RainCatcher

Founding

In 2004 Jack Rose, a Southern California native, traveled to Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa while participating in a project called "Water for Children in Africa." Jack was struck by the dire need for clean drinking water in the areas he visited and became determined to find a solution. In order to address this need, Jack teamed up with Mark Armfield, a Malibu, California-based building contractor with 30 years of experience in sustainable development and green building construction, and established RainCatcher. RainCatcher was self-funded until 2009 when Mark Armfield incorporated it as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. In 2011, Mark assembled a board of directors and in June the board appointed as Executive Director David Zielski, former CEO and chairman of Seaside Naturals Inc. and founder of consulting firm One World Social Media.

RainCatcher is supported by a number of high-profile celebrities, including celebrity trainer Tony Horton and actor Dennis Haysbert, who serves as RainCatcher’s spokesperson. Among RainCatcher's board of directors is Hutch Parker, the former Vice-Chairman of 20th Century Fox Filmed Entertainment, surf legend Laird Hamilton, and former professional volleyball star Gabrielle Reece.

Mission

In accordance with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, Target 7C: "[to] Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation," RainCatcher is committed to expanding clean water access to impoverished people around the world. To accomplish this goal, RainCatcher has adopted a 1-5-10 mission: to bring water to one percent of the one billion people of the world who need it within the next five years (by the 2015 MDG target date), ultimately reaching 10 million people.

Operations

RainCatcher's methods incorporate the ancient technique of rainwater harvesting with cutting-edge filtration technology to create sustainable clean water solutions. Catching and storing rain is a simple strategy that was used as early as 4000 years ago in Palestine and Greece. In Ancient Rome, homes were equipped with cisterns and paved courtyards designed to capture rainwater and supplement the city aqueduct's water supply. Devices for storing rainwater were also utilized by the early Mayans "during the annual wet season to survive the long dry season during the winter and spring."

RainCatcher uses this technique by installing gutter systems on new and existing buildings to harvest rainwater and store it in containers equipped with water filtration systems. RainCatcher also educates local populations on the importance of drinking clean water and on how to build, install, and maintain the RainCatcher systems. This ensures that communities are self-sustainable once RainCatcher has left the region.

Since its founding in 2004, RainCatcher has donated more than 12,000 water filtration systems and equipped 46 schools with rainwater harvesting systems in Uganda and Kenya, providing clean water to more than 450,000 people. In 2010 RainCatcher partnered with J/P Haitian Relief Organization to help deliver more than 9,900 cholera-eliminating portable clean-water systems to Haiti immediately following that year's devastating earthquake.

In 2011 one RainCatcher board member traveled to Africa and another traveled to Kerala in southern India and to Kolkata in northeastern India to explore the prospect of expanding operations to those regions. RainCatcher is also considering returning to Haiti to partner with the new building-construction community to add rainwater-harvesting systems to their sites.

In February 2012 RainCatcher announced that it would begin equipping 10 schools with rainwater harvesting systems in Mityana District, Uganda.