Building Resilient Institutions, Building a Resilient AGWA

Greetings!

This is a different kind of essay than I’ve ever written, and I hope you will read it thoughtfully, as a member of AGWA. 

For a dozen years, AGWA has been slowly, steadily trying to building a community of innovation and excellence. We’ve tried to consistently and persistently move the needle in this space, working with you. As an institution, we have not always been resilient — sometimes we have wobbled a little. But we keep doing this and we plan to keep on doing this. It’s been hard, personally and professionally. I am proud that no one (other than myself) has ever skipped a paycheck. We’ve been remarkable in the quality of the staff we’ve hired and retained. I feel fiercely proud of the team. And if you look at our full suite of both staff and consultants, they look like the world. I hope you are proud of us — of them — as well. We serve you.

If AGWA has been useful for you, if you have gained insights or connections or partners, if you’ve learned something from us or added something to your CV or an AGWA event sparked an insight or a meeting led to a powerful conversation through us, then I’d like to ask you to consider contributing to AGWA.

In three keynote talks on three far-flung continents in the past few weeks, to hundreds of people, I’ve highlighted what I believe is perhaps the most useful contribution that AGWA plays in the water and climate communities: guiding us to see the true size of the challenges we face, so that we can scale our solutions to match those challenges. I hope this is both an optimistic and practical approach to climate change. My hope too is that AGWA is a bridge between where we are and where we need to be. 

Many of us, whether from habit or trying to stay in our proscribed lines, have limited our imagination. It’s easy to focus on losing 5 percent of snowpack, when you know it’s all going to go. That your sector is the easy target , instead of the groups that are so much harder to interact with and compete for water. We need to prepare for the big changes all of us feel and know are close and coming.

I’ve been struck how youth and young professionals so clearly see this flaw in people my age — their employers and mentors. This younger generation sees the size of the problem, but they need our sense of how institutions work and to learn from the mistakes we’ve made. I can see their anxiously silent request for us to step up every time I look at my son. 

We can get ready, but the important word is we. And that is what AGWA is about.

AGWA needs you too. During this end-of-year giving season, please consider contributing to AGWA’s vision of a climate resilient future - one that is rooted in intergenerational knowledge and shared hope. Invest in AGWA today.

Yours in proud service and solidarity, a dozen years and counting,

John Matthews

Corvallis, Oregon, USA