Susan Davis is the director of outreach for WaterPartners International, a nonprofit organization that addresses the water supply and sanitation needs of people living in developing countries.
Susan Davis is the director of outreach for WaterPartners International, a nonprofit organization that addresses the water supply and sanitation needs of people living in developing countries.
Monday, 5 Feb 2001
NEW YORK, N.Y.
Today, like every day, more than 25,000 people die because of unsafe water. In developing countries, more than a billion people lack access to safe drinking water. The world’s number one killer is unsafe water. This killer is responsible for 80 percent of all sickness in the world. Drinking from and bathing in polluted water supplies are among the most common routes for the spread of infectious disease, and nearly half of the world’s population suffers from water-related diseases. These diseases are the single largest killers of infants in developing countries — diarrhea alone causes 4 million deaths each year — and access to safe water is directly linked to the survival of children under age five.
So today, like every day since my involvement with WaterPartners, I try to do something to make a difference.
Girls in Honduras collecting water from a stream also used by cattle.
Photo: Gary White.
The groundwork for WaterPartners International was laid in 1990, when our executive director and cofounder, Gary White, and his family invited friends to a dinner to learn about the plight of people in Central America. That first dinner raised $3,000 for a water project in El Limon, Honduras. That water system is still working, as are all the projects we have funded. Gary met Marla Smith-Nilson, our other cofounder and director of international programs, while in graduate school at the University of North Carolina. They officially established WaterPartners as a nonprofit in 1993, with a vision of the day when everyone in the world can take a safe drink of water.
Today starts with getting online. I work for a virtual organization, which means all staff members work out of home offices. Most of our daily interactions are through email. Our “global headquarters” is in Columbia, Mo., where Gary White lives. Marla Smith-Nilson lives in Seattle, Wash. Our director of finance, Dave Sarr, lives in Washington, D.C.; the director of donor services, Erin Keys, also lives in Columbia; the workplace giving coordinator, Steve Hanson, in Portland, Ore.; and the webmaster, Tracy Jackson, in Raleigh, N.C. Some of the newer staff haven’t met all the others, which is why we are looking forward to our staff retreat starting 1 Mar.
I check our web statistics each morning. As the director of outreach, I am responsible for our website content. We significantly renovated our site twice in the year 2000, and I’ve become almost obsessed with the statistics. In addition to the number of visitors, page views, hits, and bytes transferred, you can find out things like length of stay (how long each visitor spends looking around the site) and depth of stay (how many pages each visitor looks at). I keep track of this information to help us measure the impact of our outreach efforts and to influence future content and structure.
Our new ad. Click here for a larger version.
In December 2000, we were thrilled by the donation of space by Fortune magazine for our first national ad. Sullivan Higdon & Sink, a marketing and public relations firm in Kansas City, designed the ad for us pro bono and used their connections to get the ad placed. I have been actively searching for contacts to get the ad placed in other magazines. I even networked on my recent vacation, and today I sent a file with the ad to a friend of a friend who works for an architectural magazine.
My big task for the day is to log more of the video footage from our trip to Honduras. (This is when I wish that I had learned Spanish.) Logging the footage can be a tedious process: We have 11 hours of interviews, scenery, and daily life that I have to wade through and narrow down to five to seven minutes. I’m new to video production, but I’m lucky to have found a professional who doesn’t mind giving me advice.
The website, national ad campaigns, and a video brochure: These are some of the ways that I can help to reach the day when everyone in the world can take a safe drink of water.
Tuesday, 6 Feb 2001
NEW YORK, N.Y.
I got an email from my boss, Gary White, who’s in Ethiopia as part of a collaborative effort with the Glimmer of Hope Foundation. This foundation, based in Austin, Texas, was established last year with a $100 million endowment by Philip and Donna Berber. They will focus their efforts on Ethiopia and will help support water supply projects. WaterPartners is advising them on strategies that will allow them to have the greatest impact with their resources. So Gary is in Ethiopia to get a sense of what organizations are working in the water supply and sanitation sector and the impact they are having.
Gary is going to Ecuador immediately after leaving Ethiopia. We have a consulting contract with the Clearwater Project, which was established in 1999 by the singer Jewel. When there is a project that Clearwater is considering supporting, WaterPartners will provide services to help them assess the project and make recommendations.
I would be jealous of all of Gary’s travel, except for the fact that I will be going to Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines in March. This is also part of our contract with the Clearwater Project. Although I am the director of outreach, I wear many hats. I am glad to be a part of the technical aspects of our work. Not only does it give me a chance to meet some of the people we help, but it also helps me to better explain what it is we do.
Honduran digging the ditch for the water-transmission pipeline.
Photo: Marla Smith-Nilson.
What we do is unique. Most people who hear about us think that the WaterPartners staff, or maybe staff and volunteers, actually go to communities in developing countries and build water systems. We get several emails each month from vastly overqualified people (usually master plumbers and professional engineers) who want to help by digging ditches or building latrines. I wish we could put them to work, but that’s not what we do.
What we do is find the organizations in developing countries that are the best at facilitating community-based water projects. When we fund water projects through them, these organizations provide training, engineering experience, and technical oversight, but the community residents provide the labor and part of the capital funding. It is amazing and inspiring to see these impoverished, struggling people pull together to change their own lives.
All the construction is done by hand, and i
t’s backbreaking work. And these are subsistence farmers, so there’s no break.
In Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines, we will meet with several organizations that Marla Smith-Nilson, our director of international programs, has identified based on their responses to a preliminary questionnaire. We will interview their staff and, if they seem promising, visit some of the communities in which they have facilitated water projects. Then we will recommend those that meet our standards to Clearwater.
I still need to get visas for these countries (pretty handy when you live in New York City) and probably several vaccinations. I got several before my trip to Honduras, but I’m not sure what I’ve done with my immunization card.
Planning committee cochairs Dann and Jennifer Sklarew (left) and friends at the D.C. Water for Life event — a salsa dance.
On the domestic front, I am finishing up the winter edition of our newsletter, the Agua Dulce. We have a lot of exciting news to include this time, along with project updates, and announcements of our Water for Life events. We may even have a guest writer; I reminded him about it today.
Our Water for Life events are how we got started. We have found most of our long-term supporters through these events, which take the form of dinners, receptions, and dances. The focal point of each is a presentation about what we do, telling stories about the people we help. Committees of volunteers keep these annual events going in Columbia, Mo., Kansas City, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. I just assumed the Water for Life coordinator hat, so I need to contact all the committees this week.
Today, wearing my many hats, I am feeling well-rounded. That’s one of the things I love about this job.
Wednesday, 7 Feb 2001
NEW YORK, N.Y.
Riding out of Yupural, Honduras.
Photo: Gary White.
Well, it’s Wednesday, hump day, and time for a little humor. I’m including this photograph of me on a mule. The poor mule had to carry me for two hours up a steep mountain after one of our site visits in Honduras. Even worse, the owner of the recalcitrant mule had to hike the whole way, urging the mule on. I came across this memento of our trip while I was looking for photos to include in our annual report.
Last night, I showed my husband the tape of a recent newscast (on KOMU in Columbia, Mo.). We made the 6:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. news! They did a story on the estimated $3.5 million endowment set up for us by Greg and Vickie Iverson of Highlands, Utah. I just happened to be in Columbia for a staff meeting when the news reporter called, so they interviewed me after they talked to Gary. It was my first time being interviewed on camera. The story included a couple of sound bites from me, and I sounded coherent, but not eloquent. Although it aired the same night, I left town that day, so I just got the tape from a coworker. My husband suggested that we convert it to digital and stream it on our website — something new for me to figure out.
Gary with Vickie and Greg Iverson after a meeting in Salt Lake City.
Today I received several requests for One Day for Water activity kits. It made me realize that the day’s coming up soon. One Day for Water is WaterPartners’ response to World Water Day, which was established by the United Nations in 1992. World Water Day is 22 Mar. each year. The original premise behind One Day for Water is for a participant to carry all of her drinking water for the day and tally all the water she uses. Last year we added activities for children, which include “To Fetch a Pail of Water”:
See how far you can carry a milk jug full of water before your arms get tired. Try one in each hand. Be careful not to spill it! Did you know that many people spend three hours each day carrying all the water they need? Some people carry it on their heads. Practice carrying something light and unbreakable on your head (like an empty milk jug). How much does it weigh? A full bucket of water weighs more than 30 pounds (the same as two bowling balls)!
With a website address like www.water.org, we get a lot of interesting requests (I handle all the information requests and feedback from the website). A recent email from two boys in middle school asked for advice on a science project. They wanted to know the properties of water and the best ways to melt ice. I always try to help when I can. I sent these boys links to a couple of science websites. They wrote back a couple of weeks later saying that they won a prize and listing the results of their experiment. With all the snow we’ve had lately, I wish I’d kept that list. I know kitty litter was on there somewhere.
We also get occasional emails like, “My water tastes funny — can you tell me if it’s contaminated?” I suggest people check out the U.S. EPA website or call their local water utility. People also ask whether bottled or tap water is safer. The verdict is still out on that, but it reminds me how lucky we are to even have a choice. A striking fact is that the average American spends 0.5 percent of her income on drinking water, while the average Honduran living in the slums of the capital city spends 25 percent of her income on drinking water.
This all makes me realize I have quite a challenge ahead of me: to make people think about something that we in the developed world take for granted — safe water.
Thursday, 8 Feb 2001
NEW YORK, N.Y.
I spent most of today writing and sending out press releases. My focus this time was media in the Seattle area. We have a Water for Life event coming up in March, and we’re trying to drum up interest. This event, in its sixth year, is one of our most successful. The committee there has a history of increasing attendance and getting corporate sponsorships. Proceeds will benefit the nearly unpronounceable Tzanimacabaj, Guatemala.
Gary and I presenting a Water for Life banner in Yupural, Honduras.
Photo: Don Drysdale
I find Water for Life events energizing because I meet people who strongly support what WaterPartners does. First-timers have that “aha!” look in their eyes after the presentation. Because we identify a particular community that will benefit from each event, the attendees feel a connection with the beneficiaries even though they may never meet them. Each attendee signs a banner that WaterPartners staff later present to the water committee in the community.
Donors can keep track of the community’s progress through our newsletter, Agua Dulce, and on our website. We’re encouraging our partner organizations to send us more frequent project updates to keep our website more current. In fact, we just gave our Honduran partner organi
zation a digital camera and a reporting guide to help them give us photos and anecdotes about project progress and daily life that will be interesting to our donors.
Last October, I gave my first presentations at the Columbia, Mo., and Kansas City Water for Life events. I showed slides and talked about people I met on our Honduras trip. I was nervous, because I tend to babble when I’m excited about a topic, but by the Kansas City event I was more confident. I look forward to doing more of these. Marla Smith-Nilson, our director of international programs, is my role model: She always receives standing ovations and usually moves people to tears. She tells stories about real people whose lives have been changed by access to safe water. Here’s one of my favorites:
Isabel is a community health promoter in the village of Ixchomchaj, a town of 325 people in Guatemala. She is one of three health promoters elected by her fellow community members. Each health promoter receives special training from our partner organization over a six-month period. Isabel is responsible for providing health education training to about 18 households. In addition to the community training sessions where she demonstrates healthy behaviors, she visits her households monthly to evaluate how each house is practicing what they have learned. Isabel tracks the performance of each family over time, and gives special attention to families who are not practicing what they have learned. What is amazing about this is that, like most of the people in WaterPartners’ communities, Isabel is illiterate. All her teaching and evaluating is done using pictures and symbols from special materials developed by our partner organization.
Isabel demonstrates the importance of hand-washing to a group of mothers and children.
Photo: Marla Smith-Nilson.
More proof that outreach pays off: A woman from a foundation in Atlanta called today and asked for an annual report after she saw our NPO Spotlight on the Foundation Center’s website. I may not have mentioned yet that I also wear the hat of grants coordinator. I find this to be one of the most challenging aspects of my job. I’m glad to have a resource like the Foundation Center in Manhattan.
The last time Gary White, our executive director, was in New York, he and I developed a list of projects to write grant proposals for. Our more urgent needs are postproduction for our video footage and a professional overhaul of our website. My goal is to have drafts of the proposals before our staff retreat in early March. I keep putting off proposal writing, because it can be intimidating. Maybe I’ll work on them tomorrow.
Friday, 9 Feb 2001
NEW YORK, N.Y.
My office-bound friends are divided between those who are jealous of my work-at-home status and those who say they could never do it themselves. So today, I’ll talk a little about the pros and cons of working at home, also known as telecommuting or e-commuting. Keep in mind that I’ve only been doing it since April 2000.
Philanthropy News Network (PNN) online-interviewed Gary White and me in April 2000 for a multipart feature on telecommuting.
Me with Maggie, social director.
Photo: Doug von Bushberger
The biggest disadvantage for me, having just moved to Manhattan in August 2000, is that it’s hard to meet people. I don’t have a local office that I need to go into every so often. I am so thankful that I have a dog, because she forces me to get outside, and I have met several neighbors who also have dogs. She also provides me with entertainment and occasional distractions during the day. Luckily, it seems everybody knows somebody who lives in New York, and I’ve been persistent about meeting up with friends of friends.
Another potential disadvantage is the lack of motivation. I admit I definitely put certain tasks off (like proposal writing, as I mentioned yesterday), but so far I have such a variety of compelling tasks that I always keep busy. I use the reminders in Outlook extensively to prod me into doing stuff. When I’ve snoozed something too many times, I finally just do it. One thing that keeps popping up today is “develop script and additional shot list for video.” Maybe after the grant proposals.
Our staff has managed to overcome the challenge of long-distance collaboration. I think we all have high-speed Internet access now (which is vital!), so we keep our email programs open all day. On my laptop, incoming emails make a little boing noise, so I can read and respond almost instantly. I often attach drafts of things I’m working on for comment, and we use the redline/strikeout feature to make edits. We also have staff meetings by conference call every two weeks, which give us a chance to catch up socially, as well.
Working in a home office means that I am also my own support staff. Along with my coworkers, I print, copy, fax, cut, scan, word process, assemble publications and mailings, and walk to the post office. On the days when I’m feeling efficient, this doesn’t bother me. I often ended up doing all those things back when I had a support staff (as an environmental consultant). Stuffing envelopes is a great arm workout and can be done while watching TV.
We envision the day when everyone in the world can take a safe drink of water.
Photo: Jim Nilson.
Now to the advantages: flexible hours, short commute, casual day every day, low-stress work environment. The biggest advantage for me so far has been the portability of this job. When I started working full-time for WaterPartners, I lived in Chapel Hill, N.C. When my husband got a job in New York, it was easy to take the job with me. I believe that WaterPartners has succeeded because of this flexibility to hire motivated, talented people no matter where they are.
We also pack a lot of collaboration into our staff retreats and meetings, which we try to schedule around board meetings or Water for Life events. We stay up late at night and have “blue sky,” or brainstorming sessions. We work hard, but we have a lot of fun together. I’m looking forward to our next retreat, 1-5 Mar., when I’ll get to meet our workplace giving coordinator, Steve Hanson. He’s been with us for several months but lives in Portland, Ore.
Thanks for reading — I hope these diary entries have been interesting. I’ve enjoyed sharing a little bit of my life. I’d love to hear from you at sdavis@water.org. Please visit our website if you’d like to learn more about WaterPartners.
