About Us

Lake Monroe, surrounded by a  276,000 acre watershed, is the sole drinking water source for 128,000 customers in Monroe County and a supplemental source for Brown County.

 

In mid-2017 a small group – including representatives from The Nature Conservancy, City of Bloomington Utilities, Friends of Lake Monroe and others – began to explore the feasibility of creating an organization that would act as a funding source connected to the management and sustainability goals of Lake Monroe.  ​As a result, the Lake Monroe Water Fund incorporated in 2021 as the 43rd water fund enabled by The Nature Conservancy, the 13th in the US, and the first one in Indiana.

 

Our purpose is to attract and apply financial & human resources to projects that reduce  threats to the water quality of Lake Monroe. These threats come from erosion, nutrient runoff, and 9,000+ septic systems, many old and poorly maintained.

 

To grow our capacity, we raise funds from individuals, organizations, and businesses; seek grants; and leverage commitments from stakeholders who benefit from having a clean, stable water source and a healthy watershed. ​We are uniquely positioned as a water fund that formed proactively, not in response to a crisis, because it costs less to prevent water quality problems than to recover from them!