Voss Foundation

The Voss Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity based in New York City; its primary goal is to provide clean drinking water to African communities.
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History
In 2008, the directors of Voss water founded the Voss Foundation as an independent non-profit foundation, although the entities maintain a close relationship. Voss CEO Knut Brundtland and his wife, the art historian Cecilie Malm Brundtland, were inspired to found the organization after a trip to Africa where they were struck by the magnitude of the water crisis. When they returned to their native Norway, they immediately reached out to Voss' headquarters in New York and began the process of starting a foundation. Brundtland currently serves as the Foundation's Board President and his wife is now one of two European Representatives.
Other board members include Jan Eystein Saeboe, Sanjay Rawal, and Belinda Kielland.
With the help of Knut's mother, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Cecilie Malm Brundtland, and her co-European Representative, Anette Krosby, the Voss Foundation has been successful in fundraising in both Norway and the US.
The Voss Foundation is headquartered in New York and run by Executive Director Kara Gerson.
Since its inception in the summer of 2008, the Voss Foundation has built 18 water access points in four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Activities
VF's webpage describes its mission as follows:
"The Voss Foundation is a non-profit organization established with a mission of raising awareness of the lack of access to clean water in Sub-Saharan Africa and facilitating improved access for communities in the region. The Voss Foundation aims to help meet communities’ water needs and then focus on the self-improvement of lives and communities once basic water needs are met. We have a particular interest in assisting women and girls who, relieved of the burden of fetching water, have time to devote to education and enterprise.
We help meet these needs through an approach that ensures local ownership and long-term sustainability through partnerships with trusted organizations on the ground, use of appropriate technology, and through systems that assess the multiple water requirements of a community.
Voss Foundation projects primarily involve a combination of well-digging and -creation or -rehabilitation, pumping, and piping. Secondary water-related aspects are based on local requests and range from bringing clean water to schools and infirmaries, to agriculture and irrigation, to micro-finance and education based on new resources, time, or money made available by the presence and proximity of clean water. We incorporate both environmental consideration and the lasting success of the projects into villages’ requirements to create a comprehensive project that meets diverse water needs."
Voss Foundation is currently working in the Samburu District of Northern Kenya, Mali's Dogon country, the Gode zone of Ethiopia, and the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Projects primarily involve a combination of well-digging or -rehabilitation, pumping, and piping. Secondary water-related aspects are based on local requests and range from bringing clean water to schools and infirmaries, to agriculture and irrigation, to microfinance and education based on new resources, time, or money made available by the presence and proximity of clean water. The Voss Foundation takes particular care to incorporate both environmental consideration and the lasting success of the projects into villages' requirements to create a comprehensive project that meets diverse water needs.
Voss Foundation differentiates itself from other charities by taking a slow, deliberate approach that includes local communities in the planning and decision-making process. By involving the individuals who benefit from their water projects, the Voss Foundation is better able to ensure the long-term success of an appropriate project that is highly customized to the immediate area's needs. This method also provides employment for local workers and encourages a democratic system to govern the projects after the Voss Foundation has completed its installation.
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Partnership with Stuart Franklin
In 2009, the Voss Foundation was accompanied on a trip to Mali by famous Magnum Photos photographer Stuart Franklin. Stuart Franklin was president of Magnum Photos from 2006 to 2009 and is most famous for his iconic images of the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Of the photographs that Franklin shot for the Voss Foundation, fifteen have been printed in a limited edition as a fundraiser for the Foundation.
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Partnership with Virgin Group and Jewel
In 2009, the Voss Foundation joined forces with Virgin Unite, the not-for-profit charitable foundation of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Project Clean Water, founded by on the Give A Drop partnership. The Voss Foundation administers and implements all of the alliance's joint projects.
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Women Helping Women
Women Helping Women ( ) is an international fundraising campaign of the Voss Foundation. The program brings together women from around the world in an intimate grassroots giving cooperative, wherein each woman's individual contribution joins with those of the other women donors' to all together change the lives of women and children in Africa by providing them with access to clean water. Every donor is supplied with budgets and workplans of the projects they fund, and is given the opportunity to visit her water project wherever possible. The program began in Europe and has grown to include American groups in New York and Boston.
The campaign has brought together nearly 300 women in 6 nations, raising over $100,000USD to fund 7 taps in two African countries.
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