Sponsor A Well in Africa

You can make an enormous impact on hundreds of lives by sponsoring a clean water well in Africa.

You, your school, church or even a group of your friends can choose to fund an entire clean water project in Sudan, Sierra Leone or Kenya. Cost and project availability vary, but on average a water project costs around $5,000-$6,000. These costs include preparing the community for a water project, actual construction and the long-term monitoring and evaluation needed to make sure your investment lasts a very long time.

All it takes is a little time and a bit of passion to change the world.

Sponsor A Well

Where will the well be built?

Currently, we're working to fund new wells and well rehabilitations at schools, medical clinics, and churches in Kenya, Sierra Leone and Southern Sudan. The individual sites are chosen because they are each open to the public and can serve large groups of people.

Our teams and partners have gone ahead and started the process of preparing each community for their new water well project. They ensure each community is committed to the project, and in most cases require some form of investment of time and money on their part. This is a critical step to ensure each water project is sustainable and that your investment has the longest possible effect.

How many people will each water well serve?

This will vary by location. We try to find water projects where the cost of the project is around $10 per person for ten years of clean water. Most of our recent projects have seen figures of 800 or more.

Still, an equally important question to ask is how long the project will last. To make sure it's as long as possible, we go back and check to find out what's working and what's not. We work hard to do the greatest good with your gifts.

Properly maintained, each pump should provide clean, safe drinking water for up to 10 years before needing an overhaul.

Will I get to see it?

Yes, of course! Our well drilling teams are great at sending pictures and updates back to us as they work. We'll pass those on to you through our Project Updates - listing you and your team as the sponsors (you can choose to remain anonymous too). You'll be able to track your specific project from its beginning, through construction and for many years to come.

Can I dedicate a well?

Sure. We'll be happy to have our team place a small, inexpensive sign or plaque inside the closest public building. It can bear a dedication, memorial, or simply the name of your group and a short message. Be sure to email us with instructions on how you would like the sign to read. We'll review it and then pass it on to the team building the well.

How does the well sponsorship process work?

The process of sponsoring a well in Africa is simple.

Once you have raised the money and made your donation(s) to The Water Project, Inc., we will assign your gift to the next available well site on our ever-growing list.

We work very hard to keep our drillers busy, and try to ensure they always have about a two month back-log of work. That simply means that your well will be dug about 4-6 months after your donation.

We won't send your donation to the field until just before it's ready to dig - keeping everything safe, secure...and accountable.

What am I paying for?

A water project costs more than just the well.

To ensure each project is done right and lasts for many years, there are three essential phases to every project. They are site selection and funding, actual construction, and long-term monitoring and evaluation.

The majority of your donation goes to our field implementers in the construction phase. They use it to pay for supplies, well pumps, drill bits, wear and tear on the rigs, fuel, and wages for the drill crews. If you choose to only fund construction work (the 100% Option), we'll find additional support to cover the project's other two phases and list those donors as project sponsors along with you.

When you sponsor an entire project, you'll be an integral part of the effort from the very beginning to clean water flowing and over the next ten years or more! We'll show you how all along the way.

Learn more about the process »

How can I be sure a well was built?

Proving wells is hard work, but we believe essential to building trust through transparency.

We ask our drillers to send pictures of the actual drilling process when possible. In many cases we're provided with before and after photos.

In addition to pictures, we insist that every well be documented with Govt. drilling permits and GPS coordinates. We have folks on our team visit random wells, using these coordinates, to keep everyone honest.

Finally, we ask for itemized expense reports and copies of deposit/withdrawal forms from the banks to which we wire funds for wells. We trust our team, but also try to remove any opportunity for others to question their integrity.

Can I go to Africa to help build the well?

At this time, we are not able to ensure either safe travel or participation by volunteers at water projects in the field.

Well drilling is specialized work carried out by trained professionals and it is often quite dangerous. Our teams, made up of local drilling techs, don't have the ability to manage visits while they work.

The locations in which they work are often very remote and not frequented by foreigners.

Still, we have had a few well sponsors travel - on their own - to visit a completed well, and we worked to help them find their way to the site with a guide from our Kenya team.

How do I get started?

If you are interested in sponsoring an entire well, or even just a portion, we've got a couple great tools to help get your project off the ground...

Can I Sponsor Part of a Well?

Of course! No matter how much you donate, we'll show you the specific project your gifts were used to help build...every time.

Sponsor A Well

Still Have Questions?

No problem. Just drop us a line or call 704-900-7910 and we'll get back to you right away!

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