Pre-2002

* Larry Bailey (WWC Business Manager) has various career experiences that would come to support WWC development, including: real estate development, farming, wildcrafting/herb brokerage management, numerous rural economic development initiatives (including negotiation of county-wide high speed wireless installations in 1998 in north central Washington State), political activities at State legislature level, NGO management, owning a website development business, being a newspaper publisher, having 3 novels published, participating in the open-source software movement
* The co-founder and WWC Program Manager has various career experiences that would come to support WWC development, including: work with local, regional, provincial, national and international community environmental NGO stewardship initiatives, membership in the Association of Professional Biologists of BC, formal training as a facilitator and organizational and strategic planning experience, large restoration and education project coordination and management, work with First Nations, work for municipal, provincial and federal governments, various board and committee work, grant-making process administration, numerous successful grant applications.

2002

* the founders co-author a paper for and meet at the “Towards Ecosystem Based Management in the Columbia Basin” conference during their respective work on fisheries stewardship and community capacity building issues on their respective sides of the Canada/US border in the transboundary Okanagan Basin watershed
* While managing the Upper Columbia Regional Fisheries Enhancement Group, they developed community support for a large river restoration project (Similkameen Confluence Project) and initiated transboundary community stewardship discussions. The Confluence project required innovative approaches and some of the ideas developed for that project provided starting points for the WWC program, some of which laid the groundwork for Watershed Wealth. Transboundary coordination compared and contrasted community stewardship and economic development realities between BC and WA and highlighted a need to have a common access point and process to get stewardship information no matter what country you are in.

Late 2003 / early 2004

* Rural Resource Associates Ltd. and Rural Resource Associates (RRA) Consulting Ltd. were incorporated as separate entities in Washington State and British Columbia, respectively.
* The co-founders began work on the “Riparian Revenue” program (later to become Watershed Wealth)
* RRA submitted somewhat controversial (at the time) comments to the Columbia River Subbasin Planning Process regarding community and landowner involvement and economic development approaches to salmon recovery, which triggered an invitation by the US Environmental Protection Agency for them to co-author one of 28 chapters of the “Salmon 2100 Project” called "Follow the Money," which critically evaluated the potential policy options for protecting and restoring wild salmon runs on the West Coast of North America by the year 2100. The Riparian Revenue Program was briefly discussed in the chapter along with other community-based solution prescriptions (published later as Bailey, L.L., & Boshard, M.L. (2006). Follow the Money. in Lackey, R.T., Lach, D.H., & Duncan, S.L. (2006). Salmon 2100: The Future of Wild Pacific Salmon. Maryland, American Fisheries Society.)

2004-2005

* RRA Canada simultaneously contracted management of a soil conservation organization, a farmers’ market, organizational planning for Langley Environmental Partners Society, and a private-land agroforestry project which later became the first WWC demonstration project (funded by Shell Canada and the BC Agroforestry Industry Development Initiative). Ideas associated with these contracts began to converge and be applied to the agricultural demonstration site for WWC.
* Decision to develop WWC as a “Made in Canada” solution was reached

2005-2006

* Further RRA contracts (writing for Country Life about a First Nations Agricultural Lending Association conference, coordination of the 2006 Certified Organics Associations of BC annual conference, while WWC was further developed by RRA
* RRA partnered with the Osoyoos Lake Water Quality Society to develop an urban WWC demonstration
* General preparation of potential partners and contacts

2006-2007

* Langley Environmental Partners Society sponsored a successful proposal to the Enterprising Non-Profits Program for the initial feasibility study and market research on ground level activities of Delivery Agents
* Concept was vetted by an intergovernmental technical body focusing on fisheries issues (Canadian Okanagan Basin Working Group, consisting of Okanagan Nation Alliance, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and BC Ministry of Environment)
* Name was changed from Riparian Revenue to Watershed Wealth

2008

* Advisory Teams for Science and Technical, Business and Logistical, and Policy and Regulatory issues were solicited
* Major programmatic development finalizations including the retail sector and general marketing plans
* Funding from BC Cooperatives Association for development of the coop structure and rules
* A handful of organizations were approached about forming the Cooperative
* Funding was secured from the Canadian federal Cooperative Development Initiative
* Further feasibility work was conducted
* Incorporation documents submitted
* Website was established