A NOTE FROM OUR FOUNDER

Why I started
FIELDWATER.

Andrew Cunningham · Founder

A new chapter, built around making water work.

I spent fifteen years helping build and operate a manufacturing company. Much of that work involved filtration. It taught me how to solve practical problems, manage operations, and keep systems working when something went wrong.

Eventually, we sold the company I had spent those years helping build. As part of the sale, I signed on for a one-year transition period. When that commitment was complete, I was offered a new senior leadership role. I chose to leave.

For the first time in my adult life, I had the freedom to decide what I wanted the next chapter to be about. I knew I wanted to build again. I wanted to put the experience I had gained toward something that could make a direct difference in people’s lives.

I kept coming back to water. When reliable water is part of everyday life, it is easy to take it for granted. When it stops working, the consequences reach into health, school, work, and the time families spend getting through the day.

What drew me in was the practical nature of the work. A failed pump. A damaged pipe. Treatment that no longer works. Missing parts or equipment. Each situation needs to be understood on its own terms, but these are problems that operations, filtration, and hands-on problem-solving can help address.

That became FIELDWATER: understand what has failed, work with the people who depend on the system, and determine what it will take to make it work again. Repair what can be repaired, bring in specialist help where it is needed, and plan for the system to keep working after the field visit ends.

We are starting with Project Zero in Malawi. I am committing my own resources to this first initiative, alongside founding support from PÛR, so we can establish a record of real work before launching public fundraising. The plan can include more than one system or community, using the available budget where it can responsibly accomplish the most.

I want supporters to be able to see the work clearly: the original problem, the equipment, the costs, the people involved, the challenges, and the results. That includes what still needs attention. Trust should grow from an honest record people can return to.

Leaving after fifteen years gave me the opportunity to choose what to build next. FIELDWATER is my way of putting that opportunity to work. The ambition is to grow an organization that can help communities restore and maintain safe water well beyond its first initiative.

Andrew Cunningham
Founder, FIELDWATER