Funding & Support

Q: Donations to WaterWealth are not tax deductible, why not?

A: The WaterWealth Project is a non-profit society, but not a charitable organization. As such, WaterWealth cannot issue tax receipts for donations. This was a decision made when the WaterWealth Project was first conceived. WaterWealth does not intend to be an environmental organization, and while our work sometimes involves response to specific threats to water, that sort of work represents bumps along the way rather than our raison d’être.

WaterWealth strives for long-term solutions to protect our shared water wealth through innovation in community engagement and water governance. We envision a time when those ‘bumps along the way’ will no longer be necessary. While we seek consensus and collaboration, innovation in governance does not come without facing opposition by interests entrenched in the status quo. WaterWealth chose not to register as a charitable organization to avoid constraints imposed on charitable organizations’ work, and to avoid opening ourselves to political interference through that status, e.g. the Canadian Revenue Agency audits of progressive charitable organizations in recent years, as discussed in this Globe and Mail article.