A Donor’s Responsibilities
I had a conversation today with a consultant who works with organizations and executives on strategic planning and leadership, and it got some ideas swirling in my head. We talked a bit about what my long term vision for the Foundation is, how we work with non-profits, how we keep the team’s morale up during the tough economy and what we want to leave behind when our time is done here.
That’s a lot to think about, let alone absorb and comment on in a meaningful way, during a brief conversation - or a blog post. But the discussion circled back several times to the way an individual looks at their own position - both with relation to other people and other organizations. I hope I never start making the mistake of thinking people who work for nonprofits and whom I’ve never seen before are exceptionally nice to me because of me, rather than because the position I am lucky enough to hold.
If the people who work with me have a heart, it’s relatively easy to keep them motivated. Sure, like everyone, we have our ups and downs, but it is very easy for us to remember the difference we make during the work day - every day. We are helping people have homes to live, stay in their homes and have safer, more vibrant neighborhoods. There is no doubt we actually change people’s lives - thousands of people every year. In just 2009 alone, we gave $75 million in cash and products to over 3,500 nonprofit organizations. Wow. No one here is just stuffing a check into an overnight envelope - they are truly sending hope to another person.
And while I always want us to remember what we are accomplishing, I don’t want us to stop trying to do better. As important as what we do is, what we don’t do and what we could have done are even more important. I’m always watchful for the lost opportunity. We have an awesome responsibility to invest our funds in our communities in the way that will provide the best outcomes for the most people. We all need to be mindful that what we have done is great - amazing even - but that we can always do more.
Another Year - A Fresh Start
Well, it’s the end of another December, another year. I just recycled my 2009 desk calendar. Honestly, I’m never quite sure what we are celebrating when one year ends and another arrives, but for 2010, I’m going to try to really take advantage of this new year as the proverbial fresh start. I’d like to share with you a few things I am committing to do - because they will be good for me economically, they’ll be good for the environment and they will make me feel better about myself. By making my resolutions public, I hope to also do a better job of sticking to them.
First, I’m not going to replace that paper calendar. I’ve like being able to glance down and see the months laid out year after year, but it really is a waste of paper, let along desk space. Besides, I think it makes me seem old to like information on paper - only the computer will track my days from now on.
Along the same lines, no more unnecessary printing and copying. I tend to print e-mails to have the paper as a reminder (that’s what the little flags in Outlook are for, I know!) and to print documents to revise them, and I feel guilty even as I do it. I resolve to read and comment on documents on my computer, and to make meetings paperless as well. Whew - I already feel better on that front.
I will remember to get the shopping bags out of the trunk of my car and actually take them into the store with me. Why is this so hard? On the top of the pad I use to make lists (I know, there’s that paper again, but I have to start with baby steps) I have written “REMEMBER BAGS.” I plan to copy this as the first item of every list (now I just have to remember to take the list into the store).
I’ll reduce my phantom load. Sounds spooky, doesn’t it? This is the electricity used by TVs, DVD players, computers, chargers and appliances when they off, but still plugged in and drawing a small amount of electricity. By most estimates, this standby power usage accounts for about 10% of the electricity used in a typical home. So I’m going to unplug all my charges when they aren’t actually charging anything, and I’m going to put my electronics on a power strip and unplug it when I’m done using them. I’ll let you know if I can see a change in my electricity bill.
To paraphrase President Carter, I’m going to wear a sweater. I’m always cold in our house; my husband is always hot. We are going to set the thermometer to a cooler temperature this winter. I’ll tell him I’m doing it so he’ll be comfortable, but we’ll know the real reason!
Finally, I’m going to plant a tree. A tree that will grow for many years and give shade and protection to our home. This summer, I think I’ll relax under its branches and think of the money I’ve saved by sticking to my resolutions. I hope to be congratulating myself on a job well done, but check back in the next months and I promise to tell you how I’m really doing. Wish me luck and Happy New Year!
Year End and the Chase is On
I’ve been thinking about this post for a couple of days. I wanted to find something cheery to write - something in the holiday spirit. Our office is full of such: Christmas trees and wreaths, menorahs and holiday sweets. My inbox is full of sparkling, gold-edged holiday cards sending good will.
I appreciate all of that and am definitely looking forward to the holidays and having some time to spend with family and friends. But I’m having trouble with the upbeat message as I’m struck by how many of those year-end cards are being sent to chase down a last few donations - desperately. I know I should expect this given the headlines and economic reality that have defined 2010 (for details on that, see the results of a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy survey), but I think that what has caught my attention is not only the quantity of these pleas, but the tone of them. For quite a few, it’s clear that this isn’t just about trying to get a few more dollars into the bank, but it’s really about saving staff jobs, programs and, perhaps, even the organization itself.
But, that’s not what I’ve been mulling over. It’s really that I’m torn about what the appropriate response is. Of course, on a personal level, I’d like the Foundation to be able to give to each of these nonprofits. I’m absolutely sure that every single one of them is helping someone who needs help, making a community stronger or giving voice to a forgotten cause. As everyone in philanthropy knows, though, we shouldn’t make grants scatter shot; we have to be focused, aligned, strategic.
On a professional level, I completely agree with that - we invest in nonprofits that can work with us strategically to make significant impact in our communities. As we reach the end of our fiscal year, we’ve managed our budget so that we’ve granted all that we have to give - we have to make our numbers work too. We aren’t set up to respond to these kinds of spur of the moment requests, nor do I think that we should be.
It still doesn’t feel good to send out the letters declining these requests. But with my personal year-end donations, I plan on spreading my gifts among a number of organizations, some of which I haven’t supported before. I guess that I’m not along in that, as one respondent to the Chronicle survey said he was seeing the number of donors giving to his organization going up even while the dollars are down. I’m lucky in that I can have it both ways - I’ll let my head rule at work, but my heart wins at home.
“Cities of the Future” Are Being Built Today
For many people, the notion of building sustainable communities seems like something rather far-fetched … an expensive “city of the future” that is nice to aspire to, but perhaps not something very realistic to actually accomplish. When The Home Depot Foundation was founded eight years ago, we decided to try to disprove that notion by focusing our work on creating healthy, affordable housing as the cornerstone of creating communities that aren’t just surviving, but are thriving. Communities where the housing is healthy and efficient, while also affordable to live in for the long term; where there are safe and green outside places for people to walk, play and learn; and where people have access to good jobs, good schools and the stores and services they need.
As a result of our commitment, we want to shine the light on cities that are making great strides in bringing the economic, social and environmental benefits of sustainability to their residents. And so, this year we created the Awards of Excellence for Sustainable Community Development to identify, recognize and showcase the work being done in cities to construct green affordable housing in a sustainable community.
We were blown away by the quality of the submissions we received from cities across the country - there is truly some fantastic work being done. It’s clear that many cities across the country are finding successful ways of dealing with the financial, social and environmental issues facing them through thoughtful design, land use and building methods.
I’m proud to announce today that the inaugural winners of this award are Minneapolis, MN and its nonprofit partner Aeon and North Charleston, SC and its nonprofit partner The Sustainability Institute. It’s also nice for me to note that the winners don’t just walk away a beautiful award to display. They are also receiving a combined total of $150,000 to further the sustainability goals of their communities.
You can read a quick description of the accomplishments of each below, but be sure to visit our web site to read the press release and the case studies for each as well as to watch the video.
Minneapolis, MN and Aeon:
- The City of Minneapolis has titled its Comprehensive Plan as “The Minneapolis Plan for Sustainable Growth,” making it clear that sustainability will be considered with all decisions, not as an afterthought. The city has established 25 sustainability indicators to track its progress, each with specific targets and incentives for achieving those targets. As part of this commitment, the city partnered with Aeon to develop Ripley Gardens, a best-in-class example of the successful completion of a sustainable community. Using the historic Ripley Memorial Hospital and planning to add three additional buildings, the project team created plans for a residential development focused on historic preservation, energy efficiency and sustainability. The site is accessible to transit, jobs in the downtown area and bike trails and contains one acre of greenspace that includes a playground and a community garden. The project boasts green and efficient building and maintenance practices and meets the MN Green Communities standards. View the case study and watch the video.
North Charleston, SC and The Sustainability Institute:
- In the early 2000’s, North Charleston faced many challenges, including the closing of a major naval base. The city struggled as residents moved to the surrounding suburbs leaving vacant homes, a low home ownership rate and impoverished neighborhoods. In 2008, the city revised its Comprehensive Plan and included sustainability as a goal with specific priorities to guide its actions. As a result, the city partnered with The Sustainability Institute to develop Oak Terrace Preserve, a once vibrant community that had fallen into major disrepair by 2000. The city purchased the land, with a vision to transform it into a sustainable, attractive community. Today, it exemplifies best practices in housing, natural resources and land use and development. It includes bioswales, rain gardens, pervious paving in alleys and “flexi-pave” sidewalks. The community layout encourages community interactions and all 55 homes on the property achieved EarthCraft certification. View the case study and watch the video.
My sincere congratulations to Minneapolis and North Charleston for their impressive work to make their cities a healthier, more productive place for their citizens. My hope and the goal of The Home Depot Foundation is that their success stories will offer insight, inspiration and a roadmap for other cities to follow as they develop and implement sustainability plans for their communities.
We’re excited about the progress being made by so many non profit housing organizations, green builders and developers, and cities. You can count on The Home Depot Foundation to keep the sustainability drumbeat going by highlighting success stories like Minneapolis and North Charleston who are building “cities of the future” today.
We’re Giving it Away!
At The Home Depot Foundation, we make grants every week, but this week, the amounts have really added up. In fact, today we are mailing out grants that total over $750,000. None of the grants is individually enormous, but combined, they demonstrate how we work throughout the country to support local communities to do the work they need to do given their unique situation.
I’m not going to list them all, but here are some highlights:
- Atlanta Land Trust Collaborative: $125,000 to support the development homes that will always be affordable for families of lower income
- Clean Air Campaign: $25,000 to support carpooling initiatives that have saved commuters almost $800,000 in 2009
- Global Green USA: $15,000 to provide technical assistance to nonprofit developers working to make homes more efficient and healthier
- Park Pride: $25,000 to sponsor a conference about the role of parks and green infrastructure in the new economy
- FLASH: $50,000 in support of their work to strengthen homes and safeguard families from the impacts of disasters
The list goes on, but hopefully you get a feel for what we are doing. And while at first blush this may seem like a somewhat random list of organizations and efforts, I hope that you’ll take a second look and see that they are all aimed at creating healthier, more livable and more affordable communities. We like to think that we are very smart and strategic in what we do as a Foundation, but I’ve got to admit that at bottom we are just trying to create neighborhoods where anyone would want to live and houses that any family would be proud to call home.
The Year-End Financial Juggle - Budget Time
It seems that at the end of the year, every year, budget issues start to come up more and more. Families discuss their finances: How much should we spend on holiday gifts? Should we buy the plane tickets to visit grandma? What about making charitable donations before December 31 - and getting a tax deduction? While these discussions are going on across the kitchen table, corporations are undertaking the same exercise across conference room tables and asking the same kind of questions: where are we against our plan for this year and how much budget will we have next year? It seems that it’s the time of year when everyone tries to juggle all of the competing financial needs without dropping a ball that has to be caught.
As a foundation, we’re doing the same thing. Our budget gets divided up a lot like everyone else’s: 1) the gotta dos, 2) the wanna dos and 3) the wish we could, but can’t dos. We have multi-year commitments to fulfill and core partnerships that we know we will fund; these are the “gotta does,” much like a family has mortgage payments and utilities. Of course, we make grants throughout the year as nonprofits request support, and we set a budget for how much we will distribute in each of the different areas we support. It’s akin to treating each grant program we have like a child with an allowance to spend. They can use it for whatever they want - that is, what ever they “wanna do”, but as I tell my real kids, “When it’s gone, it’s gone.”
And finally, there are the multitude of very worthwhile causes, organizations and people we would like to be able to support, but we just can’t. This may be because a nonprofit is working in an area that is outside our focus on healthy, affordable homes and sustainable communities. It may be because a request is related to our focus area, but we don’t think it will produce enough impact or it is too expensive for the outcomes the nonprofit is anticipating. Our deciding not to fund a request may also be for a reason entirely unrelated to the nonprofit and the request - maybe we’ve already made a number of investments in that city or the timing doesn’t work.
At the end of each year, in fact throughout each day, we are all making choices, and that’s all the more true when it comes to money. And as we think about charitable giving, the requests seem to grow as we near the end of the year - it is, after all, the season of giving. So in thinking about what we’ve done this year, what we’ll be able to do during the remainder of it and what we’ll plan to do in 2010, I hope that we’ve made sound decisions. We know that there are more organizations, more causes and more people who need - who deserve - grants than we would ever be able to support. We can always wish for additional money, but knowing that our budget is unlikely to increase in the near term, I hope that we’ve made the most of the funds we do have, that we’re correct in defining what we must do and chose well when we decide what we are able to do.
Celebrating Sustainable Affordable Housing
This has been an exciting week for all of us at The Home Depot Foundation. Many of us have attended USGBC’s Greenbuild conference as well as the National League of Cities annual conference. At both conferences, we’ve been inspired by the amazing examples of businesses, cities and organizations who are making real progress in building and fostering sustainable communities across the country.
Along with many of the attendees at each of these conferences, the Foundation focuses our work on creating healthy, affordable housing as the cornerstone of creating communities that aren’t just surviving, but are thriving. We all face the same kind of challenges as we try to accomplish this goal:
- How to created housing that’s healthy and efficient, while also affordable to live in, not just to move into
- How to ensure there are safe and green outside places for families to walk, play and learn and
- How to ensure that people have access to good jobs, good schools and the stores and services they need
There’s no question that balancing the economics with the environment – to be sustainable while being affordable – can be difficult. But it can be done with thoughtful design, appropriate product selection and responsible building.
This morning, The Home Depot Foundation is especially proud to be recognizing some impressive examples of affordable housing developments that show that finding that balance not only can be done, but that it can be done extraordinarily well. At this morning’s closing plenary session at Greenbuild in Phoenix, we are announcing the winners of our annual Awards of Excellence for Affordable Housing. Through this awards program, we celebrate the innovative and creative work of the nonprofit sector in building affordable housing to “green” standards. We have presented these awards for five years now, and we continue to be blown away by the quality of the nominated projects. We know you will be as impressed and inspired by our winners as we are.
The awards are given in two different categories: homeownership and rental housing. The award recipients were selected based on a number of criteria, including the physical design and building performance, as well as how well they met the needs of the local community while maintaining affordability for the residents.
The first place winner in the Home Ownership category is Habitat for Humanity, St. Louis, MO. The project they completed in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood in Midtown St. Louis is amazing. They built 27 single family homes that are 49 percent more energy efficient than homes built to code. In addition, the homes meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Platinum standards and earned the EPA’s Indoor Air Package (IAP) certification. The economics of the project were equally amazing – HFHSL was able to build to green standards without adding any incremental costs to the development by utilizing available rebates and incentives. View the case study and the video.
The first place winner in the Rental category is National Community Renaissance (National CORE), La Quinta, CA. This landmark project turned a distressed mobile home park into a beautiful and affordable 80-unit green housing development, called Vista Dunes, which meets LEED Platinum standards. Meeting this stringent certification standard added no incremental costs to the project. As a result of energy-efficient building, residents typically have 67% lower utility bills than homes built to standard code in the area. View the case study and the video.
The runner up in the Rental category is the Office of Rural Farm-Worker Housing in Yakima, WA.. The 26 rental townhomes they built at Pear Tree Place are certified by Enterprise’s Green Communities program. As a result of the quality construction, residents, who typically earn less than $40,000 annually usually save 35 percent on their energy bills and 31 percent on their water bills, yet greening the project added less than 1% to the total development costs. View the case study and the video.
I hope that you will take a few minutes to read the case studies and view the videos about each of these winners. What they’ve been able to do not only demonstrates the practicality of building green, but they are also making a substantial difference in the lives of hundreds of low to moderate income families by ensuring they have access to quality, healthy housing that is affordable to live in over the long-term.
Congrats to both Greenbuild and NLC for organizing great, informative conferences this week. And thanks for letting The Home Depot Foundation be part of both!
Greenbuild Begins with Real Progress
I’m in Phoenix at Greenbuild, the US Green Building Council’s annual mass gathering of enviro building professionals. USGBC started out just focusing on commercial buildings - skyscrapers and fancy office buildings, but yesterday we were here talking about affordable housing. We had about 130 representatives of nonprofit organizations, architecture firms, city housing officials and greenbuilding experts, each of whom wanted to learn more about how to create homes that are more affordable and healthier for families of modest means. In particular, we talked about rehabbing existing homes, senior housing and transit-oriented developments, which is a fancy way of saying homes near train and subway stations and bus stops.
The speakers and panels were great and imparted a huge amount of information about existing projects, best practices and lessons learned. In the afternoon, though, the real action began when we broke up into small working groups to discuss 9 projects from throughout the country that are still in the pre-development or design phase. The key here was that the construction manager was able to talk to experts and peers about how to make their projects more efficient and healthier while still staying within their budget. Because these are projects that are going to be built and that are still in a phase where changes can be made, all the participants were very engaged and excited about the conversation. It wasn’t just a theoretical exercise.
At the end of the day, each group did a short report out. Without exception, every project manager saw that they could build a project that would meet a national green building standard (in several cases, LEED Platinum) and stay withing their budget - WOW! That’s a real accomplishment with 9 projects that ranged from a large Hope VI redevelopment of public housing to the renovation of a high school to be an apartment building to a Habitat house! Even better, in just a few hours, we had project managers come to see that green wasn’t scary, overly complicated or expensive. One even proclaimed to the crowd that he had been cynical about green building, but that he had been converted!
We’ll keep tabs on what happens as these projects come out of the ground and families actually move into them, and report back to you. The 30,000 attendees of the Greenbuild conference are streaming into Phoenix, with meetings starting today. On Friday, we’ll be presenting the Foundation’s Awards of Excellence for Affordable Housing Built Responsibly - check back for the winners and case studies - to an audience of almost 10,000. But, in terms of real progress and truly making a difference, I think Greenbuild has already been a success.
An Exciting Day in Atlanta
It’s an exciting day for us. I know, it’s just Wednesday, it’s November 4th, election results are in, Halloween’s passed, Thanksgiving’s not here yet and it’s getting a little cold. But in Atlanta, for The Home Depot Foundation, it’s our 4th annual “Building Community Day.” It’s exciting for us because on this day each year, we select 20 nonprofits in the area who work outside of our focus on healthy, affordable housing, and we recognize and celebrate the outstanding work they do to impact our community and make Atlanta a better place.
As you’ll see below, they work in a diverse range of issues, but each makes a significant contribution. The Foundation is typically very focused in our work, believing that we can only have a significant, tangible impact if we limit the investments we make to housing and sustainability. In our hometown, however, we make exceptions to that, and we support a number of organizations that enhance Atlanta in different ways. After all, we are all working to make this a better community, we just come at it from different vantages, whether that be from the perspective of bringing the arts to life, improving healthcare or educating young people.
Amazingly, even after four years, the participants don’t know that at the end of the day, they will each receive $20,000 to support their work however their Board chair directs. We will have the recipients from prior years - all of whom seem to be good a keeping a “secret” - there to celebrate with their colleagues. Even in this day of $1 million gifts and of federal budgets in the billions and trillions, an unexpected gift like this will make a great difference for nonprofits working to help people through this trying economic time. Stayed tuned and we’ll share their stories of what their grant allowed them to do.
Now, I’m trusting you to keep the secret, but here are the organizations that will share in the $400,000 of grants we are making today and a statement of their mission. I hope you join me in congratulating them and support them or similar organizations in your community.
Arthritis Foundation, Georgia Chapter: To improve lives through leadership in the prevention, control and cure of arthritis and related diseases
Atlanta Legal Aid: To provide referrals and legal representation to people who otherwise cannot obtain access to the court system
Boy Scouts of American, Atlanta Area Council: To prepare young people to make ethical choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout oath and law
Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum: To collect, preserve, interpret and teach about Jewish history, in particular the Holocaust and the experiences of Jews
Camp Twin Lakes: To offer year-round recreation, therapeutic and educational programs for children facing serious illnesses and other physical, emotional and life challenges
Center for Pan Asian Community Services: To create and deliver culturally competent and comprehensive social and healthy services to counteract problems faces by immigrants, refugees, and racial-ethnic minorities
Communities in Schools Georgia: To improve student and school success by providing needed support and services to students and schools
Ferst Foundation for Childhood Literacy: To promote family involvement in achieving early school success for their children and to address adult illiteracy by motivating parents to read daily to their children
Foster Care Support Foundation: To strengthen the ability of foster families to meet the needs of their foster children by providing a community based resource and education
Girl Scouts of Northwest Georgia: To help hirls develop self-esteem, develop meaningful values for their lives and improve society through service
HeroBox: To provide custom support to our solidiers deployed overseas, by providing items they need and want while they are away from home defending our freedom
Historic Oakland Foundation: To cultivate resources to assist the City of Atlanta in the preservation, restoration and beautification of historic Oakland Cemetery and to promote it as a local cultural resource and as a historic site of national importance
Junior Achievement of Georgia: Using hands-on experiences, JA of Georgia brings the real world to over 100,000 students each year, opening their minds to their full potential by bridging the business and education communities
Komen for the Cure: To eradicate breast cancer as a life-threatening disease by advancing research, education, screening and treatments
Salvation Army: To preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and meet human needs in Jesus’ name without discrimination
Special Olympics Georgia: To provide year-round sports training and athletic competition for children and adults with intellectual disabilities
Tommy Nobis Center: To develop and provide job training and employment for youth and adults with disabilities and other barriers to employment
Travelers Aid (Hope Atlanta): Dedicated to the prevention of homelessness in our community and combating it whenever it arises
WPBA: Public Broadcasting Atlanta educates, entertains and empowers by broadcasting perspectives, creating joy, expanding knowledge and connecting people to each other and the world
YWCA of Northwest Georgia: To eliminate racism, empower women and promote peach, justice, freedom and dignity for all
Energy Savings for All
This was a big week for the idea of residential green building. Enterprise Community Partners announced the launch of their next generation of the Green Communities Program. Not only did Enterpise make a $4 billion commitment to create, preserve or retrofit 75,000 green homes and community buildings over the next 5 years, but perhaps more importantly, they issued a national call to action to make all affordable housing green by 2020. As the founding funder of Green Communities, we were proud to support the next generation of the program with a grant of $1.5 million.
Earlier in the week, Vice President Biden through the Middle Class Task Force announced the Recovery through Retrofit initiative, which aims to create green jobs and allow middle class families to avail themselves of the cost savings of energy efficiency measures. The goals outlined in the Recovery Through Retrofit Report are nothing short of extraordinary: set a standard for energy-efficiency of existing homes, establish easy financing options for homeowners and train and certify contractors to ensure they are qualified to do the work properly. This would mean that homes would have something akin to a sticker - like appliances and cars currently do - to help consumers understand how much energy they will use. If they want to get their energy costs down, there would be ways to pay for it and to make sure that the people they hire aren’t going to do substandard work, and that they really will get a better performing home. Through existing technology, by 2020 we could reduce home energy use by 40% and save $21 billion annually.
Neither of these events got a huge amount of attention, which is a shame. They were similar in several other ways, as well: each targeted audacious goals, estimated big dollar amounts, and set 2020 as the deadline.
I hope that in retrospect we will see that it wasn’t coincidence that these initiatives were announced during the same week. I hope that we’ll look back and see that this week was a turning point when we collectively realized that “green” building is neither exotic, complicated nor a luxury. In fact, I hope that we are coming around to the idea that we shouldn’t even be talking about “green” building, we should be talking about “good” building. Why would we build or rehab a building and not put in enough insulation, seal the duct work and caulk the windows to make sure the go-forward energy bills are 20-50% lower? Why shouldn’t we as consumers insist that the people we hire to work on our most valuable asset are qualified to do the work right? I hope that we’ll look back and see how stupid we all were to have been building any other way.
In fact, when you think about it like that, it doesn’t seem that this week marked any grand realizations as much as it seems that we are starting to use some common sense.
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