Scaling a solution to end the global water crisis
The Challenge
Water.org was launching a social impact investment fund, WaterEquity, to better scale efforts to solve the global water crisis.
The Solution
We helped WaterEquity create a powerful purpose-driven brand and build a community around those motivated to help bring clean water to all.
The global water crisis impacts billions, robbing them of access to clean water or a toilet. But charity alone to a Water.org or other water charities won’t solve the crisis. Annual aid for water and sanitation amounts to only $8 billion - far short of the $1 trillion needed to solve this crisis and maintain access long term.
To scale access to capital to end the global water crisis in our lifetime, Water.org created WaterEquity, a social impact investment fund. Social impact investing creates a pipeline of affordable capital that accelerates and expands microfinance institutions’ ability to make these loans. And unlike a traditional donation, the returns from a social impact investment can be reinvested, exponentially expanding the impact. This is the power of WaterEquity.
Launching a purpose-driven brand
We guided WaterEquity through our brand process to help uncover the driving purpose-driven messaging strategy that would resonate with high-net-worth investors and everyday investors. Crucially, we needed to find a clear, simple way to explain how a complicated model, like social impact investing, can help solve the global water crisis.
“WaterEquity unleashes the market-driven capital needed to match the scale of the global water and sanitation crisis to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world.”
Accelerating the impact
From the outset, it was important to create a brand that would resonate across audiences and prompt loans from investors of all kinds. Working in collaboration with WaterEquity, we created online and offline ways for investors to learn more about the urgency of the water crisis and why this model was the right way to scale support.