Water for People
67
5
"Up" is the number of experts who agree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in the
field. "Down" is the number of experts who disagree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in field.
Headquarters Location: Denver, CO
Founded: 1991
Mission: Water For People works to build a world where all people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation, and where no one suffers or dies from a water- or sanitation-related disease. This is our vision. We’re on a mission. We work with people and partners to develop innovative and long-lasting solutions to the water, sanitation, and hygiene problems in the developing world. We strive to continually improve, to experiment with promising new ideas, and to leverage resources to multiply our impact.
Tags:
water, access to safe drinking water, sanitation, hygiene, hygiene education programs, develop sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities, community, sustainability, local partnerships
Summary
Stories
Expert Reviews
Leadership
From the Nonprofit
Leadership
Ned Breslin.
Edward D. (Ned) Breslin joined Water For People as its Director of International Programs in January 2006, and was appointed CEO in 2009. For over two decades, Ned has seen firsthand how conventional humanitarian approaches to safe water and sanitation access in the developing world are not scalable or sustainable—helping some but not others and often failing shortly after implementation.…
See full bio.
Financial Data
Overhead Ratio:
15.11%
Total Revenue:
$8,865,400
From the Nonprofit
The nonprofit has not added any comments yet. If you are a representative of this nonprofit and would like to leave a comment, please email us at
feedback@myphilanthropedia.org
with your request.
Contact Info
Website:
E-Mail:
info AT waterforpeople.org
Phone:
720-488-4590
Facebook:
Address:
6666 W. Quincy Ave
Denver, CO 80235, USA
Twitter:
Story:
Water For People helps people in developing countries improve quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities, and hygiene education programs.
Around the world, 884 million people do not have access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion are without adequate sanitation facilities. Every day, nearly 6,000 people who share our planet die from water-related illnesses, and the vast majority are children.
But the real failures are all the broken pumps, filled latrines, and solutions that aren’t. We want to change all that. The solution? Programs that last and examine entire districts and regions rather than purely households and villages. Create solutions that last, and not only do people benefit for a long period, but organizations don’t have to expend time and energy going back again and again to the same location.
Our vision is a world where all people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation, a world where no one suffers or dies from a water- or sanitation-related disease. That vision is within reach and we hope you’ll join us.
Expert Reviews of Water for People
Evidence of Impact Summary:
Most experts applaud Water for People's commitment to sustainability, monitoring and evaluation. WFP have pushed the sector forward on sustainability and evidence over the long term, where many experts have described as lacking in the WASH sector. Many experts specifically mentioned the success of their FLOW project, which is a platform for monitoring ongoing operation of water systems throughout the developing world. Their staff collects data and evaluates their program on a regular basis, and their impact is global, in which they work in multiple countries, often in difficult areas. They are a leading organization in the sector.See expert comments.
Organization Strengths Summary:
Nearly all experts applaud Water for People's outstanding CEO, Ned Breslin and their innovative approach, where they openly challenge practices and status quo of the sector. They are also applauded for their strong marketing and communication efforts, quality of staff members, transparency, sound financial management, and willingness to learn from mistakes.See expert comments.
Areas for Improvement Summary:
Experts recommend that Water for People can update their monitoring and evaluation. For example, they could use independent evaluators, they can look into why some of their projects aren't sustainable with more scrutiny, and can be open to adopting more complex types of assessments. In addition they can scale their work through working with other bilateral organizations and can improve their collaboration with other organizations. They can also work on their marketing and communications to tone down some of their messages and communicate their successes to others. They can also spread the talent and recognition among their staff members. Lastly, they can place more emphasis on education and community capacity building through long range school and children education.See expert comments.
Expert Comments: Evidence of Impact
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Intervention in Schools and Communities |
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They offer intense intervention in community and schools for safe water and scientific sanitation. | ||
Commitment to Sustainability & Monitoring |
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They have a strong focus on sustainability. They have evidence based programming and long-term engagement with beneficiary populations. They also have a strong community-development model and strong M&E that examines outcomes and impacts. | ||
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They have been very deliberate about measuring long-term sustainability of water projects and implementing sustainability projects as a business. | ||
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Their commitment to sustainability and innovation help to ensure that programs maximize impact over the long-term. | ||
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They have high rates of SUSTAINED services. | ||
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This organization is concerned about sustainable results through locally relevant action and solutions supported by education and stakeholder involvement. | ||
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WFP is pushing the entire sector to reevaluate how we define success. They are openly admitting to failures with respect to water provision (pumps, etc) and building sustainability into each project. Water for People is a results-based organization that cares about documenting projects to determine sustainable solutions. Like Rotary, sustainable results are key. Water for People also has been open and available to partner with our organization and this is a positive signal regarding the groups knowledge that it isn't only about Water for People. | ||
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They have a long term engagement in the sector with a holistic approach and strong emphasis on sustainability and long term measurable results. | ||
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I know the work they do in Honduras ...it is a complete program that addresses issues from service delivery with innovative methods promoting high involvement to communities to advocacy with national government entities; and a commitment to monitor sustainability of interventions over a long period of time. It is a small organization with limited geographical reach with excellent new ideas that they are tying to implement at the field but yet too early to say they have achieved impact at this level. | ||
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Water for People continually pushes the envelope in the field in sustainability, monitoring, accountability. | ||
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They leveraged funding from governments; complete water and sanitation of; and have clear monitoring and evaluation goals. They have a 10 year commitment to systems working after water for people's departure. | ||
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They have a high profile launch of FLOWS and their honest commitment to sustainability and monitoring their work, well after the programs end. | ||
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The organization has experience working in the sector, and are dedicated to sustainability of intervention model. | ||
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Since their current leadership was selected several years ago, Water for People has added to their service delivery function a strong advocacy voice in the area of sustainability and impact disclosure. | ||
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They have sustainable projects. | ||
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WfP is achieving lasting change for large numbers of people in developing countries. | ||
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Water for People is having a broader impact on the entire conversation about aid for water and sanitation. They are re-focusing everyone on sustainability and evidence over the long term. This is an incredibly helpful service as the sector has a long way to go in terms of reaching truly excellent programming. | ||
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They have a sustainable approach. | ||
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They are a leader in monitoring and evaluation, and sustainable methods. | ||
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The only organization that truly has a strategy for full coverage that is scalable and replicable, and takes monitoring more seriously than anyone. They are comfortable talking about challenges and are quite innovative in the field. They also understand how to leverage local resources unlike all others. | ||
Improve Local Capacity |
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Water for People works with regional governments to improve their capacity. They seek to develop methodologies and tools to do so. | ||
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Water for People is supported by six of the professional water organizations in North America. WFP has been evolving over 20 years and is now focusing more on development of the tools and the local successful strategies within its capacity to do good work. Their current strategy is sound and they consider themselves thought leaders. They have some very experienced and capable staff. | ||
Learning Approach |
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In each country that Water For People works, the staff have been using the baseline, monthly and yearly data they collect to re-evaluate the strength and weaknesses of their programs. Although many organizations collect the data, Water For People uses the data to adjust their programs to ensure the more effective program possible for the people most in need. In Latin America, Water For People is working on methodology to assess impact for WASH in schools programs. Through the methodology pilot testing they are able to access the impact they have had on both the school age children and the larger community via their WASH in schools programming (SWASH+). | ||
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Water for People takes a learning approach to its work. It seeks to understand and influence the underlying causes of problems with access and supply to water and sanitation and applies a development philosophy that is more sustainable rather than a charity philosophy. | ||
Leader in the Space |
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They are becoming the 800 pound gorilla in the space, but they also seem to be leading the way. | ||
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Water for People has proven that its make-it-happen tenacity works. The organization was one of the first to challenge the status quo funding model for global water projects with its "Rethinking Hydrophilanthropy" paper. Many mistakes -- well meaning efforts, though, have been made in the water space. Water for People seems determined to innovate and be highly efficient and influential. | ||
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Water for People didn't stand out in the sector until a couple of years ago, when Ned Breslin became the organization's CEO. They drew a line in the sand and declared that from "now on," things would be different. They have a fairly limited number of programs, but the programs they do choose to develop are innovative (for the sector), and the organization prioritizes field-level monitoring and transparency. | ||
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This organizations works in a wide variety of locations with great success. They are able to tackle water issues in Africa, Asia, and other diverse regions of the world by staying ahead of the game, applying innovative technologies and solutions, and staying open and honest with their peers and supporters. | ||
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They have the ability to influence other players in sector to pay more attention to sustainability. They also provide leadership in developing sanitation technology and marketing. | ||
Strong Projects |
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Water for People developed the FLOW platform for monitoring ongoing operation of water systems throughout the developing world. FLOW is open source, user friendly, and effective. I believe this technology is and will continue to impact water supply planning (particularly rural) for the better, for years to come. | ||
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They have implemented projects for us. We have seen 2 things: their project FLOW can have a great impact to improve sustainability of water systems and their social work in the communities they intervene is very remarkable. | ||
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Water for People has an excellent record of thoughtful interventions. I have seen their work in Central America and in India and have been very impressed by the quality of their investments and the staff on the ground. | ||
Reach Large Number of People |
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Water For People has a regional approach where they aim to reach everyone in a district. They have actually reached 100% water & sanitation coverage in Chinda, Honduras. I like this approach because it ensures that even the hardest to reach communities will get coverage. It's also a good way to leverage municipal government funds and buy-in. In addition, private sector approaches like circuit riders or latrine pit emptiers have a more dense and defined potential market. | ||
Strong Leadership |
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They consistently have high performance; they working in difficult countries/regions; they have high level advocacy on key sector issues; balanced sector focus on water and sanitation; and have a highly qualified leadership and field staff. | ||
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Their executive director, Ned Breslin, has the ability to communicate to a wide range of stakeholders. He also has the ability to articulate issues in the WASH sector in a way that gains widespread attention. | ||
Innovative |
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They have the willingness to rely on beneficiaries for significant contributions to projects. They are also able to work in collaboration with local governments. | ||
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They are very innovative and pushing the sector to think harder. | ||
Global Scope |
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Water for People has achieved great scale - they are having widespread impact around the world. | ||
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The organization now works in 11 countries: Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi in Africa; the state of West Bengal in India; Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic in Central America; Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador in South America. | ||
Broad Community Approach |
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I like their community approach to cover a wide area so that all have water, sanitation and hygiene education. | ||
Expert Comments: Organization Strengths
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Strong Leadership |
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Leadership, staff. | ||
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Strong leadership that is transparent about program success and failure. Invites stakeholders and peer organizations to review the organizations data. Willing to openly challenge practices and status quo of the sector. Innovative organization. | ||
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Strong Leadership of CEO. | ||
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Water For People has dynamic and visionary leadership and the organization possesses strong thought leadership. | ||
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Their strengths are their high visibility- ability to have media and press provide stories about project implementation- and strong leadership from the top that is innovative and imaginative. | ||
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The staff and leadership at Water For People are innovative and forward thinking and are very dedicated to the issue. Water For People has strong focus on sustainability specifically related to monitoring and evaluation. | ||
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They have a STRONG leadership, re-envisioning the sector's worth and approach, innovation. Their leadership is also committed to community engagement, attempts at holistic and innovative work, and openness to share failure. | ||
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Strong, creative leadership and management. Good local knowledge and partners. | ||
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Solid leadership, creative and thoughtful staff, solid contributions to debates. | ||
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The leadership and communication skills of its CEO. The technical quality of its staff is also remarkable. | ||
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Leadership, Staff, Strategic Planning | ||
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Very strong leadership from Ned Breslin. | ||
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Good leadership, good support from a broad array of businesses, individuals, and foundations, good name recognition. | ||
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Because of the link to the six professional organizations, their leadership knowledge is always current and leading ideas from some of the best technology in the world. Their leaders also understand the need for a "systems approach with appropriate technology" and are limiting their outreach to their carrying capacity. | ||
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Water for People's leadership, particularly its director, Ned Breslin, has lived and worked in the field. Breslin knows the people, the places, the cultures. He also knows that there are no easy solutions and that change takes time. | ||
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Water for People employs bold outspoken leadership. Its fundraising activities are augmented by steady support from the trade association of water utilities in the US. | ||
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Strong leadership (Skoll awardee). Innovative approaches. | ||
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WfP has inspirational leaders who are not afraid to innovate and push the boundary of their work. It is strong and rigorous in monitoring and reporting. | ||
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The leadership and staff of this organization is not only highly knowledgeable and organized, but terrific at mobilizing the nonprofit community to obtain successful results in the field of water and sanitation. They develop and openly share technologies that greatly improve the efficiency of actors in the field of water and sanitation rather than relying on outdated methods. This innovation and open sharing have benefitted all who are involved in water and sanitation and development at large. | ||
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Ned Breslin, Water for People's CEO, is an excellent communicator and has a knack for moving the conversation well beyond his own organization. Water for People are also taking a very thoughtful approach to fundraising and resource allocation, and not stretching themselves beyond their limits. | ||
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Ned Breslin is a leader in terms of communicating new thinking in the space. They have an interesting from the ground up sustainability model. They are pioneering measures of impact. | ||
Progressive |
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Water for People has created a very strong support system within developed countries to fund their overseas operation. They are progressive and creating tools which are relevant in today's technology. | ||
Support From Local Nonprofits and Governments |
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Support of local non-profits, strong coordination with local government, high focus on monitoring and evaluation for long-term impact. | ||
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They focus on local engagement and capacity building, and also focus on sustainable solutions. | ||
Support Sustainable Solutions |
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Organizational structure that supports sustainable solutions, not just a well or water system. This takes solid leadership and a commitment beyond construction with a focus on people. | ||
Innovative |
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Most innovative, most. | ||
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Pioneering research into innovative ways to ensure successful water provision projects is a strength. | ||
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Focus on sustainability. willingness to try new ideas | ||
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Innovative applications of new technology for monitoring projects. Thought leader in the field on WASH issues. Good, comprehensive approaches to solving the water crisis in a sustainable manner one region at a time. | ||
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Strong focus on innovation. Willingness to admit weakness and carry out major organizational reform. | ||
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Their strengths are their research and pioneering methods. | ||
Strong Marketing & Communications |
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Marketing and solid expert field staff. | ||
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The Water for People website is comprehensive and very attractive for browsing, learning, networking, etc. Ned Breslin does a very good job interfacing with the public. For example he regularly releases YouTube video explaining new initiatives, and posts updates daily on Facebook and Twitter. Water for People is an excellent example of an organization that communicates effectively with the public. | ||
Strong Regional & Country Staff |
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The regional and country coordinator staff are impressive leaders in their field. Water For People has also made important commitments to long term monitoring which should help prod colleagues into considering real issues of sustainability. | ||
Leader in the Space |
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Leader in the space - we consider them to be near an inflection point as an organization for scale. | ||
Financially Sound Management |
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They have financially sound management practices and have successful fund-raising efforts. | ||
Broad Support Base |
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Their strength is their broad base of support. | ||
Flexible and Open to Criticism |
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Open to change and criticism and willing to change course when shown that things are not working as planned | ||
Strong Monitoring Projects |
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They are fabulous at monitoring water projects, and at being transparent. They use a monitoring system called FLOW. http://watermapmonitordev.appspot.com/ / | ||
Well Resourced and Strong Staff |
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Their strengths are their staff and resources. | ||
Community-Driven Services |
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I like their stress on community-driven services. | ||
Expert Comments: Areas for Improvement
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Foundation Professionals (F)
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Researchers and Faculty (R)
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Nonprofit Senior Staff (N)
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Other (consultants, journalists, policy makers) (O)
Increase Project Funding |
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Project funding and personnel support. | ||
Deeper Engagement with Beneficiaries |
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Deeper engagement with beneficiaries to understand their social capacity to sustain WASH programming. Greater focus on sanitation and hygiene behavior change. | ||
Update Monitoring & Evaluation |
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I believe that their monitoring and evaluation program could use some updating to be simpler and they can use independent evaluators. | ||
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They can have more investigation answering why services are sustained or not over time - sharing lessons learned. | ||
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The current leadership, though I much admire it, has appeared to strike a posture opposing complex health impact assessments in favor of simpler metrics on water service provision. Though health outcome assessments are difficult and expensive, they serve as an important complement to more basic output-based assessments. I wish they were more receptive to them. | ||
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With every water project built in Africa, and other developing countries, it's a big task to ensure that each water project continues to work over the years. There are probably 1000s of broken water projects all over Africa from the many NGOs that work there. It's always a challenge to continue to decade after decade monitor the 1000s of water projects and programs, and to ensure they are sustainable. | ||
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They can improve on assessing their efforts. | ||
More Emphasis on Education |
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I would like to see more emphasis on strengthening key stakeholder through education and community capacity building through long range school and children education. | ||
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More focus on education as a critical component of sustainability, especially in schools and surrounding communities. Unsure if they are active in providing water in urban settings - if not, should also be a priority as the world becomes more urbanized. | ||
Improve Communications |
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Although Water For People has improved their transparency with donors and the general public, they could communicate more effectively with ALL players in the sector. Water For People is in a position to set an example for inclusivity and reach out to health and education organizations as potential partners. | ||
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Bringing more resources to align marketing campaigns with realities of the field to make them happening. | ||
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Personally I think some of the campaigns are a little cheesy, such as raising money through climbing a mountain in the name of sustainable water supply (?), so I'd recommend toning down some of that. Also, it would be helpful if more of their Facebook posts were dedicated to education around WASH and less about raising money all of the time. | ||
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Their core values are not clearly communicated. They would also be more effective by placing a greater emphasis on training local NGOs. | ||
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Publishing their successes and utilizing social media outlets to display their videos, photos, and achievements. | ||
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Water for People is trying to be leaders in the area of sustainability. I am a little concerned about the negative message that they are giving- we don't want donors shying away because they think none of the work is sustainable or making a difference. While there is need for improvement, we still need to present a positive message in the water sector. | ||
Advance Technological Innovation |
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Their technological innovation is considered 'cutting edge', but it could go several steps further if it is to have the desired effects. | ||
Awareness of Spreading Too Thin |
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The organization has grown quickly and gathered a lot of steam in the past few years. This could potentially spread them too thin. They seem to be aware of this though. | ||
Scale Interventions |
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How to make their model of intervention scalable. They showed delays in execution because is very detailed (high quality oriented) but not scalable for other types of larger interventions. | ||
Improve Collaboration with Other Organizations |
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The leadership at the US level is chaotic and some find the CEO to be abrasive and off-putting. Price of entrepreneurial spirit? Perhaps. | ||
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They can improve their partnerships with multi-lateral agencies and increase their focus on capacity building of local non-profits. | ||
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They can be somewhat dismissive of efforts of other organizations. | ||
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They seem to preachy at times and often don't acknowledge that there are others around them who also are doing excellent work-- so they appear reluctant to share credit (even though they work with very good ngos on the ground). | ||
Work with More Bilateral to Increase Impact |
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Their impact is small. They need to work with bilateral in more countries. | ||
Decentralize Leadership |
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They are too dependent on a few good leaders and are not as "deep in staff and leadership" that is desirable for a long term dependable organization. They tend to be a control organization more than a shared team organization. | ||
Improve Funding Strategy |
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Need more and better approaches to tap into sources of funding for the organization. | ||
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WfP should be ten times its current size, given the potential support base in the USA. So it needs to grow its fundraising and communications functions. | ||
Expand Program Development |
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WFP may have chosen to work in some program areas because they are already a close fit to their desired model. I would love to see this organization choose some harder, high-need areas for program development. | ||
Increase Visibility Beyond CEO |
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Public image tends to revolve around CEO, need to increase visibility of other members of staff. | ||
Increase Field Deliverability |
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Water for People's work on the ground has a reputation for not quite matching up to the rhetoric. This will likely change over time, but in the meantime, there are many organizations whose operations likely remain more professional and with more institutional memory in the same space. | ||
More Technical Advisors |
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They need more technical advisors to ensure field work is solid. | ||
Focus on Proof of Concept |
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They get too full of themselves and still acts like a dumb implementer at times. They need to get away from scaled implementation and focus on proof of concept. Proof, not PR. | ||
Improve Scalability |
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Their weakness is their ability to scale. | ||
Leadership
Ned Breslin
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Executive Officer
From the Nonprofit
The nonprofit has not added any comments yet. If you are a representative of this nonprofit and would like to leave a comment, please email us at
feedback@myphilanthropedia.org
with your request.