These web pages provide background on the nonprofit organization Waterlines, which ceased funding projects in 2021 after 35 years of operation. Beginning in 1986, Waterlines contributed technical support and funding for over 1,000 drinking-water and sanitation projects in rural communities, schools, churches, and health clinics in 15 developing countries, with a primary emphasis as time went on in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Panama.

From the beginning, Waterlines' approach focused on working with communities to build improved drinking-water systems via gravity-flow pipelines, rainwater collection tanks, and spring protections. Over time programs at schools and health clinics expanded beyond water provision to include improved toilets, handwashing stations and hygiene education.

Each year Waterlines volunteers would also make site visits to 40 or 50 rural communities where projects had been previously completed, to speak with community members and check on the systems’ current functioning. Even after Waterlines ceased operations as a nonprofit organization, several Waterlines volunteers continue to carry on the work of evaluating past projects. From the beginning Waterlines remained a volunteer organization.

As Waterlines sunset its operations as planned in 2021, it transferred its remaining assets to the Santa Fe-based Water Engineers for the Americas and Africa (WEFTA), a kindred nonprofit organization whose founders had served as Waterlines Board Members.