WATER MISSION

Water Mission exists to end the global water crisis. 2.2 billion people around the world lack access to safe water. That’s one-third of the world’s population. One person dies every 37 seconds from a water-related illness. The global water crisis steals thousands of lives each day—more than war, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction combined.
Water is the world’s most precious resource. It has the power to give life—and take it. It is the center of economic and social development. Safe water builds health, produces food, generates energy, and create jobs. When communities lack access to safe drinking water, however, the impact on the population is devastating.

Clean, safe drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realization of all human rights. Because women shoulder the burden of walking for water every single day, often through dangerous conditions, reliable access to safe water is vital for gender equality. And because the water collected is often contaminated, millions of children miss school due to water-related illnesses.

But there is hope. To date, Water Mission has served more than 7 million people in 57 countries with best-in-class safe water solutions. Together, we can end the global water crisis in our lifetime.

Our mission is to honor God by developing, implementing, and sharing best-in-class safe water solutions that transform as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible. We take a comprehensive approach to combating the global water crisis. We design sustainable, customizable solutions that meet the needs of individual communities, partnering with the community throughout the process. Following installation and implementation, our staff monitors and evaluates the project, working with the community to ensure sustainability and success.

In 2021, our organizational goals include:
• impact 600,000 lives through implementation activities
• reach survivors of natural disasters and humanitarian crises with safe water solutions and an opportunity to experience God’s love
• continue developing a best-in-class disaster response program
• build a strong foundation for continued growth
• and partner with the Global Water Center to meet its organizational goals and successfully implement its strategic road map.

Water Mission is transforming communities and changing lives every day. Together, we're solving the global water crisis community by community.

Our overarching strategy is to develop safe water solutions, implement them, and be a resource to other organizations. As an implementer, Water Mission provides solutions for those who live in developing communities and those affected by natural disasters or emergency situations. Each country and community we serve requires a customized solution. Even within the same country, tribal and ethnic differences can create major differences from one community to the next. These factors make project management a challenge and comprehensive, targeted solutions are essential. Water Mission’s in-country teams implement the projects from beginning to end. This assures projects are both technologically appropriate and respectful of the culture—elements critical for long-lasting success. Our efficient and effective solutions use best-in-class technology and focus heavily on community development. Safe water and sanitation projects are most successful when the community being served is an active participant. We partner with members of the community and local leaders to implement the solution and educate the community about hygiene and water safety.
Water Mission’s basic project plan is:
Step 1: Partner with people who have a vision and a passion to serve others. You may be one of those people. Your church, civic organization, or business may be filled with people passionate to make a difference.
Step 2: Identify people with a need – Sadly, 2.2 billion people lack access to safe water. Another 4.4 billion lack adequate sanitation. Thus, identifying people with this need is not difficult to find. Water Mission is constantly hearing from communities in need in the countries where we work.
Step 3: Community assessment – We start by collecting basic water quality and community data through our Safe Water Project Request form, which is reviewed by our country program leadership, community development, and engineering teams. If the community qualifies for a safe water or sanitation project, Water Mission identifies the community's water sources and conditions, establishes a working relationship with the community leadership, and finds a local ministry partner. Water Mission then designs a customized, long-lasting solution to address the specific needs of the community.
Step 4: Equip, transport, and implement – Once the solution has been designed, we ship equipment from our production facility or in-country inventory. As soon as the equipment is en route, implementation begins.
Step 5: Community development – After implementation, much work is required from the community to maintain the solution. Our community development approach seeks to address this concern and others. The community development process involves sustainability training (daily operation, long-term maintenance, and micro-enterprise); safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) training; 12 months of monitoring and evaluation; Living Water outreach through the local church.

Water Mission is a nonprofit Christian engineering organization with more than 400 staff members working around the world in permanent country programs located in Africa; Asia; North, South, and Central America; and the Caribbean. Water Mission designs, builds, and implements WASH solutions with a comprehensive community development model that meets the specific needs of individual communities. We have served more than 7 million people in 57 countries through 2,800 safe water and sanitation projects since 2001.
Water Mission delivers best-in-class water, sanitation, and hygiene projects. Water Mission’s local technical staff develop project plans in the field, with support from engineers at global headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Water Mission’s strongest capabilities and services include:
• Capacity Building and Technical Training
• Power Supply
• Project Budgeting and Planning
• Remote Monitoring
• Site Assessments and Surveying
• Solar Powered Water Systems
• System Support and Evaluation
• Water Pumping
• Water Quality, Demand, Source, and Treatment
• Water Storage and Distribution
Water Mission has been recognized by leading institutions, including UNICEF, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Bank, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). We received the External Collaborator Award from the American Chemistry Council in 2020 for developing innovative products and services that advance sustainability. In its 2017 Global Solar Initiative report, IOM recognized Water Mission as “the only NGO responding to the refugee emergency with the in-house technical capacity to design, implement, operate, and maintain solar-powered (hybrid) water systems.” Water Mission’s proprietary Monitoring and Alerting Platform system supports and equips UNHCR and other nonprofit, humanitarian-based entities in the WASH sector with their remote monitoring capability.
Charity Navigator has awarded Water Mission it's top, four-star rating 14 years in a row, a distinction shared by less than one percent of charities rated by the organization.
All of Water Mission’s country offices are nationally registered, locally based entities where 98% of country office staff are locally hired, indigenous citizens.

Since 2001, Water Mission has developed innovative technology and engineering expertise to provide access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene solutions for more than 7 million people through 2,800 projects in 57 countries. Water Mission is a leading provider of sustainable safe water solutions around the world. Our extensive experience in deploying innovative remote monitoring technology enables real-time analysis. We have tracked more than 1 billion gallons of water flow in over 300 rural communities and refugee camps around the world.
Since 2008, Water Mission has installed over 2,000 solar-powered water systems in disaster relief and development projects globally.
For the first time in 2020, safe water flowed for over 900,000 people in 112 communities. The majority of the projects completed were in communities where we also provided hygiene training. Our disaster response efforts in 2020 primarily focused on humanitarian crises in refugee camps, Hurricanes Eta and Iota in Honduras, and the COVID-19 response. More than 8,000 handwashing stations were installed around the world to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. We continue to support large refugee settlements in Northern Uganda and Western Tanzania, serving more than 700,000 refugees on a daily basis.
Our vision is that all people have safe water and an opportunity to experience God’s love. Water Mission is committed to ongoing learning and improvement to ensure the integrity of our promise to deliver lasting benefits for the communities we serve. Our product innovation and program evaluation initiatives – both in the laboratory and in the field – continuously enhance our water treatment and pumping technologies, technical design, and community development approach. Additionally, we share our knowledge and best practices for the WASH sector.
In addition to implementing water and sanitation projects around the world, we believe collaboration and partnership among industry leaders are critical to solving the global water crisis. Together, we can achieve a transformational scale and end water poverty. Water Mission seeks to serve as a resource to other development partners in their mission to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water by offering equipment, technologies, and consulting services.