We work across regions with vastly different geographies, climates, and cultures. The projects look different in each country—in some communities rehabilitating an existing hand pump is the best solution, while others require more sophisticated solutions like a solar-powered submersible pump.

Your gift is allocated where it’s most needed based on project funding needs. Your donation will be assigned to a single project or combined with others to complete a much larger water system serving an entire village. Once complete, you will receive a personal report from the project and people you served. Thank you for trusting us to choose the right water project to meet the needs of an unreached community.

Your water project is part of a larger comprehensive program that includes many stages from preparing locations and communities, to empowering and training the local Church, to construction, water testing, verification and finally completion (see above). Projects that are more complex can take longer to complete, as the rainy season can delay progress. Even with careful planning, unexpected delays can occur due to political instability, availability of raw materials, or issues related to the water source. We believe in community ownership and spend time training how to operate and maintain the water technology. To ensure your project is complete, water testing is also performed prior to gathering all the required data, photos, and stories for your final report. This all takes time to ensure long-term sustainability.

We can allocate your gift to a country of your choice where we are currently working. In each country our partners are completing different types of water projects and we will allocate your gift to your preferred country and then we will assign the gift to a specific water project (hand pump, household water filters, or contribute to a larger system) based on the highest need of our program in that country.

We begin by selecting in-country implementing partners who align with our vision and mission to bring clean and living water to unreached communities. The cultural and religious context in each country determines the ministry approach and potential role of the local church in WASH projects.

In many unreached areas, there are no local churches, so our partners look for pastors or Christian leaders who are willing and able to travel to project locations and serve alongside our partners. They are trained in WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene solutions), and they work together with our partners to complete the water projects and share the gospel.

Our focus is to serve unreached regions with clean and living water. A people group is unreached if there are not enough local believers to share the gospel without outside help.*

The context determines the role the local church can play in each region where water projects are implemented. In some areas, pastors and local believers are empowered to be the face of the WASH program. This opens doors for sharing the gospel, starting Bible discovery groups and planting home churches. In places where sharing the gospel is restricted, the provision of clean and safe water provides a foundation of trust between the community and local believers, a starting point from where relationships can be built to show the love of God.

*Learn more on unreached peoples here.

When neverthirst began in 2008, we listed a small range of water projects by country and price. As we have grown and served more than one million people, our work has expanded to a much wider range of technologies in more countries. Many of these solutions include large-scale piped water systems that are more expensive, but provide a higher level of service and quality of water to people.

Our prices have also grown to include training and education to communities and schools on the importance of safe sanitation and hygiene practices. We know this is critically important towards improving health in communities. Programs also include training and resourcing local pastors and Christians to participate in WASH programs. The cost increase also reflects the impact of inflation in materials to complete water projects. If you’d like to learn more, email us here.

Project costs vary greatly depending on the water technology, country, and partner organization.

Each year, we make sure each program has budgeted to ensure all the essential components are included, such as site surveying, raw materials, water quality testing, promotion and training of safe hygiene and sanitation, ministry training and resources, contingency for failed boreholes when drilling, staff costs, transportation, and many others.

We then estimate the cost for different water solutions and bracket them in $5,000 price increments, up to $25,000. Larger water projects that pipe water to thousands of people in a large community can cost over $500,000 in total. In these cases, we will combine several gifts of different amounts so that we can complete the projects.

We choose to work in unreached, difficult locations where there is critical need for water and no one else is working. In your giving, you are opening doors for the gospel in some of the hardest to reach places in the world.

When you sponsor a project, your donation is paired with a cost-appropriate solution. Your gift could fund a standalone project or be combined with other donors to complete a much larger water system. Either way, you will be recognized for your contribution.