About
Built to be checked, from the board down
The organization runs on three published disciplines: communities decide, every program has an exit date, and the numbers — including the misses — are public.
What we hold to
Four rules that decide arguments here
Publish the numbers, including the misses
Every indicator, target and result is public, alongside the two or three that missed. A dashboard that only goes up is a brochure.
Communities decide, we fund and check
Water committees set tariffs, villages keep their own registers, and our staff facilitate rather than chair. Verification is our job; ownership is theirs.
Every program has an exit date
Programs are designed to hand over — to a district office, a utility, a health service. The handover target is written before the first dollar moves.
Overhead is a tool, not a score
We publish program, operations and fundraising spending and explain changes. Cutting operations to flatter a ratio is how programs fail quietly.
History
From a failed well to ten countries
- 2011
Founded after a failed well
The first program drilled twelve wells and watched eight fail within a year. The founders published the failure and rebuilt the model around maintenance — the approach still in use.
- 2014
Gravity-flow in Karnali
The Nepal program began with three schemes and a rule: nobody counts as reached until a full monsoon has passed.
- 2019
Health portfolio opens
Eleven clinics in Karamoja joined the portfolio, chosen because cold chains were the region's highest-margin gap.
- 2022
Education and river clinics
Double-shift classrooms in Sylhet and the La Guajira river clinics brought the portfolio to three themes and five countries.
- 2025
Nine countries, one dashboard
The Sumba boat clinics and Rwanda pilot completed the tenth country, and the public dashboard replaced the PDF-first reporting cycle.
Governance
Who answers for what
Nine trustees, four of them based in program countries. The board calendar, minutes policy and compensation rules are published — not summarized, published.
The board
Nine trustees, four of whom live in program countries, elected for three-year terms with a maximum of two. The board meets five times a year, and its calendar is published. Minutes are available on request; three sets are published proactively each year.
Committees
The finance and audit committee (chaired by the treasurer) reviews budgets, the audit and the quarterly spending notes. The programs committee reviews new program designs and every proposed exit. Both committee chairs are independent trustees.
Conflict of interest
Every trustee and senior staff member files a declared-interests register annually, and the register is published. Any grant or contract touching a declared interest requires the interested member to leave the room and the vote.
Compensation
Trustees are unpaid and travel is reimbursed at cost. Staff salary bands are published in each job posting, and the executive director's compensation is set by the board with reference to a published band and the annual report discloses it.
People
The board
Amara Osei
Chair
Public health systems researcher; chaired the board since 2021. Leads the annual strategy review.
Elena Márquez
Treasurer
Former CFO of a regional water utility. Chairs the finance and audit committee.
Henrik Sørensen
Trustee
Hydrologist with twenty years in rural water supply. Reviews every technical program design.
Priya Raghavan
Trustee
Foundation program director. Focuses on funding ethics and the exits portfolio.
Joseph Mwangi
Trustee
District water officer in Turkana County. Keeps the board honest about field realities.
Ingrid Halvorsen
Secretary
Lawyer specialising in international nonprofit governance. Runs the interests register.
The team
Nadia Rahim
Executive director
Joined in 2016 from a sanitation program in Dhaka. Writes the annual letter, signs the spending notes.
Tomas Ferreira
Programs director
Water engineer by training. Owns the program portfolio and the exit plans nobody likes and everyone needs.
Grace Adeyemi
Finance director
Chartered accountant. Runs the quarterly spending notes and the audit relationship.
Lin Zhao
Head of monitoring and evaluation
Statistician. Maintains the indicator register and the rule that definitions outrank dashboards.
Sofia Lindqvist
Communications lead
Former field correspondent. Edits the stories section and holds the line on publishing failures too.
Daniel Okonkwo
Partnerships lead
Manages institutional and corporate partnerships under the no-preview rule: everyone sees results at the same time.
Work here, or check our work
The careers page lists every open role with its salary band, and the transparency page holds the finances.