2013-14 Capital Campaign
CLEAN WATER NOW is seeking special donors who can help us fulfill our mission statement and expediently achieve our intended goals.
We’re asking for assistance with our projected overhead expenses and ancillary equipment during these, our first few years as an organization dedicated to a worthy cause. Here are our top priorities:
√ We need critical start-up or so-called seed funds to underwrite our projected expenditures.
√ We also need a small to mid-size 4 or all-wheel drive vehicle for staff to facilitate rough terrain field inspections and other related bio-assessment activities. The vehicle need not be brand new, off the lot, but in good mechanical condition.
Your generous donations will help us achieve what we’ve pledged, that is become a distinct 501 c 3 non-profit and acquire corporate status from the government. If you choose to wait, we should be able to provide you with a tax-deductible receipt by January 1, 2014.
In the meanwhile, if you’d prefer a written, guaranteed tax deduction receipt immediately, our co-founding 501 c 3 board member and interim corporate sponsor, The Whaleman Foundation, based in Hawaii, can assist you http://www.whaleman.org
Their EIN number (Tax I. D.) is: 990331050
Address: P.O. Box 1670 Lahaina, HI 96767
President & Founder: Jeff Pantukhoff
Regardless if you are donating that special vehicle or significant funds, please contact our Executive Director Roger E. Bütow for more information: roger@clean-water-now.org or call him @ (949) 715.1912. Roger can provide immediate, detailed feedback to your inquiries plus connect you with Jeff and his staff on Maui.
Like a personal relationship, a business, or in this case an emerging, well intentioned all volunteer organization, we need certain basic elements in place to get rolling and up to speed. In this instance we're urgently requesting a donation of a staff vehicle and sufficient financing in this, our nascent year 2013.
The sooner we've procured overhead funds and that all-terrain SUV, the sooner we'll be able to focus on portfolio accomplishments, working on the public's behalf and for common regional water supply benefits.
"Just say No!" NGOs and their historical opponents have become so polarized as to limit if not outright freeze negotiations. Even relatively small footprint projects end up being delayed needlessly, at times micro-managed and in protracted courtroom dramas.
Regulatory oversight agencies are caught up in the middle of the fray, torn between rigid, by-the-book enforcement of their decrees and the unreliable, future shortage realities that water and sanitation district's face for their customers.
All of this needless frustration, turmoil and adverse confrontation is happening during a critical water supply shortage and protection period when what we really need to do is to sit down, dialogue and work conjunctively.
Where there should be partnerships there are instead warring factions. It won't matter who is right when we all turn on our taps and little if nothing comes out. And not if our ecosystems continue their entropic path.
We feel well-equipped to try and bring some reasonable sense into a very chaotic structure: Presently, the intended and predictable ratcheting down, the increasingly prescriptive (granted expensive) aspects of water quality regulations are occurring, especially focused upon NPDES (storm water) Permits, reclamation and remediation strategies, groundwater drafting, etc.
A widening gap, a Grand Canyon like chasm is in progress, there is a disparity between the federal CWA (and here in California the Porter-Cologne) and these oversight guidelines and programs.
It's still unclear as to whether these regulatory agencies are asking too much or too little, and whether they’re correctly within their oversight boundaries or beyond them. This uncertainty is bad for everyone.
We’re offering to donate our time, to help broker and actively participate in the mature middle ground of serious, professional and civil dialogue to help bring the polarized parties together.
Borrowing a biological metaphor, in a sense we’re consciously creating a new niche, a new species of NGO that will forge unity instead of divide stakeholders. Like Mother Nature, our board is a diversely composed one with multiple skill-sets that should enhance that niche and amplify its potential impact.
We’re committing ourselves to becoming a unique bridge between
regulatory agencies, the NGOs and the regulated entities, assuring future regional water supplies while still protecting our common heritage here in
California: Our precious and fragile environs.
If you feel as we do, join us in making a difference tomorrow by contributing a donation today, NOW.