When the public water supply in Flint was poisoned with toxins that impacted many in the city, more questions of how water is handled in the US arose; levels of water philanthropy are on the rise.

"When the children of a city with a 40 percent poverty rate were poisoned by their own public water supply, it shook a lot of Americans’ assumptions that clean, safe water will come out of our taps every time we turn them on.

"Flint is a unique circumstance in a lot of ways, but it signals a slow-burning problem across the United States—our water systems face profound threats from climate change, population growth, wasteful use, and degrading urban infrastructure. Drought in the West, the other sea change water crisis, has been demonstrating for years now that we need more sustainable systems."--Tate Williams, Inside Philanthropy