Building Cross-Border Water Collaboration Through a Funder-Enabled Network
The Challenge
Water challenges, from infrastructure resilience to effective, coordinated governance, require coordinated action across borders, sectors, and issue areas. Yet organizations working on water stewardship and governance often operate in silos, missing opportunities to learn from one another, scale solutions, and amplify their collective impact. The BHP Foundation recognized that addressing North America’s most pressing water challenges would require more than funding individual projects; it would require building a collaborative network where organizations could learn together, adapt strategies, and influence the broader water sector.
Our Role
Ross Strategic serves as the convening partner for the BHP Foundation’s North American Water Network, working with four grantee partners, the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Duke University’s Internet of Water Coalition, and the Pacific Institute, to foster a cross-border community of practice. For the past four years, we’ve designed and facilitated annual in-person convenings and quarterly virtual sessions that go beyond traditional information-sharing.
We create structured opportunities for partners to engage in collaborative problem-solving, exchange challenges and strategies, and identify pathways for scaling solutions. Our approach emphasizes peer-led learning, open discussion of setbacks and power dynamics, and building trust across organizations with different missions and regional focuses. We also provide strategic support, helping partners surface shared priorities, explore innovative approaches, and strengthen their collective influence on water policy and practice. Most recently, we released a convening report from the Network’s 2024 meeting in Winnipeg, which captures key insights, shared learning, and next steps for the collaboration.
The Impact
The Water Network has become a model for funder-enabled collaboration, demonstrating how strategic convening can amplify individual efforts into field-level impact. Partners report that the Network provides rare space for deep peer learning, helping them refine strategies in real time and avoid duplicating efforts. The collaborative structure has enabled partners to test new approaches, such as strengthening rural water infrastructure planning and advancing collaborative Indigenous-led water governance, while also building shared knowledge that is shaping water policy and practice beyond their own organizations. By fostering trust, facilitating knowledge exchange, and creating pathways for partners to influence the broader water sector, the Network illustrates how thoughtful convening can transform isolated initiatives into coordinated, systems-level change.