[Discussion] Example nonprofit: GridAlternatives.org

[Grant Bowman]

Last night I volunteered to attend a volunteer Grid Alternatives
orientation for a nonprofit located on the Oakland/Emeryville border. It is
located not far from where I worked for two summers during college with my
father.

gridalternatives.org       twitter.org/gridalternative

I do not know how much of this example can or should be thought about for
use in how Partimus operates. I did want to share my experience in the
hopes some of it will be useful to us as we grow. If anyone has any related
thoughts or questions please let us know.

There was a requested donation of $20 which I chose to pay. The sign in
sheet had name, email and donation columns. A labeled donation bucket with
a slot for the money was next to the sign in sheet. A person from their
development staff was there. Nobody was turned away if they did not donate.
Twice during the presentation they pitched their annual Solarathon event
where volunteers raise at least $250 each in order to participate and
donate their time installing solar panels on 13 homes over a weekend after
a lot of prep. This is similar to how habitateb.org does their annual
Buildathon where three homes are built in a weekend start to finish.
Companies can pay to sponsor solar teams during these events. Wells Fargo
and many solar manufacturers sponsor these events. Banquets, prizes and
tours of what they do take place. Media is invited.

Back to the class. There were about 20 people attending. One was from the
California PUC, the agency that oversees electric power distribution to
residential and business customers. I think there are lessons the computing
industry can learn from the electric power industry. Half the class
attended due to a job training program called the Center for Employment
Training. I will be exploring more about them soon. The director of the
Grid Alternatives office welcomed us trainee volunteers, thanking us for
our support.

The trainer was an experienced volunteer. She presented about the
organization founded in 2004 by Tim Sears and Erica Mackie who "scratched
their own itch" installing solar for themselves and their friends. The
slides described the solar panel industry and the low income home owners we
were all there to serve. The environmental justice angle was given as a
reason for the excitement around solar electricity. There are state and
federal subsidies that apply to qualifying home owners that help make these
installations possible: CSI, MASH, SASH, NSHP, a 30% federal tax credit,
etc. This group focuses on low income home owners and applicable programs
though there were questions about all these subsidy programs from the
audience. There is no cost to the home owner for these solar panel
installations. Average low income home owner electric bills are 20% of
previous bills, an 80% savings.

Grid Alternatives have installed 2050 solar panel systems all over
California and have trained over 1900 volunteers to date. They target 1000
installs this year from five CA offices, 200 installs coordinated from the
Oakland office. 13 of those installs will be complete during their annual
fundraiser event in San Jose around July 21st.

Generally there are more trained volunteers than there are opportunities to
install solar panels as a volunteer over two days. The team structure is
informative. Each site is managed by an installation supervisor, a staffer.
There are two teams of volunteers (roof team & ground team) led by
experienced volunteers called team leaders. The projects are described in
the pictures of the slides. Systems consist of solar panels, inverters, cut
off switches and tie ins to the building electric system. Net Metering
takes place. This is how it works for a home owner.  On the monthly
electric bill the net amount of electricity used is either a positive or a
negative number. At the end of the year these totals are added up and a
payment is either made to the home owner or the home owner pays for the
electricity they use above and beyond the electricity generated by the
solar panels and used.

The "gamification" around volunteering is fascinating to me. Professional
solar installers get one of several certifications to legally do what they
do in California. One of these professional certifications requires on the
job hands on experience. Volunteering gives credit toward this
certification. I guess many volunteers do not go on to become certified
solar installers but some do. After volunteering in five installations and
demonstrating mastery in a number of different skills to installation
supervisors one is eligible to become a volunteer team leader. Up to 10
installations can be required to gain enough credit in order to be able to
take the test to become a certified solar installer.

This month the volunteer coordination system was moved from a system of
email and spreadsheets to an online web based system.

Regards,

Grant Bowman
Director, Partimus.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.partimus.org/pipermail/discussion-partimus.org/attachments/20120620/ef0dea0f/attachment.htm>