Allison Harvey Turner serves as the chief executive officer of the Water Foundation and the Water Table funder collaborative. She oversees the Foundation’s strategy, operations, and grantmaking and leads the staff in pursuing its mission to secure clean, reliable water for people and nature. In addition, Allison supports philanthropy’s ability to convene, experiment with new ideas, and scale investment in transformative water solutions.
The Water Foundation began in 2011 as a project of the Resources Legacy Fund and launched as an independent foundation in 2017. It has granted more than $70 million to organizations and coalitions to support safe, clean water for people, restored freshwater ecosystems, and climate resilience. To complement its grantmaking and build a broader constituency for water solutions, the Water Foundation also serves as a convener, field builder, and campaign strategist.
Previously, Allison was the environment program director at the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, where she directed water and land conservation strategies, including managing the California Conservation Fund. She was also on the senior management team that grew the organization from ten to thirty professionals, managed a complex endowment, and guided more than $1 billion in grantmaking over ten years. Allison serves on advisory boards for the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, Sustainable Conservation, and the Water Solutions Network. She received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles.
