Track Our Progress To $500,000

Progress: 170%
Raised: $ 849224 Goal: $ 500000

CONTRIBUTE TO SOLUTIONS

ROSENTHAL CHALLENGE REDEFINES THE MAGNITUDE OF CHANGE

For the third year running, New Orleans philanthropists, Stephen and Sandy Rosenthal, have committed $500,000 as a challenge to help you multiply the impact of your support of Water For People and help put an end to global water poverty.

Your gift will make a transformative difference when its impact is further magnified through contributions from communities, governments, and partners on the ground. The result is a ripple effect of collaboration and ownership that will create sustainable change.

This funding will be used to support hundreds of projects around the world that will stand the test of time. You will help involve communities, like those featured below, in their own solutions. You will help Water For People influence others to replicate our successful model of water and sanitation development.

Donate online today! All donations received through October 31, 2010, will qualify, so please pass this challenge on to your friends and family. More fine print below.

Your support will ensure that Water For People can grow its impact in the developing world.

Thank you for bringing lasting health and hope to families in need.

Read stories from people and communities supported by Water For People


	Success Breeds Success in Galufu, Malawi In the small village of Galufu, Malawi, residents still recall the frequent outbreaks of cholera, especially during the rainy season, when they had to collect water from a polluted stream. One year they lost an entire family to the disease. This kind of illness is now only a memory. Water For People began working in Galufu in the year 2000. Collaborating with Malawi Freshwater Project, a local NGO, Water For People worked with the community of 1,700, including Chief Lydia Biston and her family, to develop safe water and improved sanitation solutions. And the improvements continue. Since Water For People’s initial intervention with Galufu village, Chief Lydia has helped her people move themselves further away from poverty. Read more

	Community-Based Leadership Ensures Sustainability in Bolivia Water For People supports the development of hundreds of water and sanitation projects each year. But our overarching mission goes beyond simply pipes, pumps and potties. It’s about making sure these systems work for the long term. Community involvement and ownership are at the heart of Water For People’s successful programmatic principles to ensure sustainability. In the municipality of Cuchumuela in central Bolivia, most people are subsistence farmers. Families are poor and scores of people still don’t have access to safe water or adequate sanitation. But in the community of Condo Qhochir, Water For People and its local partners helped establish a safe and reliable water source, and the local water committee has been able to maintain the system via affordable tariffs it collects from community members each month. Read more

	Micro-Financing Sanitation in West Bengal, India Rahn Hari Maity no longer feels shame for her mother, who once had to openly defecate in front of their house because she could no longer walk to the pond to use their shallow pit toilet. Now outside their home, the family of five has a pour-flush latrine, which they built through an innovative loan program made possible by Water For People working with a local implementing partner, Rural Aid. The Maity family lives in the village of Mandirtala, in the remote Sunderban Islands, 60 miles southeast of Kolkata. The local government had implemented a program to provide people with squatting plates and pans to construct shallow pit toilets. But the program didn't include a provision to educate people on how to set up the structures, use the squatting plate, or plan for their maintenance. So in many cases the squatting plates were used incorrectly—or not at all. Read more

These stories and many others are about leveraging multiple resources and ceding ownership to those who will be responsible over the long term. We call it IMPACT² and it is central to Water For People’s core programmatic principles.

Please make your donation today and help us exceed our $1 million goal.

Together, let’s make a lasting impact on water poverty. Together, let’s be the current of change.

Thank you for growing your impact so we can grow our impact in the field.

The Fine Print

Gifts must be received between August 30, 2010 and October 31, 2010 (gifts postmarked after October 31 will not be eligible)
Gifts must be identified as applying to the campaign (via specific reply device, through this dedicated webpage, as a memo on a check, or verbally)
All gifts received for this challenge will be designated to where the need is greatest
Gifts received for this promotion cannot be applied to another campaign or existing pledge (i.e. tributes, memorials, workplace giving, event sponsorships, committees)
No soft credits will apply towards the challenge goal

For more information on how you can participate in the Water For People Rosenthal Million Dollar Challenge, please contact Wende Valentine, Assistant Director of Major Gifts, at wvalentine@waterforpeople.org, 720.488.4591.