Our Story
Our Founder, Philip Wagner
I’ll never forget the day I became aware of the fact that 1 billion people on the planet do not have access to clean water. Could this really be true? I did not realize that our world was experiencing a clean water crisis that impacted a billion people. If I want water, I just go to a faucet or buy a bottle of water. This information left me speechless. Could it be true that every 15 seconds a child dies of a water related disease? The sad reality is yes.
As the founding pastor of Oasis Church for over 25 years, I’ve spent my whole life trying to help people around me. Our church serves our local community in Los Angeles, and has always been concerned with helping the less fortunate.
I began talking to my family, friends, and church to rally support. I asked our church to give and we raised funds to help build a clean water well for a village in Malawi. We began to sell Generosity Water bottles to raise awareness about the crisis and funds to build more water projects. As we continued to raise awareness, more funds came in and we helped build and rehab 10 projects in Ethiopia. The project gained momentum and Generosity Water was born.
Generosity Water quickly grew and in 2008, my son Jordan, who had been involved since the beginning, became our Executive Director. After just two years, we’ve built 108 wells in 15 countries around the world, providing life-sustaining water for over 43,000 people for 20 years. I am excited for our future and the work to be done. There are many more communities and people that need our help, so we’re just getting started.
Executive Director, Jordan Wagner
Ever since I could remember, I have have always been an entrepreneur. I started my first business when I was 14. I found a manufacturer in China and was importing laser pointers and Zippo lighters and then selling them to stores across the US. After graduating high school, I transitioned into real estate and started a mortgage brokerage firm with offices opened in Los Angeles and San Diego, CA. I had so much ambition and was driven by how much money I could make.
After traveling throughout Africa in the Fall of 2008, my perspective on life drastically changed. I saw people who were literally too poor to eat. I saw young girls walking for miles to find water that was so dirty, we wouldn’t even let our pets drink it here in the US, but she had no other choice.
I will never forget what we experienced at one of the villages in Uganda. We saw a 15-year-old girl filling up her containers with dirty water and loading them onto her bicycle. I walked with her as she made the daily 3 mile walk back to her home. When I finally arrived, she told me that she was using this water to bury her younger brother who had died the day before, from drinking this contaminated water. It just seemed like a never-ending cycle of poverty. It was at this moment that I knew I had to be a part of the solution. This was a massive crisis, and I knew I couldn’t save everyone, but I had the responsibility to at least try and save one.
I decided to re-direct my ambition from making as much money as I could, to helping as many people as possible. After talking with my dad about this, we decided to create Generosity Water as a non-profit organization that would tackle the water crisis, one community at a time. We’re just a group of people using what is in our hand to try and make a difference in the world. And were starting with water.
