term financial stability for the or ..read more

As Water4’s Communications & Marketing Manager, I spend hours thinking about how to best communicate what we do at Water4 and the incredible impact this work has. It’s become an occupational obsession.  One thing I’ve found is that, without fail, people invest more in a cause when it’s personal. When you know someone experiencing it, when it becomes “close to home”, your empathy expands, your devotion deepens, and quite simply, you care more. Being new to Water4’s team and the water sector, I can relate. I wanted a deeper connection, to understand the water crisis better, and for it ..read more