Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter
The Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter is the market-systems and impact-investing arm of Habitat for Humanity International, based in Atlanta. It backs early-stage housing entrepreneurs in emerging markets through its Shelter Venture Fund, including two water and sanitation startups. As of 2026, its most recent water investment dates to 2022.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
The Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter is not a fund manager chasing returns, it is the part of Habitat for Humanity that treats housing as a market to be fixed rather than a charity to be funded. It carries the name of Ron Terwilliger, the former Trammell Crow Residential chief whose $100 million gift to Habitat, the largest the charity has ever taken from a single person, set aside $30 million to launch the Center at the UN's Habitat III summit in 2016.
Most of the Terwilliger Center's capital flows through the Shelter Venture Fund, started in 2017 to write small equity cheques into the 'pioneer gap', the awkward stage where a young company is too risky for a normal venture firm but too commercial for a grant. As of 2022 the fund had put roughly $3 million into eleven early-stage shelter businesses across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Water is where the Terwilliger Center's housing mission quietly becomes a water story. Its working logic is that shelter is not adequate without clean water and a working toilet, so two of its bets are water and sanitation companies serving low-income households: ECOSTP Technologies, an Indian firm whose gravity-fed sewage plants borrow their design from a cow's digestion, and TapEffect, which pipes safe, solar-pumped water to rural communities in Cambodia.
For a newcomer the read on the Terwilliger Center is simple: treat it as a patient, mission-first backer, not a water VC. It invests to prove a market can work and to pull commercial capital in behind it, so its water exposure is a by-product of the housing mission, not a dedicated water thesis. Its last recorded water deal was in 2022.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 2 water companies
Frequently asked
- What does the Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter invest in?
- The Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter invests in early-stage companies that make housing work for low-income families in emerging markets, spanning construction, home finance, and water and sanitation. Through its Shelter Venture Fund it has backed two water companies, ECOSTP Technologies and TapEffect.
- Is the Terwilliger Center a venture capital fund?
- No. The Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter is the market-systems arm of the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity International, not a commercial venture fund. It invests patient equity through its Shelter Venture Fund to prove that early housing markets can work, then aims to draw mainstream investors in behind it.
- What water companies has the Terwilliger Center backed?
- The Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter has backed two water and sanitation startups: ECOSTP Technologies, an Indian company whose gravity-powered sewage plants copy a cow's digestion, and TapEffect, which delivers safe, solar-pumped piped water to rural communities in Cambodia. Its most recent water investment was in 2022.
- Who runs the Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter?
- The Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter is led by Roland Pearson, its Vice President and Executive Director. Its impact investing and housing finance work, including the Shelter Venture Fund and the MicroBuild Fund, is run by Naeem Razwani, Senior Director of Housing Finance Systems and Impact Investments.
- Is the Terwilliger Center the same as Ron Terwilliger?
- No. Ron Terwilliger is the real estate developer and philanthropist whose $100 million gift to Habitat for Humanity funded the Center that carries his name. The Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter is the Habitat unit that does the investing, while Terwilliger himself chairs its advisory board.