Emily Teitsworth, Honnold Foundation - Bringing Solar to Marginalized Communities | EP 145

Emily Teitsworth: 0:38

You know, our approach is really if we truly want innovation and disruption in this space, we shouldn't be looking to the Mark Zuckerberg or the mega corporations that benefit directly from maintaining the status quo and,you know, focusing on a transition that benefits those of us that are already in pretty good shape, right? So we think we really need to look to the people and communities that stand to gain the most from an energy revolution and this just transition and that's where you'll find real risk taking innovation and disruption for the greater good. Are you speeding the energy transition?

intro: 1:12

Here at the Clean Power Hour, our hosts, Tim Montague and John Weaver bring you the best in solar batteries and clean technologies every week? I want to go deeper into decarbonisation. We do two we're here to help you understand and command the commercial,residential and utility solar,wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition.

Tim Montague: 1:37

Today on the Clean Power Hour, bringing solar to the people who need it most. My guest today is Emily tights worth She is the executive director of the Honnold Foundation. And we're going to learn about their work in the less developed world where they are bringing solar or solar and battery projects. Welcome to the show. Emily,

Emily Teitsworth: 1:56

thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Tim Montague: 1:59

I was excited to learn about Honnold foundations work I you know, I saw the movie that scared the bejesus out of me. About I forget his name.Now, the first name of Honnold is what? It's Alex Honnold.Yeah, Alex Honnold. And the name of the movie is,

Emily Teitsworth: 2:19

it's free solo. So yes, chronicles his rope list climbing and his ascent of El Capitan and Yosemite and it's true. I mean,I've seen it a couple times. And I know that things end great,but it's nerve wracking all the same the whole time, you're wondering, like, what's gonna happen next. So yeah, I had the same experience watching it.

Tim Montague: 2:39

Yeah, if you enjoy geeking out on the capabilities of humans check out free solo,it is truly an amazing feat,that Alex Honnold accomplished,climbing with no ropes. I don't recommend it, but it is a good movie. So anyway, and and he's obviously a very generous person and thoughtful about humanity and the well being of people who are less privileged than ourselves. And and, you know,the backdrop here is that, well,I like to say on this on the Clean Power Hour, you know, we have the technology to completely green the grid. And,and that's true. The question is, how accessible is that technology? So let's talk about your work. How did you come to the foundation? And and what are you guys up to when it comes to solar and storage?

Emily Teitsworth: 3:29

Yeah. So you know, I had a little bit of a non traditional journey to solar. And I guess that's true of Alex Honnold as well. So just a little background on the work that we're doing. You know, Alex started out living in his van as he was becoming a professional climber. And he founded the hull foundation about 10 years ago,as he was realising, climbing in these remote locations, and Chad and Borneo, what it looked like for frontline communities to,you know, either confront climate change with no access to electricity or relying on things like diesel generators, or, or coal and other dirty forms of energy. And so early on, you know, before free solo before he became as successful as he's become, he committed to donating a third of his income each year to philanthropic causes. And he's continued to grow over the last 10 years and his work around solar. And I think the thing that has stayed constant is really just focused on marginalised and Frontline communities and making sure that solar and the transition to renewable energy works for them,first and foremost. And ultimately, that's what drew me to the Honnold foundation. I come from a background in public health. And I often get this question because I'm not a rock climber, and I'm not a solar energy expert. And so hopefully,I'm bringing other things to the table, but really, about for me,this combination of prioritising people and the planet, and a lot of my work and background was focused on gender equity and community based development in Africa and Latin America. And I think, while that work is undeniably important, and especially when you think about development, environmental sustainability, work with girls and women is is critical. We really weren't having a conversation that brought in climate change and the impacts that I was already having and the communities where I worked.And so I think that combined for me with, you know, having kids and I think it is a little bit of a truism, right thinking that like, climate urgency is more tangible when you have a family.It's not always the case. But as I started to do that, His work and think about what life was gonna look like for my kids in40 or 50 years. That urgency really drove me to work more in the climate and energy space.And I found a such a special and unique organisation in the Honnold foundation,

Tim Montague: 5:54

I think the UN has already documenting that climate change is, is causing mass migration. And that, you know,climate change is going to disrupt food systems. That's the biggest concern, I think that I have, it's going to disrupt many aspects of life for many people.But of course, it is the, the,the poor, the low income people that are going to take it on the chin, the hardest. And, and, of course, there's already, you know, a very large population of people that have marginal access to electricity period. You and I can't imagine life without electricity, we go on vacation to live without electricity. We call that camping. But but it's,it's it is truly stunning that,you know, there's a billion people that don't have access to electricity. And, and solar and batteries are such a wonderful thing. They run on sunlight.And, you know, once they're set up, you really have this resilient system that can allow people to have access to education, the internet telephony, the possibilities are truly endless that electricity provides for low income families and people around the world. So this is extremely important.And, and it is, it is easy to forget in, you know, when we're living our normal lives in middle class America, while we do have poverty problems here in the US for sure. And and it's,it's, I guess, it is truly much rarer that people don't have access to electricity in the US.But certainly, other things like food are scarce for some humans in the US. But anyway, how do you? How do you approach this as the foundation? How do you how do you receive applications? And how do you decide on who gets these grants that you're giving to ultimately instal renewable energy systems?

Emily Teitsworth: 8:03

I live in California, and I think there's a lot of focus here,particularly on investment in big bet tech and utility scale projects. And I think, you know,our approach is really, if we truly want innovation and disruption in this space, we shouldn't be looking to the Mark Zuckerberg or the mega corporations that benefit directly from maintaining the status quo and, you know,focusing on a transition that benefits those of us that are already in pretty good shape,right? So we think we really need to look to the people and communities that stand to gain the most from an energy revolution. And this just transition. And that's where you'll find real risk taking innovation and disruption for the greater good. And so our focus is really finding communities that want to use solar energy to advance their own goals, and to really build energy resilience from within.And I think you touched on a lot of the themes that we think about whether it is reducing out migration from rural communities and providing workforce development, to food resilience and food systems. And that work for us is extending from New Orleans here in the states to Nicaragua and beyond. And how do you take these really promising and innovative ideas and help them develop proof of concept and the ability to scale so that those can be passed on to for profit and to larger nonprofit funders. And so we just wrapped up our first open call for applications for this year. And what we tend to do is once or twice a year, we put out an what we call an RFP or request for proposals and community based organisations around the world,but mostly in the western hemisphere with a focus on the US, Central America and the Amazon organisations will come to us with an idea. And we provide funding of between30,000 and 100,000 a year for up to three years for projects to launch and hopefully scale with this community based focus. So what that looks like really varies depending on the project.And next month, I'll be in Puerto Rico to wrap up our biggest ever project which is a micro grid in central Puerto Rico and it is connecting 14businesses with several solar arrays over one megawatt plus battery storage and that's really focused on ensuring continued economic viability and and development in the face of worsening hurricanes and then also using these businesses as community hubs when the power or go out on the grid. And so that is super exciting. And that's an idea that came from within the community to do this really large community project. And the work that we're supporting ranges beyond that to, you know,very small projects that might benefit a single girls school in Guatemala or Liberia, our community based organisation in Memphis. And so what we're really looking for is that, you know, kind of win win where we are advancing renewable energy and conservation, while also benefiting those who are really on the frontlines.

Tim Montague: 11:13

So you put out RFPs is that the process, you issue an RFP, and then you get applications? And it just depends on where the applications come from, as to how you end up picking a place to work in? I'm just curious,how do you how do you evaluate the proposals that you're receiving? I'm sure that the number of proposals received is much greater than the grants you're able to give. So that's a that's a hard decision to make.

Emily Teitsworth: 11:45

It is it can be a little bit heartbreaking.You know, over the last several years, we've gotten over 2000applications. And we have the funding currently to fund between 15 and 20 projects per year. So at the moment, we have this pipeline or backlog if you will have over 120 million in high potential community based solar projects. And I think the reality is there's just not that many organisations like the Honnold foundation that are funding this sort of work, we're sort of a small group of organisations. And originally,as you know, Alex got the foundation started a decade ago,he was funding, you know,through his network and, and finding work all over the world and seating that innovation no matter where it was in the world. And as we've grown over the last few years, we really wanted to take a look at where we could have the most catalytic difference as a relatively small funder in this space. And so we completed a strategic planning and business planning process last year, and part of that was really looking at where is the philanthropic funding going in the Solar World? Where is it not going? And where could we make a difference. And so, this year,we landed on a geographic focus that includes black and indigenous communities in the US and the western hemisphere with a focus on Central America and the Amazon, as well as the Caribbean. And then beyond,we're also supporting work in island nations around the world,because really small or, you know, companies and organisations in places like Vanuatu or anywhere in the Pacific are really not able to access the kind of philanthropic support that they need to take these, these ideas that they have to scale. And then interestingly, even in huge island nations like Indonesia,there is a really limited amount of both for profit and philanthropic investment available for this kind of work.And so this year, we've really focused in on these geographic areas, and there's a lot of need around the world. But I think for us, it's about building these regional hubs and networks and then connecting our partners and grantees directly to each other so that they can learn alongside each other and hopefully collaborate. One of the most exciting projects we're doing this year is actually building on a very small project. We started in 2020. And that is work in the Ecuadorian Amazon with an organisation that wanted to prototype and pilot a solar powered boat. So in the Amazon, these indigenous nations that are patrolling their territory, want to avoid building roads, because as soon as you build a road, illegal mining and logging and all these sort of, you know, unauthorised settlements come in and wreak havoc for the forest and the land. And so wanting to, you know, move away from diesel powered boats, they wanted to prototype these solar powered canoes, and they just couldn't find traditional investment to support that. And so we came in and help them create a prototype and their first fleet of boats.And since then, over the last couple of years, they've been able to access more traditional funding and scale this up both across the Amazon and actually in the Pacific as well. So I think that's really our role here is to see this innovation and help organisations at the community level take their impact to scale. You know, as you said, at the beginning of the conversation, you know, Alex is somebody who take stakes risks for a living and I think the Honnold foundation really views these kinds of projects as a risk that's worth taking. And for us, it's about not so much as viewing these things that don't work out maybe as a mistake, but as an opportunity to learn and to try some thing else. And so often we think about, you know, the risk associated with these kinds of small projects is too great. And I think especially for for profit funding, that tends to be the case, but we think in the solar space of philanthropic capital is, you know, risk tolerant capital. So we're not looking for financial ROI. We're looking for what this does for people on the planet and being able to have that lens. And that flexibility, I think, helps us be as good partners as we can be to communities on the ground.

Tim Montague: 16:12

You've used a couple expressions, and I just want to understand a partner and a grantee, are they the same thing?

Emily Teitsworth: 16:19

They tend to be? We refer to our grantees as as partners, for the most part,because I think often that term of grantee implies that the knowledge and resources are flowing in one direction or giving charity to these organisations, but really, we see ourselves as their partners,and we're facilitating the work that they that they want to do.So. Generally, grantee partners refers to the organisations that we're giving funding to, we do also partner with for profit partners like Sunrun, or RDC, or rivian, working in the solar and renewable space. So it covers a range of partnerships. But really, I think, first and foremost, we want to consider all of the organisations that we're working with our partners regardless of whether they're funding the Honnold Foundation,or we're funding them.

Tim Montague: 17:07

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Emily Teitsworth: 18:39

I mean,sometimes I think we could just like, throw darts at a wall with all of our potential projects,and like anything we hit would be great. It's honestly, like,there's so much good work that's, that's out there that is worthy of funding. So it is really, really tricky. But in terms of our, our process. So,you know, in January, we had this open call for applications.And that is a really simple sort of two page, brief application that is accessible in English and Spanish and is really intended to be easy to complete.So this year, we got about 350applications. We'll look through those with both a community focus and a technical lens. And we have a rubric that we score all of our, our applications on.So the ones that really are meeting all of our criteria and have that something special,like an extra sort of wow factor for lack of a better word like that. The solar powered boats are a good example, something that really hasn't been tried before, those tend to rise to the top and then we will invite between 30 and 50 finalists back to complete a more detailed project proposal and to have their solar installation plans reviewed by our volunteer Technical Advisory Committee. So those are solar industry experts who have done both often on grid installation in a variety of contexts. And they can really both review the technical aspects of the proposal and also for those projects that we fund serve as volunteer advisors to make sure that things run smoothly. And when the installation, you know,potentially runs into challenges. They're there to problem solve and troubleshoot.And so, from that two step process, we will come out with a slate of partners that we recommend to our board of directors and have some dialogue there around what the greatest potential is, and I think also So how are we building on our existing portfolio of grantee partners. And from there, we'll fund as I said, between 15 and25 new projects this year. The other thing that I'm excited we're doing more of starting this year is renewing funding for existing partners. So whether it is an existing partner who wants to expand their installation, or you know,try something new and a partner community or an organisation that's really focused on community solar that we can support in there, scale up as an organisation, we're starting to give out longer grants, and build these long term partnerships. So I think, you know, it is a really tricky and difficult process to winnow down from 800 or 300 applications to this small cohort. But one of the things that we also think about is, how do we connect,both our existing partners and partners were not able to fund to other sources of funding. And a lot of that is really helping tell the stories of these projects and connect them to other sources of funding. So one project that I absolutely love was in West Virginia, actually here in the States with Coalfield Development, and they are doing incredible work around workforce readiness and transitioning from coal to solar workforce training. We helped them instal solar on their headquarters and, and a workforce training centre. And from there, they were able to access a huge grant, I think,$88 million last year from the federal government to work in coalition across the state. And so, you know, we're able to help them tell that story, we created a video with one of our corporate partners and help them market the work, and then they're really able to take it to scale with other partners. So I think, for us that, you know,then frees up this whole pipeline of funding and ability to work with other smaller organisations. So we think about it, as you know, to some extent,you could see it as a drop in the bucket, right. But it is really about what that seed funding can do for these organisations and what our network and Alex's network can do in terms of connecting them to opportunities to tell their story and find other sources of funding as well.

Tim Montague: 22:58

That's great. That is certainly an amazing story. I mean, you have no shortage of amazing stories, it sounds like that is truly incredible. The work you're doing and it's it's so vital. I I just I love this.So I noticed you know when looking at your website, Honnold foundation.org H O N N O LD Fon da T IO N, Honnold foundation.org. There are, there are three ways it seemingly to engage, you can become a donor,which makes perfect sense,right? You're a foundation, so,anybody can make a donation, and then put that money to work,helping less advantaged people anywhere, that you're doing your work becoming a partner,obviously, we've talked quite a bit about that. Those are the grantee organisations that are doing these amazing projects,and then taking action. What is that other alternative? How can people take action?

Emily Teitsworth: 24:06

Yeah, these are, you know, sort of the core opportunities that you said, you know, we're always looking for referrals for potential partner projects. So I think, you know,even though we only fund once or twice a year, like, people are welcome to send us ideas and connections there. On the donation side, one of the things that I I love about Alex's approach to this work is that he funds all of our operations and salary costs. So when we bring in individual or corporate or foundation partners to fund the work, 100% of their donation is going to support the projects in the field. And so people can feel good if they're contributing $5 or $500,000,that it's all going to our partner projects, which is really exciting. And then I think there are a few other ways to get involved. And, you know,one of the ways that we've been expanding over the last few years is a volunteer programme for skilled volunteers. So I mentioned our technical advisory committee, so people who are working in solar and have technical expertise that they want to contribute working directly with our partners. That is a really great way to get involved and put your technical engineering or other solar industry skills to work. We have several sort of marketing and graphic design and communications volunteers who work with us and then with our partners to tell their stories in a in a innovative and persuasive way because I think for small nonprofits, it's really difficult to access funding to do that. kind of like marketing work for lack of a better word and get your story out there. And I think there's also a conversation that we have internally that Alex is really a champion of about taking action in your own personal space. And we have a tick list we call it is, you know, terminology borrowed from rock climbing,that's on the hall Foundation website. And it really details personal steps that we can all take in our own lives, to make a change and to support the transition to renewable energy.So that sort of personal transformational steps, whether it's like eating less meat, or thinking about where you bank and where your bank is investing, whether it's in renewables or the fossil fuel industry, and putting your money to work for for the greater good. So I would encourage people to check that list out as well. But there's lots of opportunities there. And then,when I look forward to 2023, one of the really exciting opportunities that we have is the Levine impact Lab, which we're about to launch in April.So that's a new partnership with Peter Levine, who's a longtime friend of Alex and supporter of our work, and it's really supporting organisations here in the US that are working in environmental justice and solar energy to scale up their work,strengthen their operations, and to build from seed projects to scale in terms of the work that they're doing, with a volunteer cadre of impact advisors. So we are looking for people who, you know, represent both the nonprofit and business community and want to serve as advisors on a volunteer basis for these organisations and can offer sort of organisational development and fundraising and business planning expertise to these partners. There's so much that's available to, you know,corporate, let's say like,organisations that are invested in by venture capitalists or you know, more traditional investment pathways who get a lot of leadership development and unrestricted funding that just doesn't often flow to grassroot partners. And so what we're hoping to do with the lab is really build this cadre of people who are invested in the work and have expertise to contribute and to help these organisations access the leadership development and support that is going to help them take their work to the next level.

Tim Montague: 28:09

So the impact Lab is a form of an accelerator or an incubator, or what exactly is that?

Emily Teitsworth: 28:15

Yeah, exactly.I think an incubator is a is a great way to think about it.It's really about taking at this stage existing Honnold Foundation, grantee partner organisations and providing them with three years of unrestricted funding, mentorship from Peter Levine and other volunteer business leaders and mentors,and helping them build relationships both in within the cohort and outside and the broader solar and business community to help scale their work. So one organisation that's that's in the cohort that's been a Honnold foundation partner already for a couple of years is native renewables. And they work on Native nations in the US southwest, doing both workforce development, training and solar installations. And they've had a lot of interest in wanting to scale. But it's possible to scale too fast without, you know, doing the work internally to invest in operations, and HR and fundraising and all of these things. And so we're really helping organisations like that with great internal expertise, a really incredible business model and the desire to scale up their work to, I would think about it as like going slow to go fast,really doing the internal work to enable them to be successful in the long term. So really excited to see what that can do for these community based and community led organisations over the next three years.

Tim Montague: 29:42

Well, I don't really have any other questions.This is this is great. I encourage my listeners to donate, check out your website.It's a beautiful website. Lots of great stories there. What else should we know about Honnold in your priorities?

Emily Teitsworth: 30:00

Yeah, no, I really appreciate you highlighting this work. I think people are welcome to contact me or go on our website and learn more and get involved and I think, really, for those of us in the solar industry, thinking about investing in community based organisations as a really need to have and not a nice to have, you know, things like community workforce development are going to be necessary for the for profit solar industry to scale and there's just so much innovation and excitement and ideas in these frontline organisations and communities.So I would occur in Korea. to people to learn more, and then also to check out the partner organisations in our network that are highlighted on the on the website. So if you're drawn to women's empowerment or agriculture or you know, the Amazon, there's a project there that you can get involved in and support directly. And I would encourage people to check that out and feel free to contact us.

Tim Montague: 31:03

Very good. Well,please check out all of our content at clean power hour.com Give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify so that others can find this content. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Just click that YouTube icon at clean power. hour.com.I'm Tim Montague. I want to thank Emily tights worth for coming on the show. Emily, is there some other way people can connect with you besides on the website?

Emily Teitsworth: 31:27

Yeah. Thank you so much. My email is Emily at Honnold foundation.org Super easy to remember. So feel free to reach out and look forward to being in touch.

Tim Montague: 31:36

Great. I'm Tim Montague. Let's grow solar and storage.