This U.S. Department of Energy Focus Series  highlights the BetterBuildings for Michigan program’s community readiness assessment tool.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the advantages and challenges of data tracking systems.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on evaluating and demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of energy upgrades to programs.

Example credit application from Fayette County Better Buildings.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how programs use behavior change strategies to reduce energy use.

These outreach materials from BetterBuildings for Michigan include a photograph and quote from credible members of the Grand Valley State University (GSVU) community that served as early adopters for the program.

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.

This Focus Series interview discusses the semester-long, employer-assisted partnership between BetterBuildings for Michigan and Grand Valley State University (GVSU). This successful partnership involved an early adopter outreach campaign and served as a model for other program partnerships.

The objective of this document is to help state and local governments understand the role of program administrators (PAs) and assist them in developing successful partnerships with utility and other energy efficiency PAs. The majority of this paper presents information on partnering and leveraging current energy efficiency activities. However, it also includes information for governments in areas without active PAs, as well as an appendix with a case study describing how state and local governments can fill gaps and administer programs in the absence of a PA.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the challenges, strategies and advantages of  operating as a prime contractor.

This report explores the approaches and research needs identified in the Building Retrofit Industry and Market (BRIM) Initiative through in-depth discussion with residential energy upgrade experts including a discussion of Marketing & Outreach and the program/contractor interface.

This publication summarizes some of the incentives offered by Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.

This case study focuses on the workforce training needs of upgrading historic homes in Charleston, SC.

This peer exchange call summary focused on sales training assistance programs for contractors.

Presentation on how Michigan Saves realigned its incentives to encourage more projects with significant energy savings potential.

Presentation on five steps to building a profitable contractor base. The steps include sensible program design and administration, certification and credentialing, communicating with contractors, contractor requirements (business vs. trade), and training and sales support.

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

This video explains how Better Buildings for Michigan's performance metrics and quality assurance enabled them to encourage high-performing contractors, to help underperforming contractors improve, and ultimately to dismiss some contractors.

Presentation describing the State of Michigan and Michigan Saves programs and tactics used to drive demand and enhance service delivery to make the program simpler for customers.

This video provides an overview of Better Buildings for Michigan's mentoring program for contractors, and the high value that contractors and the program gain from mentoring.

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

This report from Climate Solutions analyzes small- to medium-sized American cities that are using successful methods to further clean energy economic development. Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners that are featured in the report include Bainbridge Island and Bremerton, Washington; Boulder, Colorado; Bedford, New York; Madison, Wisconsin; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The report includes details on the how the featured cities funded their projects, found successful models to reach their goals, and to see which new projects are off to a promising start.

This peer exchange call summary focused on effective program evaluation and incorporating changes into programs based off evaluation insight.

This fact sheet provides promising approaches for Better Buildings programs seeking to accelerate workforce development to support building energy upgrades. These approaches are organized by estimated level of effort and include rough estimates of cost ranges for implementation.

This peer exchange call summary focused on how programs are devising plans for creating a contractor revenue stream and potential fee structures.

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

Presentation that focuses on grantee program-utility partnership models.

This case study discusses strategies that Fayette County, Pennsylvania used to provide Building Performance Institute (BPI) certification and business skills training to aspiring energy efficiency contractors.

This case study discusses BetterBuildings for Michigan's targeted outreach campaigns which applied varying incentives and outreach strategies to neighborhoods with a goal to understand which rebates and strategies work best in the target communities.

This peer exchange call summary focused on activities to streamline service delivery to customers.

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.

As part of its "intentional learning" process, Charleston WISE collects information from homeowners that helps the program systematically test assumptions and implement continuous improvement.

This report summarizes the results of five neighborhood sweeps, covering more than 2,000 households in Michigan.

This presentation includes the brands, website addresses, and images for most of the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.

These BetterBuildings for Michigan mailers show satisfied program customers claiming they have the power to make changes and bring results by increasing the efficiency of their homes.

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

Authorization form to obtain household energy information.

This template, used by Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge, standardizes volunteer data collection efforts at events.

Short survey for Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge workshop participants. The workshop allowed the program to share its energy efficiency offerings with homeowners.

This lease agreement is an example of an equipment lease from the Fayette County equipment loan program for contractors.

Experimental design is often used to increase certainty about the actual impacts of a program and what strategies are worth repeating going forward. This webcast reviewed some experimental design techniques and gave examples of how they might fit into your programs.

This case study describes an innovative program design used by BetterBuildings for Michigan to "sweep" neighborhoods in order to effectively reach its residential audience and achieve an 80% participation rate among those canvassed.

The Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge developed this form for authorization to obtain household energy information.

This branding guide was developed for BetterBuildings for Michigan staff so they can consistently use the program's look and feel, messages, and tone in marketing and outreach materials.

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.