• Actions on water and climate today will define whether economies and environmental systems thrive or fail.
  • Through its systemic approach, Circle of Blue is having tangible and durable impact on water, one of the most pressing societal and planetary challenges of our time.

(December 18, 2024) —  Circle of Blue, the independent digital news organization that informs critical decisions about the world’s escalating freshwater crises and their impacts on food, energy and health, announced today that it is a recipient of a three-year catalytic grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Recognizing that water is how humanity experiences climate change — through heat, floods, and droughts — Circle of Blue meets the need for recognition and understanding with a distinctive operating model.

It combines world-class journalism with data literacy, thought leadership, strategic communications, and top-tier convening to inform and stir reasoned responses to the world’s most pressing water challenges, which are accelerating in the changing climate.

The organization has an enviable record of working across sectors to bring together government officials, civic and business leaders, and the public to motivate systems change.

The MacArthur Foundation grant expands and deepens the role Circle of Blue has established as a catalyst for water solutions, and as a trusted collaborator across the global water and climate sectors’ diverse stakeholders.

“Incremental is no longer an option — our actions on water now define whether our economies and environmental systems thrive or fail,” said J. Carl Ganter, managing director and co-founder. “With support from MacArthur Foundation, Circle of Blue will take the next step in our evolution — informing the most important decisions and scaling our work to meet the challenge of escalating crises.”

During the past 20 years, Michigan-based Circle of Blue has emerged as one of the world’s premier sources for accurate, deeply reported information and analysis on water-related issues.

The news organization has earned a global reputation for insightful storytelling from the farms of Iowa and California’s Central Valley to the steppes of Inner Mongolia and suburbs of India’s megacities. A nonprofit, Circle of Blue relies on support from readers, donors, and foundations.

“The world has entered an era of converging crises, all of which are affected by fresh water availability, whether we realize it or not,” said Sonila Cook, CEO of Dalberg Catalyst, a nonprofit systems-change incubator that accelerates solutions for pressing challenges around the world. Dalberg Catalyst is advising Circle of Blue on its expansion strategy under the pressure of global urgency.

“This complex interconnectedness requires a different way of solving problems. Through its systemic approach, Circle of Blue is having tangible and durable impact,” Cook said.

This role is vital in an era of new water crisis thresholds in the face of the changing climate. Communities on six continents are much more vulnerable to water-related shocks than ever before. Conflict over water rose by 50 percent over last year and nearly half the world’s population now lives in regions of water stress.

About Circle of Blue
Based in the U.S. Great Lakes and working from more than 30 countries on six continents, Circle of Blue’s team members have informed policy, achieved breakthroughs in data management, edited major magazines, addressed Congress, and served as mentees for the next generation of leaders. Circle of Blue is a long-time contributor to World Economic Forum programs spanning water, agriculture, systems leadership, and energy, and is founder of the “Designing Water’s Future” and “Choke Point” collaborative initiatives. It is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit Newsand the Great Lakes News Collaborative, and received the Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award for developing a cumulative feedback-loop model for applied systems change.

About MacArthur Foundation
MacArthur Foundation boldly invests in creative solutions to urgent challenges, sparking hope for our future. It works on a few big bets that strive toward transformative change in areas of profound concern, including the existential threats of climate change and nuclear risk, the challenges of criminal justice reform and revitalizing local news in the U.S. and corruption in Nigeria. In addition, the foundation maintains enduring commitments in its hometown of Chicago, where it invests in people, places, and partnerships to build a more inclusive Chicago and in journalism and media, where it invests in more just and inclusive news and narratives. The foundation also makes awards to extraordinarily creative individuals through the MacArthur Fellows program and for solutions to critical problems of our time through 100&Change.