When shopping for a new home, homebuyers look to real estate agents for advice on everything from the best school districts to the name of a good local plumber. Because new owners make many home improvements after purchase, real estate agents have the opportunity to continue as trusted messengers after the closing date. Nonprofit organization Build It Green (BIG) saw an opening: if real estate professionals understand the importance and benefits of energy efficiency, then they can advise clients on how to incorporate efficiency into their home improvements.

This presentation discusses Build It Green's new model for contractor engagement that provides more support to higher performing contractors and strategies the organization is using to address issues with contractor data reporting and tracking.

A list of tips from Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge for working with utilities to access energy usage data.

Descriptions of eight county-level and city-level energy efficiency programs in the Southwest.

This presentation describes Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge program and lessons learned on community engagement as a driver of demand.

Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge's perspective on their partnership with Northeast Utilities.

Presentation that focuses on grantee program-utility partnership models.

Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge uses dashboards that display key project data for administrators and contractors to monitor progress over time. The program has evaluated performance at different steps in the process and identified strategies to improve performance where needed, such as sales training for contractors, energy advisors, monthly contractor scorecards, and multiple customer "touches." These improvements increased the close rate from 26 to 60 percent in one year.

An introduction to Austin Energy's workforce development program, which helps engage contractors in efforts to make homes more energy efficient.

This policy brief describes how Austin Energy's Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program worked with its lending partner, Velocity Credit, to originate almost 1,800 loans, totaling approximately $12.5 million.

This presentation shares how the Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge collected and evaluated data and used the results to improve its program.

This case study describes Austin Energy's short-term, comprehensive rebate/financing offer to jump-start participation and valuable lessons learned along the way.

This case study discusses strategies that Austin Energy, a municipally owned utility, used to collaborate closely with building contractors to launch a new Best Offer Ever promotion quickly and effectively.

This presentation outlines the steps Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge program took to obtain and sort useful feedback from surveys and volunteer observations.