Support

The Waterers move resources directly to artists and culture bearers who sustain the cultural, relational, and creative infrastructure essential to resilient communities. Our work strengthens healing, civic connection, cultural continuity, and long-term community well-being across Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Our community nominators are selected through a rigorous process grounded in artistic practice, leadership, local knowledge, and deep community connection. We center relationships, reciprocity, and accountability at every stage of decision-making.

This work is both urgent and practical.

Artists and culture bearers remain essential frontline leaders helping communities heal, organize, remember, and imagine collective futures. Yet these leaders continue to be overlooked by traditional funding systems.

Since launching in 2020, the Waterers have demonstrated the effectiveness of trust-based, community-led philanthropy by successfully moving resources into rural, urban, and historically underserved communities. Our work has been strengthened through partnerships and support from ArtPlace America, Good Chaos, Builders Foundation, Propel Nonprofits, the McKnight Foundation, and other regional and national collaborators committed to cultural leadership and community development.

Continued investment in The Waterers strengthens community resilience, cultural stewardship, and equitable systems of resource sharing.

For 2027 and beyond, we are seeking $2.5 million to sustain and expand this work. We invite foundations, philanthropic partners, and values-aligned investors to join us in advancing a more equitable and community-rooted future.

We’d be glad to hear from you.

Six ways to make change now

1. Trust-based philanthropy works. Local people know their communities best. Our model shifts decision-making from distant program officers to trusted local leaders rooted in the communities they serve..

2. Use and share open-source grantmaking practices. We openly share our learning, processes, and tools to support fairer, community-led funding. We offer advice for funders and program leaders seeking new approaches.

3. Design for dignity. Create simple, inclusive funding processes that respect people's time and experience. Replace burdensome applications with community nominations, relationship-building, and trust-based approaches to resource sharing.

4. Fund people, not just projects.
Artists and culture bearers need time, trust, and sustained support to thrive. Invest in both arts and cultural work to build long-term capacity, especially in historically underserved communities.

5. Rethink impact and evaluation. Move beyond extractive reporting. Support storytelling, self-definition, and community-rooted measures of impact that reflect lived experience and cultural value.

6. Invest in this work. Support the Waterers as leaders advancing trust-based, community-led philanthropy and building more equitable systems of resource sharing.