Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
As the head of an organization with the mission of giving money, I spend some portion of my days trying to get more money to give. Just like any business, we want to be smart about what we do and efficient in how we do it, and we want to grow so that we can do even more. You can see, then, why the Forbes list of living philanthropists who have given away $1 billion or more caught my eye. A billion dollars. Billion with a “b.” Even after TARP, that’s a lot of money.
Seeing this made me wonder what The Home Depot Foundation could accomplish with resources of that magnitude - what would we do differently? The question honestly had me stumped. Even if we multiplied the amount of the grants we are currently making 10 times over, or even 100 times, we would not be able to eradicate the needs of our communities, which span issues as broad as housing, education, health care, economic development and the environment. In fact, we wouldn’t even be enough to fix one of these problems, although it would certainly go a long way.
For us, ensuring that everyone has a place that they can call “home” is our primary focus, which we see as a basic essential. But even if we could meet everyone’s basic necessities, we still wouldn’t have created the kinds of communities we want people to live in. For communities to thrive, we need residents to feel connected - to their surroundings, to each other and to the generation following them. While grants from various foundations focus on providing the immunizations, the education, the job or the home, those things are not really the primary goal. Instead, these are just the means to the end of supporting the creation of a successful life - however an individual defines his success.
And in the end, it’s not really about the money (although more would always be better). Our work is really about supporting people and communities so that they have the resources to accomplish the goals they have set for themselves.
Posted in Philanthropy | Leave a Comment »
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
The Home Depot Foundation has implemented its focus on affordable housing, built responsibly for about six years. Given that, we have supported many nonprofit organizations that finance and build affordable housing for five years give or take and are conducting mid-decade reviews with each of our national partners. During these conversations, I was struck by the evolution many of the nonprofits have experienced as the definition of what “good” building is has changed for all construction, but particularly for affordable housing units.
When we began discussions with these groups, we asked the nonprofits to balance the goals of building homes that were efficient, while they were healthy and while they maintained their affordability. A couple of them were already thinking about “green” building, a few were interested to learn more, and several were indifferent, leaning toward cynical, about incurring extra expense during construction with only the promise of a long-term return. After sometimes a series of conversations, we funded each and everyone one of them to provide training and grant dollars to their members to make the homes they were building energy efficient, water conserving and healthy. And they each took the money saying they would advocate for the benefits of energy efficient, healthy homes.
After five years, several missteps and slow starts, essentially everyone now agrees that homes for families of modest incomes should be built to minimize utility costs and maintenance expenses and provide a healthy environment - both inside the home and in the surrounding neighborhood. We have invested tens of millions of grant dollars to help educate and train nonprofits and defray the costs, which are sometimes significant and sometimes minimal, to build green affordable homes. Our partners now wholeheartedly embrace green building.
But I have to wonder whether we did the right thing by all of these groups. We thought we knew that building to ensure the long-term affordability of a home was the right thing to do for the families, even if the nonprofit working directly with them wasn’t so sure. We thought we knew better and by offering grant dollars to do what we as a Foundation wanted, we pulled many nonprofits into an area they wouldn’t have otherwise gone. We knew some of them were talking the talk to us, but weren’t really walking the walk in terms of providing organizational support for the programs we funded. We were frustrated by their lack of enthusiasm and sluggish progress. We did this even though we tell organizations not to stray from their goals to go after grants and that we want to support what they have set as their priorities.
In hindsight, after the economic meltdown and the foreclosure crisis of the last 18 months, in practical terms we can say we were right in challenging affordable housing developers to think differently about their building. I’m still not sure we were completely right in using grant funds to entice organizations to meet the Foundation’s strategic goals rather than their own. I do, however, continue to believe that asking nonprofits - as well as our own organization - to question both what they are doing and how they are doing it is an important role that philanthropic organizations can - and should - play as we partner to meet the enormous issues facing our communities. Going forward, as we continue to build funding partnerships, we will be unapologetic about pushing them outside of their comfort zone, raising the bar and taking measured risks to advance our combined capacity and impact.
Posted in Philanthropy | Leave a Comment »
Friday, August 14th, 2009
I spent the day today in a Home Depot store with an orange apron on, helping customers, sweeping the garden department and bringing carts in from the parking lot. First, I’ve got to say, that I am dirty and tired and my feet hurt. Working retail is a tough job, and summer in Georgia makes it even tougher. For any retail company, the associates who work the sales floor every day are obviously the most important people in the company, and that is particularly true at the Home Depot where we have the best, most passionate associates bar none (sorry if I sound biased). That of, course, is the point of having a paper pusher like me spend time pushing a broom and remembering how fortunate I am to return to my air conditioned office with a comfortable chair.
Given that the Foundation’s goal is to help people understand the long-term economic benefits of using more efficient, higher performing and durable products in their homes, today was also my chance to evangelize to consumers directly. I planned to seize this opportunity to teach people that if they spend an extra buck today, they’ll save it many times over in reduced operating and maintenance costs. What a great message! What an easy sell, right?
Well, it’s not really that simple or that easy - and I completely understand why. Even with the most stereotypical example: the CFL lightbulb, the quintessential “green” product, the spiral bulb. A CFL costs about $1.20 compared to a regular incandescent bulb, which costs about half of that. (I feel the need to interject here that it is very unusual for a “green” product to cost twice what a traditional product costs. In fact, we’ve found you can “green” an entire new home for well under $5,000 of added cost. ) According to the EPA’s Energy Star program, each CFL will save a homeowner about $30 over its lifetime and pay for itself in about 6 months because it uses 75 percent less energy. On top of that, it lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb. So spending that extra $0.60 today to save $30 overall should be a really simple, straight forward decision, right?
Well, sure, except when you go to reach for the bulb off the shelf. It’s actually really hard to remember that long-term benefit when you have to pay for the lightbulb today because it’s… well, it’s long-term. Especially, when you really came into the store to get just what you need to fix the leaky faucet or replace the lock or whatever else has to be done today. If the necessities are already stretching you paycheck too far, or even if they aren’t, it’s hard to pay that incremental upfront cost now for the promise of a return in the future. So I talked to some customers today about light bulbs and air filters and windows and how getting the right product will be a real win over its life time. Not everyone listened. But I did get a couple of people to buy into green.
Posted in Healthy, Affordable Housing | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
I often speak to groups at conferences, and the topic varies, of course, depending on the interest of the group - affordable housing, green building, urban forestry, volunteerism. Lately, as I’ve prepared for these presentations the same theme always seems appropriate: If you had considered it two years ago - or 20 years ago for that matter - would you have ever dreamed we would find ourselves in a time when the issues of 1) housing and community development, 2) volunteer service and 3) sustainability would be garnering significant attention in the nation’s conversation? I can honestly say that I would not have bet one thin dime that this possibility would be our reality.
While it’s astounding that we are talking about these three issues at all, it’s even more surprising that we are seriously discussing how interconnected they are. Solutions to the enormous problems we are currently grappling with will come more easily by combining the resources that are available under each of these umbrellas. Here’s what I mean: We have a housing crisis because we weren’t buying homes that we could afford to live in over the long term. If we think beyond the initial expenses of getting into a house to consider how much it actually costs to live there (heating and cooling it, running the appliances, getting to work, keeping up the place, etc.), issues related to environmental sustainability immediately arise, such as energy and water conservation; public transportation and commute alternatives; using less and recycling more; and trees and gardening. And if volunteer service is an essential component of the plan to survive and recover from the current economic crisis, we should bring the benefits of thinking green to our projects. In fact, the President’s United We Serve initiative just announced that it’s going green.
As we see Washington putting the policy discussions into action with legislation like the Kennedy Serve America Act, the Recovery Act, with its focus on energy efficiency, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, I can’t help but hope that the results live up to the possibilities for solving the problems facing our cities and the families living in them. Each of us has the opportunity to use these new resources to do more, but if we intertwine our efforts in housing, volunteerism and the environment, we can grow the positive effects in our communities exponentially, both immediately and into the future. Let’s hope we don’t waste this moment we’ve all been waiting for.
Posted in Environmental Responsibility, Healthy, Affordable Housing, Sustainable Communities | Leave a Comment »
Friday, August 7th, 2009
The trend in vogue in corporate philanthropy the last few years has been about “aligning with the business” – and all the more so now, give the current economy. So, we don’t pat ourselves on the back too much about focusing The Home Depot Foundation’s efforts on housing, albeit with a twist to work toward housing that is affordable and healthy to live in over the long-term. The trouble with talking about housing, though, is that it doesn’t strike peoples’ emotions – it doesn’t tug at their heart strings like some other charitable areas do. A house, after all, is just a building. But if a home is a place of memories and comfort, a place that provides the stability from which a family can build a successful life, why don’t we tingle at the thought of giving others that gift?
Of course, there’s the oft-cited NIMBY issues, but today’s affordable housing, frequently in mixed-income neighborhoods, isn’t remotely like the “projects” that were built in prior decades. And let’s face it, a lot of us believe if you can’t afford a decent place to live, you’ve probably done something wrong or failed to do something right somewhere along the line. Additionally, the lack of decent housing doesn’t lend itself to a quick fix, and we’re impatient - we want immediate impact. Building at scale is difficult and expensive. These efforts take time – to acquire land, assemble financing and actually build a neighborhood of homes or apartments can take years, while economic development and community revitalization can literally take decades. At bottom, though, “affordable housing” sounds so technical, so financial, so unemotional.
Mostly, though, I think we have trouble connecting with the importance of stable, affordable housing, because we can’t really imagine what it would be like not to have the same, safe place of our own to return to day after day. We take the enjoyment of living in our own homes, as well as the economic, financial and emotional stability that comes with that, for granted. We don’t really realize what great gifts homes can offer – the gift of stability from living in the same community from which employment and educational prospects can develop; the gift of health and safety from living in a home where the air and water are clean and there are parks and places to play nearby; the gift of financial security from knowing you’ll be able to pay the rent and the power bill, not only this month, but next month too; and the gift of belonging from which dignity and pride can grow. I don’t know about you, but when you look at it like that, it’s something everyone should feel very fortunate to achieve, and it’s enough to give me goosebumps.
Posted in Healthy, Affordable Housing | Leave a Comment »
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
It’s an exciting day today as The Home Depot Foundation and Habitat for Humanity International announce the national expansion of our $30-million, 5-year partnership, Partners in Sustainable Building. You can read the press release, but through the program, we are bringing grants and resources to help Habitat affiliates build at least 5,000 homes that meet Energy Star guidelines or another nationally recognized green building standard. With the first round of annual grants, more than 120 Habitat affiliates in 45 states will build almost 1,500 sustainable homes.
This is a significant program for the Foundation, among our very largest, and several people have asked why we are launching the program now, in this economy and with this housing market. I have to admit the question caught me off guard at first, because this seems like the most logical time to launch – and the time that this kind of program is needed most.
Through this partnership, we are focused on bringing the practical benefits of green building to families of modest incomes. While this may sound like just another “green” announcement, we are actually concentrating on the practical, pocketbook benefits of good building. The fact that some of these things are good for the environment is an added bonus, but not our first concern. We are much more interested in seeing energy bills being reduced by up to 50%; water bills going down by a third; and maintenance costs remaining low because durable materials are being used in the first instance – and all of it making economic sense from day 1.
So in answer to the question “Why now?” the answer has to be “How could we not!” The current economic and housing issues we are facing just confirm our belief that if we have helped a family move into a home that they can’t afford to live in over the long term, we really haven’t helped at all.
Posted in Healthy, Affordable Housing | 3 Comments »
Monday, July 27th, 2009
The Foundation staff convened a group of experts in green building, sustainability and community development for two days last week to review applications and help select the recipients of our annual Awards of Excellence in Affordable Housing Built Responsibly. (We selected the finalists, are conducting site visits, and the winners will be announced in November at Greenbuild - sorry no previews!) This recognition program was created five years ago to answer the question “Can non-profit organizations build houses that are green while they are affordable?” We knew that the answer was “yes,” and we wanted to showcase examples of organizations not only doing it, but doing it exceptionally well. We believed this would inspire others to strive to complete similar projects.
I was struck during the discussion how the world has changed during these five years - and how much it hasn’t. In 2004, we were scrutinizing data about the type of lightbulbs and windows selected, the efficiency of the faucets and whether low-VOC paint was used, even though it was more expensive and difficult to find. Last week, we were comparing projects that have achieved platinum LEED certification (if you aren’t familiar, take that as shorthand for a very green, very efficient building), considering how accessible transportation is to the residents, and debating whether the density of the buildings had too great of an impact on the natural surroundings. This was essentially because today only CFLs are used; typical low-flow fixtures reduce water consumption by 30%; and no-VOC paint costs the same as the smelly stuff.
And while I was struck by how our discussion of the projects had evolved to take certain basic sustainable building items as givens and moved on to consider broader community issues as well, I also realized how competitive the 2004 winners would have been in the discussion to select 2009’s recipients. (See case studies of all of our awards of excellence recipients.) In fact, this was a reminder of how far ahead mission-based organizations have been when thinking about the practical, pocketbook and health issues of green homes. Early on, they saw the importance of bringing the benefits of green building to the families they helped and who are now paying less for their utilities every month, having fewer asthma attacks and enjoying the other economic and social benefits stable housing brings.
This also made me think about who was catching up with whom. While the Foundation was only thinking about the four walls of the building and from the lot line in, the nonprofit builders were certainly thinking more broadly about the community-wide issues. They were considering whether their residents would be able to travel easily to jobs, stores and services, whether they were providing assets for the community at large, such as green areas and community centers, and whether they were hiring and training people from the neighborhood. So while I think back over the organizations we have recognized, I want to add an additional note of thanks for the education they have provided us along the way.
Posted in Healthy, Affordable Housing | 3 Comments »
Monday, July 20th, 2009
I am starting a blog - much like many others today. I hope, however, that I offer something different than others. As President of The Home Depot Foundation, I am privileged that on a daily basis, I’m able to support and partner with nonprofits that have enormous impacts in our communities; to have discussions with influential leaders in government, philanthropy and business; and to influence how our cities address the numerous and interconnected social, economic and environmental issues they are facing, even as their budgets continue to dwindle. Much of these efforts focus on how to provide healthy, affordable homes for families throughout our country. And we think a great deal about the pocketbook issues facing these working families and how to ensure the long-term affordability of the homes. (Much more on that to come.)
As a Foundation, we’ve had many successes. In 1993, we started talking about efficiency, conservation and health as they relate to affordable housing. This was long before “green” was cool – in fact at the time “green building” was too crunchy, too “out there,” so we called it “responsible building.” Two years ago, we made a commitment that to address the long-term issues involving the lack of housing and communities that are affordable and healthy, we would invest $400 million over ten years to help build and rehabilitate 100 homes and to plant 3 million trees. Since we made that announcement, we’ve already seen our funds support 27,000 homes and plant and maintain 500,000 trees. We are a founding funder of Enterprise’s Green Communities and are partnering with Habitat for Humanity to help their affiliates enhance the sustainability of at least 5,000 of the homes they build. There’s lots of information about our accomplishments on our website at www.homedepotfoundation.org.
And, while the opportunities to do good and help others are huge, we aren’t always successful in our first attempts, and sometimes getting a project completed looks a lot like the passing of legislation or the proverbial making of sausage – no matter what analogy you use, it ain’t pretty. So my commitment to this virtual conversation is to share with you the things we get right (you know I have to!), but also the complicated issues we are thinking through and discussing, the disagreements we have and the stumbles we experience. My goal is that it will offer enough of a different perspective, raise issues that are relevant enough and be thought-provoking enough that it will compel you to join in the discussion.
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »
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