DIGDEEP

George McGraw so loved the water as a boy that he’d swim until he was totally covered in wrinkles. Today, he’s still all about water, as founder and CEO of DIGDEEP, the only WASH organization serving disadvantaged communities in the United States. Founded in Los Angeles in 2011, DIGDEEP believes access to clean water is a human right. Under George’s leadership, it won the 2018 US Water Prize for its Navajo Water Project, which has brought clean, running water to hundreds of Native families across New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Now George is leading an effort with Michigan State University, the US Water Alliance and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the root causes of domestic water poverty, which still afflicts some 1.6 million Americans without access to running water or basic sanitation.

A graduate of Loyola University of Chicago, George went on to receive an M.A. in International Law and Conflict Management from the United Nations University for Peace. He has written on water policy for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Nation, and spoken at events hosted by the Clinton Foundation, the Atlantic, and Ford. The UN Foundation named George one of its 17 “Local Globalists.”