A Study In Collaboration: How The ONE DROP Foundation Works With Others To Provide Water Security

A Q&A with the CEO of the ONE DROP Foundation, Catherine Bachand, conducted from World Water Week in Stockholm

By Julie King

“Corporate engagement” means different things to different parties.  For a company, it can mean having opportunities to exercise good corporate citizenship and mitigating reputation risk. For to a not-for-profit organization, it could mean creating collaborations with corporate partners to help fund social initiatives.  For public sector agencies, it might also mean working with private investors to create market-driven solutions to chronic social problems.

In 1984, Guy Laliberté founded Cirque du Soleil, which became one of the largest live entertainment events corporations in the world. To Mr. Laliberté, “corporate engagement” meant the corporation giving back to society.  In 2007 he took the creative inspiration of Cirque du Soleil and its common themes of street performances and youth and started the ONE DROP Foundation to fight poverty around the world by providing sustainable access to safe water for the millions of people worldwide without access to it.  In the following Q&A, the foundation’s current CEO, Catherine Bachand, provides insights from the perspective of an international non-governmental organization (NGO) in the water sector.

How does ONE DROP understand the idea of ‘engaging the private sector,’ and why is this valuable for an NGO — and for companies?

“To me, it means having the private sector take an active role in addressing water challenges around the world. It can be done in a number of ways — financing, research & development, helping to better measure results. What is important is having the private sector realize that the water challenges impact everyone. Their bottom line is at risk, some of their markets are at risk (illnesses, lack of ability to work) and most importantly, we can’t do it without them. They are too important a consumer of water and an economic engine to do so.”

Given this, how does ONE DROP effectively engage with the private sector?

“NGOs need to speak corporate language, to identify and really make an effort to be relevant to corporations.  We have an amazing range of assets — international, creative NGOs like ONE DROP. We are born from Cirque du Soleil with extensive capacity to partner with companies to deliver [their] broader message.

“Our partnership with Microsoft sponsors ONE DROP’s annual fund raising event: One Night for ONE DROP.  We’ve had 9 billion impressions for that one night!  And through our partnerships with Cirque du Soleil (CDS), we are able with these corporations, to leave a legacy for humanity.  CDS was started on the street. Now we’re back on the street giving water to people.  Cirque du Soleil closes all eight residence shows [in Las Vegas] for one night, one time a year and puts on One Night for ONE DROP.  It is theme-based.  This year it is life as seen through the eyes of women who walk every day to collect water.  There are 2000 CDS employees who volunteer every year to produce the One Night for ONE DROP event.

“Microsoft’s services are used by the creator of the show to put the pieces of the show together.  And Microsoft was also the sponsor of the U.S. Pavilion for the 2015 Milan Expo.  [O]f all visibility in Pavilion content put in with Microsoft technology, 60 percent showcased ONE DROP around Food and Energy for Life.  Microsoft wanted to talk about how water works and about technology’s role in fostering change and connecting communities.”

What makes ONE DROP’s approach unique in its corporate and stakeholder engagement?

“It was interesting that with all the people [at the Expo], there was a moment of recognizing that it is not so much a problem with engagement, it’s the delivery that is so important.  Anyone and everyone needs to invest in human and behavioral change at all levels — individuals, policymakers.  What’s interesting with ONE DROP’s approach is how we develop behavior-change platforms.  Every other organization in WASH [Water Sanitation and Hygiene] does baseline studies to move forward. 

“ONE DROP does baseline studies, as well.  But we do an additional, full cultural diagram from the grassroots up.  We work with experts and all local key stakeholders and artists each with a different take on the communities where we work.  There are 150 to 200 determinants that we assess to determine what behaviors stand in the way of making a project sustainable and we rank that behavior and prioritize what needs to be addressed first, during the lifecycle of the first five years of the project.  It is built-in collaborative ownership with the community.”

Does ONE DROP work with a corporation’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) department in partnering on projects?

“I prefer seeing corporate social responsibility as an investment, not a ‘responsibility.’  It is an investment in the future of your business, your community.  It is more expeditious to see it as an investment and to weave it into who you are and the culture of your organization and community.

“ONE DROP has a unique value proposition to bring to the sector.  We are not vertically integrated; we want to make a difference and we apply this to WASH.  Our work is very particular so that people can see what they are doing ... CSR is ‘good for business’; it is good to connect business with a purpose.”

What tools do ONE DROP use to align stakeholder agendas and maintain effective partnerships?

“A few of the tools we use are: a policy that is agreed upon by all stakeholders, an in-depth cultural diagnostic before we design the project as well as a water diagnostic, and finally a needs assessment to help us hone in on the two to three really critical issues that we can address.”

In your experience, how can water projects be better designed and developed in order to attract more private investment, while ensuring that the stated social (including environmental) objectives for the project are achieved?

“[I]n terms of small-scale projects such as the ones we deliver, I think the key is really holistic design and specific KPIs [key performance indicators] right from the outset. Being able to demonstrate sustainability and return on investment is key. This is challenging, but projects must be designed with this in mind. Quantitative and qualitative KPIs must be put in place that demonstrate the social impact of projects and not just that X amount of boreholes were put in place.”

How do you use the term “sustainable” — in relation to small-scale water infrastructure, project financing, other?

“First and foremost, we mean that the infrastructure that was built in order to provide closer access to clean water, as well as latrines, remain operational in the same hygienic state they were left in. The water sector struggles significantly in this regard.  Thirty to 50 percent of water projects fail after two years. That means that wells are present but non-operational or have become contaminated.

“Secondly, and in direct relation, we refer to the community’s ability and desire to maintain the infrastructure. This is why our approach focuses not only on access but on behavior change and economic development. These are the two critical components needed to ensure the first. We do not want to be financing the communities forever; we give them the tools to become autonomous.”

In ONE DROP’s experience, how can sustainability of a water project (the capital equipment, operational, social, and environmental) best be achieved and maintained, even after the ‘banks have gone home’?

“There are a number of methods we employ in order to ensure [a project’s] sustainability:

• Capacity-building is critical so that local, on the ground people can take over;
• Long-term monitoring — we go in two years after a project is completed to evaluate the infrastructure and also the social and environmental situation;
• Factoring in the cost of operation and maintenance in the project design — we can’t simply raise money, build wells, and leave.”

Does ONE DROP have its own technologies or specific vendors to provide access to safe water and sanitation?

“ONE DROP works with technologies around what the local community needs.  We work to help rehabilitate existing wells, working with NGOs locally to help bring access and integrate behavioral change.  We call this the ‘ABCs’ of what we do:  Access – Behavior Change – Capital.  It isn’t cookie-cutter, but there is a basic premise aimed at sustainability with local adaptation.  We work with local engineers to supplement capacity of local NGOs for behavior change.  ONE DROP helps to build the right narrative — how to transport and inspire people using creative, social arts — with artistic performance and level of sophistication.  That is the energy and DNA of Cirque du Soleil — to inspire people.  ONE DROP applies this approach with science and engineering, with a focus on WASH.”

Can you give an example of how a ONE DROP project works and how your team interacts with other stakeholders, including the community?

“For example, there is the Gram Vikas organization.  Their approach is to ask that 100 percent of the families in the community they are working in sign their Mantra, to co-invest with Gram Vikas to build latrines and wells.  Gram Vikas knows they need to invest but they won’t go in without 100 percent of the signatures.  They promote the Mantra through town hall-styled meetings, through community education and why they should sign the Mantra.  They generally get 2 to 5 percent traction for signatures.  So Gram Vikas asked ONE DROP about using social arts before, instead of doing town hall meetings, to see what kind of traction they could get.

“So ONE DROP partnered with local social partners. There is science and methodology behind this, where we spent time on how to engage various cultural practices, traditions, deeply held beliefs, so we could communicate in their language.  One problem with the town hall meetings was in getting people together.  It meant that they had to bring in all of the castes and classes together and they refused to be together.  And it included the traditional role of women who generally remained outside of the community.  But in the social arts, there were opportunities that brought people together.  There [were] existing local festivals — traditional gatherings.  And one of the festivals was with the Tiger Dance, where people throw things at [likeness of] the Tiger to keep [it] dancing. 

“We recognized the tradition, and worked within this, where the Tiger would engage with the people directly with dialogue — asking things like ‘Do you know where your water comes from?  Do you know how it comes to you?  How it is stored? etc.   The festival contained opportunities, which brought castes together by their best crafts [in the project] ... then the ceremony was used to put the message of how water is unifying between classes — it brings people together.  And it brought the women out to do a mural together, with different blues... 

“[F]rom these opportunities Gram Vikas then engaged in dialogue with the community.  Generally the process of getting 100 percent consensus of the families by signing the Mantra takes up to one year.  With the festival model — [with the] workshops and Tiger Dance — they got 100 percent in six days.  The UN is incorporating the ONE DROP model into its best practices for the sector. 

“Storytelling is very powerful and we tend to remember the ‘soft medicine’ approach of the arts — in getting through the emotions.”