Develop processes, strategies, and procedures to continuously improve your organization’s operations and position in the market.
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Develop workforce and contractor engagement procedures, forms, and materials
Develop processes to evaluate your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and market position on a regular basis.
Identify and develop needed resources to position your organization in the market and maintain a viable business model.
Determine processes for collecting and sharing data about key contractor metrics and workforce development activities.
Establish relationships with organizations that can help deliver your program by enhancing your knowledge, resources, capabilities and access to customers and contractors.
Establish program goals and objectives to clarify what you want your program to achieve and to guide program design and implementation over time.
Create your organization’s business plan, which describes how your operational and financial structure will support the delivery of energy efficiency services.
Define your business model, including market position, products and services, type of customers, financial model, governance structure, and the assets and infrastructure your organization needs.
Identify and engage organizational partners in your business model design.
Implement marketing and outreach activities in coordination with other program components to generate demand for your program's services.
Create your program's branding guidelines and materials to elevate program visibility and support your marketing and outreach efforts.
Determine if enhancements to existing financing products or the development of new products are necessary to allow you to achieve your goals and objectives.
Develop a marketing and outreach plan that details your strategies and tactics, workflows and timelines, staff roles and responsibilities, and budget.
Decide on priority target audience segments, messages, and incentives that will motivate customers.
Identify and partner with financial institutions that can provide capital, underwriting, and other functions to enable your customers to access financing.
Establish relationships with organizations that will assist with program marketing and outreach.
Survey existing and potential demand for energy efficiency products and services based on an understanding of policies, housing and energy characteristics, demographics, related initiatives and other market actors.
Design a residential energy efficiency program that integrates marketing and outreach, contractor coordination, incentives, financing, and program evaluation to provide customers with the products and services they want through a customer-centric process.
Identify your organization's preferred market position by assessing existing market actors, gaps, competitors, and potential partners. Develop a business model that will allow you to deliver energy efficiency services.
Spur consumer demand for your program's services by understanding your target audience and motivating them to act using effective messaging, marketing and outreach tactics, and attractive program offers.
Develop contractor engagement, quality assurance, and workforce development plans that include strategies, workflow, timelines, and staff and partner roles and responsibilities.
Develop the necessary materials, tools, and staff capacity to effectively deliver and manage your program.
Identify the right questions to ask, appropriate metrics to collect, and the processes needed to initiate third-party impact and process evaluations.
Solidify your program strategy and decide which customers you will focus on; what products, services, and support you will provide; and how you will partner with contractors and others to deliver services to your customers.
Support and partner with the workforce who will deliver your program’s energy efficiency services by understanding their capacity, recruiting contractor partners, enabling technical training and business development support, fostering clear communication, and refining program processes over time, in partnership with your workforce.
Your program will rely on its contractor base in order to succeed, so take steps to ensure that the capacity of the workforce is sufficient to launch your program and to maintain it as it grows. An evaluation of over 140 programs found that successful programs fostered and maintained relationships...
Establishing strong, collaborative partnerships with one or more lending partners is critical for successful delivery of affordable home energy lending. These partnerships are typically created through a request for proposal (RFP) process which can encourage market competition and help to attract...
Early on, many Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners focused on providing customers with a range of contractors to choose from, while providing contractors with access to customers. Customer feedback received by some programs, however, indicated that customers were confused or overwhelmed...
Many programs used the information they gathered through their quality assurance efforts to recognize contractors that deliver consistent, high-quality work. Rewarding good contractor performance can help you build trust, strengthen partnerships, and boost workforce morale. You can incentivize...
Contractors are more likely to serve as program champions when the program engages with them throughout program design, delivery, and improvement. Your contractors are the primary contact points with your customers, and the quality of their interactions and services strongly influences how customers...
Given all of the other things that compete for your audience’s attention, it is critical that program participation steps are straightforward and easy to understand. Many programs have found that complexity makes it harder for interested homeowners to complete upgrade projects. These programs have...
Financing can be a complicated topic for programs, and having staff with financing knowledge and expertise can be very valuable. Financing program administration involves working with lenders and understanding how they operate as well as understanding financial regulatory issues and loan product...
Programs that conducted one-on-one outreach found that community events provided good opportunities for the program and its partners to connect and build credibility with potential customers. Particularly successful events were ones that attracted the program’s target audience and aligned with their...
Publication Date
Organizations or Programs
CoMo Energy Challenge
This presentation covers how the City of Columbia, Missouri, is going deeper with their data to shape how all members of their community use energy. It also shows CoMO Energy Challenge's custom data mapping tool.
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This webcast reviews the SEE Action report that describes how utility planning processes that allow demand-side resources to compete with supply-side resources can promote cost-effective energy efficiency.
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A template competitive procurement procedure to award loan loss reserve funds to a financial institution partner.
Publication Date
Organizations or Programs
Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA)
This report analyzes the energy efficiency opportunity presented to the greater Cincinnati region. Analysis of the region and the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA) programs shows potential energy cost savings, including positive cash flow from energy cost savings that consistently exceed loan payments, for both residential and nonprofit participants. Investment in energy efficiency could make counties more competitive, create jobs, reduce pollution, and help homeowners and nonprofits make cross-cutting building improvements.
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This report describes how utility planning processes that allow demand-side resources to compete with supply-side resources can promote cost-effective energy efficiency.
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Organizations or Programs
Atlanta SHINE,
DecaturWISE,
CharlestonWISE,
Enhabit,
Energy Upgrade California,
Help My House,
FirstEnergy,
Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP),
NOLA WISE
This paper first details industry best practices for contest administration, including tips for developing an overall contest plan and timeline, product sponsor recruitment, building a dynamic informational website, maximizing customer participation, selecting the winning home, seamless installation management, capturing and documenting project results, conducting a high profile media open house and facilitating customer workshops that educate homeowners and strengthen trade ally relationships. This paper then presents results and key lessons learned from more than 20 contests supported with funds from local community sustainability programs, utility energy efficiency programs, and U.S. Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds between 2008 and 2012.
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Organizations or Programs
National Association of State Energy Officials
The Multi-State Residential Retrofit Project is a residential energy-efficiency pilot program, funded by a competitive U.S. State Energy Program (SEP) award through the U.S. Department of Energy. The Multi-State Project operates in four states: Alabama, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington. During the course of this three-year process evaluation, Cadmus worked closely with NASEO and the four states to collect information about the programs from many perspectives, including: State Energy Office staff, program implementers, homeowners, auditors/contractors, real estate professionals, appraisers, lenders, and utility staff. This report discusses: the project’s context; its goals; the evaluation approach and methods; cross-cutting evaluation results; and results specific to each of the four states.
Publication Date
A sample competitive procurement procedure to award loan loss reserve funds to a financial institution partner.