Grant Writing 101: charity: water Shares 3 Strategies It Uses to Effectively Fund Its Programs

As a nonprofit organization that brings clean, safe drinking water to people in developing countries, charity: water has helped steward hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to local partners in 29 countries around the world since its founding in 2006. To accomplish its mission, charity: water funds local organizations that specialize in water, sanitation and hygiene solutions that have brought clean water to nearly 15 million people. In 2021, the organization will provide more than $80 million in grants for clean water programs. 

charity: water’s success in funding international programs is backed by 15 years of grant writing experience and strategy. Throughout that time, the organization has learned that the most successful approach to funding international programs starts with putting its local partners in the driver’s seat, as they can provide the most valuable insights when it comes to finding and implementing sustainable solutions in their communities.  

For nonprofits that are looking to expand their international presence, charity: water has shared its three most effective grantmaking strategies to make fundraising efforts more successful.

1. Define Your Objectives Precisely and Stick to Them

In a world in which there is an overwhelming amount of need, it’s easy to experience mission creep. When organizations get outside their area of expertise, they risk wasting precious resources, spreading themselves too thin and drifting away from their initial goals.

In charity: water’s case, the challenge is that there are many, many people around the world who don’t have access to clean water — 785 million, to be exact — so it can be difficult to prioritize where to work. By identifying and prioritizing its target market, charity: water has learned that it would have the greatest impact in the 40 lowest-income countries with large rural populations in need, where the political, social and environmental conditions are stable enough to achieve lasting impact. Within each program country, charity: water then selects a handful of underserved districts where it concentrates its efforts for five to 10 years. This focus and timeline enables charity: water to build expertise, develop lasting relationships, and deliver a meaningful, lasting impact. 

Many nonprofits undergo the constant pressure to overstretch their reach to new areas or new types of interventions, so having a clear framework for goals is essential to making efficient decisions. By defining one’s objectives with clarity, and then fully committing to those objectives, nonprofits can avoid time-consuming errors and deliver solutions that are more valuable and more impactful to beneficiaries.   

2. Use Solutions That Are Designed Locally

In order for a nonprofit to make lasting, meaningful change, interventions must be localized and must fit into the social, political, economic, and ecological systems of the people and areas that need aid. As an organization working across more than 20 countries, charity: water has found that the best way to achieve the highest quality outcomes is to use experts from the communities they serve to design the interventions they’re funding. 

Although the most successful program designs are led locally, charity: water plays a vital role by structuring the planning and project management process. It’s imperative to continuously build trust during this stage and to always be very sensitive to the power imbalance between the grantor (e.g., charity: water) and grantee (e.g., charity: water’s partners) so that recommendations are not misinterpreted as requests or commands. Ultimately, collaboration is key, and when the ownership is genuinely local, projects are much more likely to accomplish their goals and genuinely improve the lives within that community.

3. Pace Yourself

To achieve true, lasting change, it’s probably going to take more time than expected during the initial planning phases. For charity: water’s goal of having clean water flowing at its project sites for many years to come, it must first build and nurture a level of long-term support into its program planning. This has helped improve sustainability levels in programs, and, operationally, it is beneficial to keep projects concentrated in geographic areas. That way, new projects are close to old projects and when an old project runs into trouble, program staff can easily be deployed to help fix problems. 

Good data collection and management have also been key to charity: water’s ability to provide long-term support when, and where, it’s needed. Since the beginning of charity: water, it has promised to prove every project it funds. For 15 years, the nonprofit has collected GPS coordinates and data on every single community it has ever served. Without this database, it would be very difficult to systematically monitor performance on past projects. Staying connected to projects for up to 10 years takes a lot of focus, but the life-changing results that charity: water has seen makes it worth it. 

Good grantmaking takes clear goals and guidelines, local buy-in, and a long-term vision. When these simple rules are followed, nonprofits can further empower their partners and achieve an even greater, more valuable impact on the communities and people they serve.