STAFFORD, TX – Living Water International was founded in 1990 to “demonstrate the love of God by helping communities acquire desperately needed clean water and experience ‘living water’ – the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

In 2014, Living Water did what far too many faith-based organizations fail to do. They developed a world-class, 25-year vision and their first five-year strategic plan (for 2017-2021). This is the basis for each arm of the organization to build upon to achieve their overarching vision described in Watershed 2040.

The Vision

The Watershed 2040 vision is keeping Living Water true to its mission of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ through the WASH program of water, sanitation, and hygiene. The organization has focused on an “integral mission” that “demonstrates and proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ “in all that we say and do.” Demonstration shows that they care. Proclamation explains why they care. Faith without works is dead. Works without faith are worthless.

The Values

Living Water operates on four values that define its behaviors.

1. Honor God at the center of everything. “He calls, and we respond. He initiates, and we participate.” Honoring Him is always first in every decision and every deed.
2. Develop people by empowering them and allowing God to transform their lives.
3. Pursue excellence by relentlessly maintaining the highest quality standards, best practices, continual learning, and continuous improvement. They are committed to pursuing excellence in a culture of documenting work, measuring progress, and sharing results. They study those results and adapt to the lessons learned. They exercise the discernment and discipline that allows them to say “no” to even the most attractive activities that would stretch their people and resources too thin or distract them from their well-defined strategic objectives.
4. Be good stewards of all the resources that God has entrusted to them to advance His purposes, by communicating effectively, investing wisely, and managing growth successfully within budgets and capacities.

Strategic Objectives & Results

Watershed 2040 contains 16 measurable Strategic Objectives that will help to enable the effectiveness of the Living Water initiative. Some of those Strategic Objectives follow.

• Improve Core Outputs in Communities. This objective recognizes the undeniable fact that activities that produce direct outputs result in outcomes that impact individuals, families, churches, and communities, leading to the successful fulfillment of the team’s vision and values.
• Increase Access to Sustainable WASH Services. These are not hollow words. Living Water defines sustainable WASH services as “a state in which water supply and sanitation services … continue [to] deliver benefits indefinitely. Since sustainability has no time limit … empowering communities to keep boreholes, latrines, and other systems working for their designed life cycle.
• Nurture Thriving Churches. Living Water recognizes that local churches are both agents and signs of God’s active and loving presence within a community.
• Increase Transparency & Accountability. The organization does this to gain a faithful and loyal public and donor trust. They accomplish this by demonstrating the value of an investment by “executing effective planning, management, and reporting.”
• Improve Understanding & Practice of Integral Mission. Living Water believes that the proclamation of the gospel has practical consequences when we ;walk the talk.’ Conversely, the practical demonstration of loving others opens hearts to the evangelistic proclamation.
• Cultivate & Sustain Innovation. This is accomplished by reviewing current assumptions while recognizing emerging innovations with a view to maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of each department and practice.

Charity Navigator cited several areas of Living Water International’s success thus far. A quality audit lauded the “rise of professionalism” within the organization, increased external credibility, and the ability to achieve, measure, and report results.

The evidence indicates the Lord’s blessing on the Living Water ministry, not in spite of what they do and how they do it, but because they espouse well-founded methods of companies operating in accordance with professional quality system principles.

Living Water has demonstrated “success in utilizing the strategic plan as a basis for team planning and performance management, for improved decision-making, … and increasing the future orientation of staff – moving them beyond doing activities for activities’ sake, to have a clearer vision of the future that guides day-to-day practices.”

The entire 27-page Global Strategic Plan for 2017-2021 is available by clicking on the link provided.

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