Improve International seeks to end the unacceptably high failure rates of water and sanitation interventions in developing countries. To support our mission, we are investigating how funding mechanisms affect the sustainability of water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions in developing countries. This is the third year of this survey. This information will be used to develop a brief to share with development organizations and donors. The intent is to help further the conversation about sustainable services. Results of past surveys have led to development of a Funder Collective for More Effective Partnerships with events in Washington DC and New York NY so far.

This survey is intended for international development organizations (for-profit or not-for-profit), civic groups, universities, volunteer groups, or community-based organizations that raise funds to implement or fund water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions. Your responses and any identifying information about your organization will remain anonymous.

Please complete this survey by September 30, 2017. Your feedback is important. Click here to start the survey. Thank you for your participation!

Elizabeth - regarding your question "whether we have any indications yet which donors are "better" than others with regards to sustainability of the projects that they fund"

As far as I know there is still no answer to that. I have been talking some organizations about a sort of donor scorecard that would help funders self-evaluate where they are on contributing positively to systems change. But whether one donor's funds lead directly to more or less sustainable outcomes compared to another would be difficult to measure because (among lots of other reasons) 1) We don't have much data on even functionality of any particular water point over time 2) Many other factors - like government and community engagement after a "project" contribute to outcomes, and 3) many organization's combine different sources of funding in practice. For example, individual and unrestricted donations often pay for the so called "overhead" without which the organization wouldn't exist and thus none of the projects funded by "restricted" funding would be possible."

The survey closes today and we’ll have at least some perceptions on this point to share in the updated report (which should be available December / January).

Hello all - here's the link to the 2016 survey.

If you work for a development or relief organization that does water, sanitation, or hygiene interventions, we'd appreciate a few minutes of your time. Your responses will be anonymous: www.surveymonkey.com/r/P7PM6SM

Dear Susan,

I listened to your presentation at the SEI SuSanA webinar today where you spoke about the results from this survey (see here: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/146-we...1200-bst-london-time). Very interesting stuff! My question was whether we have any indications yet which donors are "better" than others with regards to sustainability of the projects that they fund, and your answer was that this kind of data is not yet available.

I see your report from this survey is available here on your website: www.improveinternational.org/2015/12/21/...wash-sustainability/

Maybe you could also post the slides that you used in the webinar here in this thread.* Any further questions, answers and comments from the webinar could be summarised here in this thread as well.

Thanks,
Elisabeth

* Edit on 25 Oct 2016: the slides from the webinar are now available here:
forum.susana.org/component/kunena/183-mo...gust-25th-2016#18838

Hello friends - Improve International is conducting a survey about US WASH Donor Effectiveness. We are looking for opinions from representatives of organizations that implement water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions in developing countries AND have solicited or received funds from a US donor in the past 5 years. Your input would be appreciated (and can be anonymous if you choose). Organizations can include development organizations (for-profit or not-for-profit), church groups, volunteer groups, civic groups, or universities.

If this is you, click the link to start the survey. lnkd.in/eVi4zHF
Thank you for your participation!

If you know someone who would be a good candidate, please forward this on to her or him.

Thanks very much!