American Whitewater

AW is such a great organization, advocating for safety and people's right to access whitewater rivers in the US. They advocate for water quality, river access, dam removal, etc. They also maintain the best/only national whitewater river database with information on each run, so you can find rivers that are suited to your skills and interest. They do so much with so little. As a whitewater kayaker, I can highly recommend supporting AW.

American Whitewater is - and has long been - the premier whitewater river conservation organization. AW's work to conserve and protect our river resources has spanned the country and included almost all of the significant conservation victories in this arena. As mentioned above, the organization's work with FERC relicensing continues to lead the way in creating and preserving recreational river flows and ensuring access for the public. AW takes the lead in projects, large and small, throughout the country and AW is the "go to" river stewardship organization. Additionally, AW's safety and outreach/educational programs and resources are invaluable to the thousands of river users who depend on AW for flow information, safety databases, and their historical archives. AW has become the collective memory for whitewater river recreation in the USA.

Gordon Dalton

AW is the most efficient advocacy organization that rivers could hope for. One example is of early AW volunteers and staff who back in the late 1970s arranged for environmental flows and river recreation to be considered as part of FERC re-licensing. Now, more than 30 years later, this has borne fruit, with many miles of rivers seeing flows that otherwise would never have happened. This sort of forward thinking is driven by passion and ruthless efficient organization, despite (or perhaps because of) having staff and dedicated volunteers spread all around the country.

As a past board member, current member and corporate supporter, I KNOW that my contributions to AW are helping rivers and access to rivers in the best possible way. I have personally seen how hard the small staff works and how much they care about their work. I have never seen the organization more focused, efficient and more effective than they are now. I have absolutely no doubt that every penny contributed to AW is money well spent. If you care about rivers and your right to use them, then there is no better organization to support.