“You are not just a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop.”
— Rumi
TRAINING NEW GENERATIONS
TO WORK FOR WATER
Water Corps is a comprehensive initiative to train young professionals for in-demand water careers. Aligned with sector leaders to energize and diversify the critical water workforce through intergenerational professional development.
The Future
of WATER IS
THE FUTURE
OF HUMANITY
A MULTIGENERATIONAL
COMMUNITY
TO ORIENT NEW
H2O PROFESSIONALS
Water Corps channels energy and passions through water-focused learning, training, and upskilling programming to benefit an aging water sector. Building solutions alongside a community of youth-serving organizations, labor and educational institutions
50%
of the U.S. water workforce
will be eligible to retire
within the next 5-10 years
with a 48-year-old
median age
FILLING A CRITICAL GAP
There is a scarcity of young, diverse workers within the water sector. Youth education and capacity building is critical to excite and equip new minds to work for water. Meeting the need to regenerate the global water sector and bring new ideas and efficiencies to our water-dependent societies.
Positioned at the nexus of education and the water sector, facilitating professional learning services that intersect with both.
TALENT
WATER SECTOR
Water Corps revitalizes the aging water sector by facilitating new career paths
through PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
a professional
pipeline
Water Corps is building a professional pipeline that connects water education and regional training structures to cultivate the next generations of the water workforce.
Convening a community of youth-serving organizations, labor and educational institutions, Water Corps establishes an accessible professional water education platform. Pioneering skill development and career routes while fostering collaborative efforts for innovative water solutions. Water Corps exposes, inspires, prepares and engages aspiring individuals to contribute to a vibrant water sector.
LEARNERS
Equipping learners with sector-aligned programming to gain skills that meet them where they’re at. Emphasizing key understandings and capacities including self-awareness as water changemakers, peer-to-peer collaboration, real-world solutions, and career orientation within the water sector.
ENTERPRISES
Providing water sector enterprises — from utilities and unions to businesses — with customized solutions to attract and train young candidates, while enhancing organizational capacities and cultural readiness for a diverse workplace through upskilling.
SOCIETY
Supporting society with a healthier and more diverse water sector characterized by local young water professionals in fulfilling careers in their urban and rural communities.
TARGET AUDIENCES
STUDENT/LEARNERS
Water learning for youth (13-25 y/o) to expose and orient entry points for the next generation of water leaders to discover their #Watermark through a global community of learning and action.
Make Waves 4 Change,
a solution planning workbook
JOB SEEKERS
Positioning accessible self-paced learning modules and career oriented resources, accessible both on and offline, that feature specific job opportunities designed with water sector partners.
SECTOR EMPLOYERS
Co-designing and building critical workforce levers with sector leaders to bring more immersive water education and career-oriented programming to a broader, younger public.
ENGAGEMENT CHANNELS
Water Corps aims to expand practical water knowledge and engagement across the target audiences to affect water positive change in their spheres of influence.
Equipping each with collective action tools to communicate, teach, and advocate for water challenges and solutions. Empowering intergenerational water advocates to instigate policies, business practices, societal structures, and cultural shifts for water solutions.
MODEL
Water Corps harnesses an agile model to create inclusive, personalized, and scalable educational resources for both young students and rising professionals to expand their aspirations and capacities for a career in water.
With its focus on scalable sector-based programming, the Water Corps Model is rooted in water education as a service (WEaaS) that is synonymous with accessible, flexible, learning-centric training to provide accelerated skill acquisition for students and agility for sector partners. Integrating self-paced learning modules, both on and offline formats, with career oriented resources and practicums coordinated with sector partners and aligned with specific career opportunities. Leveraging strategic engagement from sector leaders — co-defined content and structuring onboarding channels — to equip diverse talents and prolong the longevity of the water sector.
WATER EDUCATION AS A SERVICE
(WEaaS)
CAREER SERVICES
PRACTICAL LEARNING
PEER-TO-PEER LEARNING
A CORPS PROGRAM
As with most professional CORPS programming,
Water Corps programming is paired with a sector, focusing on relevant technical, skills-based training.
- An adaptive model that can plug into diverse educational entities as a career bridge program;
- Supports the career trajectories of nontraditional learners who lack access to a traditional degree
Leveraging accessible financing approaches to inclusive training apparatus that include income-sharing agreements and employer funded pre-apprenticeships, internships.
AGILE SKILLS TRAINING
Dev Bootcamp was a 19-week coding bootcamp oriented for the tech industry. Its design was accessible to make graduates job-ready by the end of the program. The model became a market that has grown 10 times over since to over 200 bootcamps.
The UN indicated education and capacity building as the exceedingly important, game-changing solution for water issues aligning with the UN Water Conference in 2023
IMPACT
Water Corps is launching at a critical time for an impaired water sector.
Water Corps believes if we facilitate accessible educational modules we
can strengthen and diversify the water workforce to improve resiliency
in the face of a changing climate, growing populations and water disparities.
To guarantee water infrastructure we attract, inspire, train, and diversify its critical support structure. With
each water professional trained the impacts are felt across our society. Primarily measuring three impacts:
(1) evaluating program access for marginalized youth, (2) placements of historically under-represented professionals in the sector (women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+), (3) evaluating sector vitality with partners
STATUS
The Water Corps team is ready to leverage a network of hundreds of water leaders and organizations positioned to support the next generation of water professionals. Realizing the first comprehensive professional training ecosystem that directly contributes to the longevity of the water sector.
Development is already in progress. Identifying youth organizations, water education experts, community organizers, and industry leaders. Cumulatively attracting the support of a diverse, international cohort — representing hundreds of hours of in-kind professional consulting and $100k (USD) in funding.
Water Corps is currently in a fundraising phase to scale its impact through a 3-Year strategy. Which includes piloting Water Corps programming in critical regions across the U.S. alongside elaborating other sector-aligned services to sustain solutions for healthy people and a vibrant water sector.
DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS*
The founding partners encompass water sector conveners, leaders and educators. Leading the orientation, development, implementation and strategic growth of Water Corps.
*incomplete list
TEAM
Education Director | Design & Evaluation
20+ years dedicated to equipping the water sector. Former VP of Operations at Alliance for the Great Lakes — where she developed a K-12 curricula that reached more than 60,000 students; Co-Author of Make Waves 4 Change; Principal of Zephyr Mangata; Co-Founder of the Great Lakes Network for the North American Great Lakes; Chair of the Board of Directors for Freshwater Future; Co-Founder & Facilitator of Water Solutionaries; and strategic advisor for the African Center for Aquatic Research and Education
Development Director | Partnerships & Strategy
Stuart is a 30+ year veteran investing in leading edge, disruptive social impact companies. “Making money make a difference” is his ethos as the Founding Partner at Mindful Investors supporting businesses which make a positive impact on our lives and our planet. He is dedicating his life as a steward, honoring water and its key role to all life and our well being. Moving him as the Founder of HydroDAO and Water Innovation Advisors. Along with the Chair of the Board of Directors for Water Innovation Foundation.
Programming Director | Strategic Development
A seasoned project developer catalyzing impact initiatives at the nexus of transformative learning and community regeneration, including: Water Solutionaries, Escuela Viva de la Amazonia, Youth Climate Leaders, Climate Career Bootcamp (Capacita Clima), Cuencas Sagradas, Maui Algae Turf Scrubber, Amazon Chamber, Campus B, and others. Steven is a Principal at Born and Raised Earth (BaRE), on the Board for Campus B, and an Advisor for JumpScale.
Community Director | Operations & Engagement
An Environmental Science Student at American University, Madeleine has been the Operations Lead for Water Emissaries since its inception. She is also an intern at the Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Program.
SUPPORT
The need for Water Corps is clear. And in this development phase collaboration is critical to realizing the full potential of the ecosystem. Water Corps looks for support from those united in a common purpose to amplify diverse talents and youth engagement for the longevity of our water sector. Strategic partnerships will further elaborate our Water~Education-as-a-Service (WEaaS) offerings, while ensuring quality, breadth, and longevity of its professional development community. We welcome both Contributing Partners and Corps Champions to support the future of our water sector.
Join us to support the future of our global water sector. Each partnership is approached with intention to leverage strengths and promote mutual benefits.
CONTRIBUTING PARTNERS
We welcome individuals and entities who wish to contribute their knowledge or in-kind support to elaborate the ecosystem services
and programming
CORPS CHAMPIONS
Organizations or individuals supporting as generous philanthropic partners or as client partners requesting services and generating sustained revenue
CORPS MENTORS
Individuals from across the water sector who are interested in
a reciprocal mentorship with
the next generation of
water professionals.
Join the conversation!
Water Corps was featured during the UN Water Conference showcasing it as a solution to the global workforce emergency through an intergenerational dialogue of underrepresented voices of women, youth, and labor experts to champion and encourage meaningful discourse.
