Women, Water And ROI: Turning Lost Hours Into Community Wealth

Around the world, women and girls walk long distances every day to fetch water, losing education, income, and safety in the process. On this global episode of The Nonprofit Show, we welcome Shilpa Alva, founder and executive director of Surge for Water, beaming in late at night from Samarkand, Uzbekistan. From the first moments, Shilpa reframes water as a gendered economic issue, not just an infrastructure problem. As Shilpa puts it, “The water crisis is a woman’s crisis” — and it is also a profound injustice baked into race, gender, and geography.

Shilpa walks us through Surge’s “water plus” model: safe water, sanitation, hygiene, and menstrual health, all rooted in a woman centered, community owned approach. Surge does not parachute in solutions; it backs local leaders in rural Uganda, Indonesia, and Haiti so they can design and manage what their communities truly need. For nonprofit executives, the business implications are huge: the World Bank estimates a twenty one to one return for every dollar invested in comprehensive water access, yet most funders still treat water as a narrow infrastructure line item instead of a generational prosperity strategy.

The conversation then moves into power, money, and the shifting landscape of international aid. With government funding cuts shaking the sector, organizations that once relied on large public grants are now competing for the same corporate and individual donors as smaller NGOs. Surge has navigated this by diversifying its revenue model between the United States and Dubai, and by building creative fundraising events that attract sectors like design and architecture into the water conversation.

Shilpa is candid about decolonial practice and the uncomfortable truth that international NGOs are part of a historic power structure. Surge actively works to reduce that power imbalance so local partners shape solutions and control implementation. SurgeForWater.org shows us all how to align mission, funding strategy, equity, and storytelling.

 00:00:00 Global welcome and introducing Shilpa Alva from Uzbekistan
 00:02:23 What Surge for Water does and the water plus model
 00:04:03 Why the global water crisis is a women centered injustice
 00:07:01 Lost hours, education, and income cost of water collection
 00:08:52 Respecting local roles while shortening the walk and reducing harm
 00:11:37 Making distant donors care storytelling and climate connections
 00:13:13 Creative events and interior design partners as a fundraising engine
 00:14:50 Aid cuts, USAID shifts, and new competition for nonprofit funding
 00:15:52 Decolonial practice and sharing power with local leaders
 00:21:18 How Surge builds trust with next generation donors and partners
 00:22:46 Metrics versus stories choosing humanity while still tracking results
 00:27:23 Funding wins, 2026 expansion plans, and Shilpa’s hopeful vision 

#TheNonprofitShow #WaterJustice #WomenInLeadership

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