Printer-friendlyEmail to friend

American Water Works Association (AWWA)
the American Water Works Association (AWWA) provides knowledge, information and advocacy to improve the quality and supply of water in North America and beyond. AWWA advances public health, safety and welfare by uniting the efforts of the full spectrum of the water community.

RCAP and AWWA have a memorandum of understanding with three primary goals:

1. Cooperate and communicate collaboratively at the national level and foster the development of local-level communications.
2. Explore cooperation on joint projects and/or programs (such as publications, training for operators and governing boards, and supporting water workforce initiatives).
3. Collaborate on the advancement of the industry.

Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA)
The Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA) is the professional association serving state drinking water programs. Formed in 1984 to address a growing need for state administrators to have national representation, ASDWA has become a respected voice for state primacy agents with Congress, the EPA, and other professional organizations.

National Environmental Services Center (NESC)
The National Environmental Services Center (NESC), based at West Virginia University, assists small and rural communities with their drinking water, wastewater, environmental training, solid waste, infrastructure security, and utility management needs and to help them find solutions to problems they face. Its staff of environmental specialists, engineers, certified operators, technical writers, editors, and trainers understand the latest technologies, regulations, and industry developments.

Water Environment Federation (WEF)
The Water Environment Federation (WEF) not-for-profit association that provides technical education and training for thousands of water quality professionals who clean water and return it safely to the environment.

Clean Water Action
Clean Water Action is an organization of 1.2 million members working to empower people to take action to protect America's waters, build healthy communities and to make democracy work for all of us. Clean Water Action works through grassroots organizing, expert policy research and political advocacy focused on holding elected officials accountable to the public.

The Groundwater Foundation
The Groundwater Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and motivating people to care for and about groundwater.

National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) uses law, science and the support of 1.3 million members and online activists to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things. With the support of its members and online activists, NRDC works to solve the most pressing environmental issues we face today, including curbing global warming and getting toxic chemicals out of the environment.

Housing Assistance Council (HAC)
The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) has been helping local organizations build affordable homes in rural America since 1971. HAC emphasizes local solutions, empowerment of the poor, reduced dependence, and self-help strategies. HAC assists in the development of both single- and multi-family homes and promotes homeownership for working low-income rural families through a self-help, "sweat equity" construction method. The Housing Assistance Council offers services to public, nonprofit, and private organizations throughout the rural United States. HAC also maintains a special focus on high-need groups and regions: Indian country, the Mississippi Delta, farmworkers, the Southwest border colonias, and Appalachia.

National Rural Housing Coalition (NRHC)
The National Rural Housing Coalition (NRCH) works to focus policy makers on the needs of rural areas by direct advocacy and by coordinating a network of rural housing advocates around the nation. RCAP is a member of the coalition.

U.S. Census Bureau
The RCAP national office in Washington, D.C., is designated as a Census Information Center by the U.S. Census Bureau. These centers are an integral part of the Census Bureau’s data-dissemination network. Their primary focus is making census information and data available to under-served communities that may not have access to census data through other means of the data-dissemination network. The RCAP national office has many Census Bureau resources in its library that are available to the RCAP network.

National Rural Funders Collaborative (NRFC)
The National Rural Funders Collaborative (NRFC) is a collaborative philanthropic initiative organized to expand resources for families and communities in regions of persistent poverty, especially areas where concentrations of poverty and communities of color overlap. NRFC supports community-based empowerment strategies designed to transform poor rural communities and regions into healthy and viable living environments and seeks to build a movement of support and advocacy for alternative rural economies based on community assets of culture, land and human capital and grounded in relationships and values of equity and justice.

The Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI)
The Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI) provides objective analysis and information on the challenges, needs, and opportunities facing rural America. RUPRI’s aim is to spur public dialogue and help policymakers understand the rural impacts of public policies and programs. RCAP has joined with RUPRI and many other rural organizations in the National Rural Network.

Community Action Partnership
Community Action Partnership is a national membership organization representing the interests of the 1,000 Community Action Agencies (CAAs) working to fight poverty at the local level. It is the mission of the Community Action Partnership to strengthen, promote, represent and serve its network of member agencies to assure that the issues of the poor are effectively heard and addressed.

National Rural Development Partnership (NRDP)
National Rural Development Partnership (NRDP) s a multi-faceted organization bringing together partners from all levels of government as well as private, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations to address the needs of rural America.

Organizations RCAP collaborates with on advocacy and policy development:

Water Infrastructure Network (WIN)
RCAP is a member of the Water Infrastructure Network (WIN), a broad-based coalition of local elected officials, drinking water and wastewater service providers, state environmental and health administrators, engineers, and environmentalists dedicated to preserving and protecting the health, environmental and economic gains that America's drinking water and wastewater infrastructure provides. WIN issues key reports and encourages support for adequate infrastructure funding at all levels from federal to local.

Campaign for Safe and Affordable Drinking Water (CSADW)
The Campaign for Safe and Affordable Drinking Water (CSADW) is an alliance of more than 300 organizations working to protect drinking water in the United States. RCAP is a member.

National Rural Network (NRN)
The National Rural Network (NRN) is a coalition of more than 50 nongovernmental national organizations working to create awareness and understanding of public policies that enhance the vitality of rural America. RCAP is a member.

Campaign for a Renewed Rural Development
Campaign goals:

• Increase awareness of the importance of all sectors to the quality of life in rural America.
• Enhance rural America's competitiveness in a global marketplace.
• Underscore the growing interdependence of rural and urban America, and the common stake each has in assuring that the remarkable assets of rural America are fully optimized.
• Leverage the shared commitments of Campaign organizations, to support Congressional leaders pledging to craft a bold and vibrant federal commitment to rural America.
• Support passage of a flexible and fully funded Rural Development Title in the next Farm Bill.

RCAP is a supporter of this campaign.

The Small Community Water Infrastructure Exchange (SCWIE)
The Small Community Water Infrastructure Exchange (SCWIE) is a network of water-funding officials. Under the auspices of the Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities (CIFA), a group of public and non-profit environmental funding and technical assistance officials have come together to create SCWIE. Posted on its website are the names, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses for all the key small community contacts in each state. If there is a small community coordinating group in a state, the contact person is listed as well a link to the group’s web site (if there is one).

Workgroups that RCAP is part of:

Water Security Partners forum

Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable 
The roundtable serves as a forum to share information and perspectives that will promote better decision making in the U.S. regarding the sustainability of our nation's water resources. It was created under the Advisory Committee on Water Information to promote exchange of information among representatives of government, industry, and environmental, professional, public interest, and academic groups. The roundtable is intended to provide a venue open to those who wish to examine some aspect of the many interrelationships among both familiar water disciplines and with economic and cultural elements and the future implications for the nation. 

Septic systems group: RCAP is a partner organization with EPA and 15 others that have signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding (MOU) aimed at addressing pollution from the nation's 26 million septic systems. The purpose of the MOUs, first signed in 2008 and again in 2011, is to continue and expand the ongoing collaborative relationships that focus on public-health protection, product testing, and professional accreditation.