Water Leadership Institute

Our Mission

The Water Leadership Institute (WLI) equips frontline community leaders with the skills, knowledge, and networks to address water challenges in their communities. The WLI brings together water leaders from diverse backgrounds and stages of their leadership journeys, creating a space to learn from one another, deepen understanding, and build a lasting community of support. Through a focus on leadership development, shared learning, and collaboration, the WLI strengthens community capacity and helps cultivate confident, connected leaders who can advance innovative and equitable water solutions.  

Our History

RCAC’s Leadership Institute began in 2004 to build the capacity of rural residents to participate meaningfully in their communities and in local decision-making spaces. In 2013, the curriculum was adapted to create the Water Leadership Institute (WLI) in partnership with leading community development organizations, including Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Self-Help Enterprises, the Ford Leadership Institute, and Western New Mexico University. Since then, the Leadership Institute and WLI have been delivered in more than 60 communities across the rural West. 

In California, many small rural communities—largely low-income, Spanish-speaking farming communities—live in some of the state’s most critically overdrawn groundwater basins and rely on water that is often unsafe to drink. As the state grapples with groundwater scarcity, these communities are frequently excluded from planning processes, despite the fact that they hold deep local knowledge and are essential to shaping effective, just, and durable water solutions. 

To address this gap, RCAC and EDF have co-facilitated the Water Leadership Institute since 2016, offering bilingual workshops that equip participants with the skills, knowledge, and confidence needed to engage in local water decisions, collaborate with partners, and advance equitable water strategies. EDF continues to partner with Groundwater Sustainability Agencies to cultivate local leadership capacity and strengthen long-term community resilience. 

In 2024, the WLI approach expanded beyond California for the first time with the launch of two simultaneous cohorts in Southern Arizona—one in South Tucson and one in Nogales. This marked a major milestone in adapting the program to a non-California context and introduced the WLI’s first transboundary focus, engaging participants from both the United States and Mexico. The success of these Arizona cohorts reflects the growing applicability of the WLI model across diverse regions and communities.