WaterRising Institute
WaterRising Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with United Nations ECOSOC Special Consultative Status, founded in Flint, Michigan, in response to the water crisis that bears its name. We exist to make water a matter of trusted leadership, sound evidence, and shared stewardship — and we created the WaterHouse platform to carry that work to the world's decision-makers.
Born in Flint
In April 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan switched its drinking water to the Flint River to cut costs. Without corrosion controls, lead leached from aging pipes into the taps of roughly 100,000 residents — exposing thousands of children to lead and contributing to a Legionnaires' disease outbreak that killed twelve people. For months, residents' concerns were dismissed.
Flint was not simply a plumbing failure. It was a systems failure — a breakdown in how policy, capital, science, and community decisions are meant to protect the most essential resource there is. The water was always there. What failed was everything around it: the oversight, the information, the accountability, the will.
That failure is why WaterRising Institute exists. Founder & CEO Alicia Douglas built the Institute — and, later, the WaterHouse platform — on a conviction Flint made impossible to ignore: that safeguarding water is a matter of national strength, local stewardship, and generational responsibility, and that the world needs trusted, neutral places where capital, policy, science, and community can align before the next crisis, not after it.
Two roles, one purpose
These are two distinct things, working together. WaterRising Institute is the nonprofit — the charitable, educational, and scientific mission. WaterHouse is the global platform the Institute created to make water visible and investable. This page is about the Institute; the WaterHouse platform has its own mission.
WaterRising Institute → creates → WaterHouse
The nonprofit mission, expressed through a global platform.
Our Mission
WaterRising Institute builds the ecosystem that advances water through leadership, research, strategic partnerships, and innovation. We bring together the public, private, philanthropic, and civic sectors to make water more visible, strengthen resilience, and accelerate solutions that create lasting economic, environmental, and social impact.
Our Vision
A world where water is recognized as the foundation of healthy communities, resilient economies, and a sustained future.
Our Tenets
From the beginning, WaterRising was designed not as an advocacy organization, but as a neutral intermediary — a trusted place where stakeholders who rarely share a table can solve problems together.
We convene as an honest broker — independent of any single interest — so that capital, policy, science, and community can meet on common ground.
Solutions are validated where water is actually used. The people closest to the problem are partners in the answer, not an afterthought.
As an educational and scientific organization, we ground every effort in research, decision-grade intelligence, and measurable outcomes.
Water is held in trust for the next generation. We measure success in resilience created, not credit claimed.
Our Critical Few Objectives
As set out in our governing bylaws, WaterRising Institute is organized exclusively for charitable, educational, and scientific purposes — pursued through four core objectives.
Objective 01 — Understand
Investigate the impact of climate change and human activity on water quality, quantity, and access — building a clear, shared understanding of the threat.
Objective 02 — Empower
Educate and assist communities in evaluating and responding to the water issues that climate change and human activity create.
Objective 03 — Build
Create information-management and outcome-analysis tools that make research and action on water issues practical and measurable.
Objective 04 — Deploy
Put information and tools to work through strategic relationships, so communities can identify and implement more effective courses of action.
WaterRising Institute created WaterHouse to carry this mission to the world's investors, policymakers, and innovators.