This toolkit describes how to strengthen residential energy efficiency program outreach and marketing efforts through data-driven, tailored efforts to change behaviors. One of the greatest challenges facing the residential energy efficiency market is motivating people to take steps to save energy. This toolkit provides guidance, resources, and examples for applying community-based social marketing (CBSM) to increase the number of homes that are energy efficient.

This flyer provides information about the program's upgrade process, financing, benefits of the program and of home energy upgrades, and eligibility requirements.

This presentation provides an overview of the Energy Savers program for affordable rental housing, its loan structure, and lessons learned.

This presentation includes examples of 16 programs' creative marketing materials.  The Better Buildings Residential Network held a March Madness tournament to find the most creative residential energy efficiency messages during March Peer Exchange Calls. Sixteen marketing campaigns were featured in a bracket challenge on the calls, and participants made their picks. Residential Network member the Fuel Fund of Maryland was chosen as the winning message for its Watt Watchers campaign.

This case study features Better Buildings Residential Network members Elevate Energy and the International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology (ICAST), nonprofit members that develop energy efficiency solutions for multifamily and affordable housing communities.

This report is a guide to all customer-facing financing products—products offered by a lender directly to a borrower—used to pay for energy efficiency. Intended for state and local governments that are deciding whether to start a new program, tune up and existing program, or create a Green Bank, it provides information on the full range of financing product options for target participants, the tradeoffs of various products, and potential advantages and disadvantages for different types of customers.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on communicating non-energy benefits that homeowners and building owners are most interested in. Speakers include Elevate Energy, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, and Skumatz Economic Research Associates, Inc.

This paper examines the current state of energy efficiency financing, highlighting segments of strength such as cars, green buildings, and energy service companies, and offering areas that are underserved, including residential low-income and moderate-income households and multifamily housing

This paper examines the current state of energy efficiency financing, highlighting segments of strength such as cars, green buildings, and energy service companies, and offering areas that are underserved, including residential low-income and moderate-income households and multifamily housing.

This paper analyzes Bank of America's $55 million initiative to provide low-cost funding and grant support to advance energy efficiency investment in low- to moderate-income communities. The funding supported community development financial institutions (CDFIs) in developing and enhancing efficiency programs for residential, commercial, and multifamily buildings. We report on loan performance, energy savings, and the degree to which the savings offset the cost of the energy efficiency investment.

Lists a number of resources related to Michigan Saves, including contractor application, home energy loan implementation guide, and training presentations for residential contractors.

The multifamily sector can be hard to reach when it comes to energy efficiency programs. Besides being diverse and complex, the sector presents a unique set of challenges to efficiency investments. The result is that multifamily customers are often underserved by energy efficiency programs. Drawing on data requests and interviews with program administrators, this report summarizes the challenges to program participation and identifies best practices that programs can use to reach and retain large numbers of multifamily participants.

This Guide is designed to help state and local policymakers to take full advantage of new policy developments by providing them with a comprehensive set of tools to support launching or accelerating residential energy efficiency programs. The Guide focuses on four categories of policies that have proven particularly effective in providing a framework within which residential energy efficiency programs can thrive: incentives and financing, making the value of energy efficiency visible in the real estate market, data access and standardization, and supporting utility system procurement of energy efficiency.

The Better Buildings Residential Network Social Media toolkit can be used to help residential energy efficiency programs learn to engage potential customers through social media. Social media can build brand awareness concerning home energy upgrades and the entities working on them, which can lead to more energy upgrade projects taking place in the long run. This toolkit will help program managers and their staff with decisions like what social media works best for various program needs. When aligned with other marketing and outreach efforts, social media can be a useful tool in attracting home energy upgrade customers. Note that social media changes constantly, so users of this toolkit need to regularly reassess their methods and review results to ensure goals are being met.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to market energy efficiency upgrades in the multifamily housing sector.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how pet-based marketing can promote residential energy efficiency.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to use web and mobile applications to generate and increase customer demand.

Among the many benefits ascribed to energy efficiency is the fact that it can help create jobs. Although this is often used to motivate investments in efficiency programs, verifying job creation benefits is more complicated than it might seem at first. This paper identifies some of the issues that contribute to a lack of consistency in attempts to verify efficiency-related job creation. It then proposes an analytically rigorous and tractable framework for program evaluators to use in future assessments.

This report provides an overview of credit enhancements available, such as loan loss reserves, loan guarantees, debt service reserve funds, and subordinated capital. It also discusses key issues related to credit enhancement, examples of how others have successfully implemented credit enhancements as part of their energy efficiency financing programs, and additional information on existing resources that provide further information on credit enhancement design and implementation.

This marketing plan describes a social mobilization approach that leverages social networking, including social media, and word-of-mouth marketing to raise awareness and drive customers to program services. It provides strategies and tactics to target audiences most likely to participate, building on market research and audience segmentation to develop a message platform specifically designed to address their key motivating factors and barriers.

Table summarizing financing options for Colorado residents in EnergySmart Colorado territory.

This presentation describes the financial data Michigan Saves tracks and how the program uses the data to inform program implementation.

Overview of Michigan Saves' employer outreach initiative to drive uptake of home energy upgrades.

Overview of lessons learned from EnergySmart Colorado's energy advisor model.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on shared funding arrangements with contractors.

This loan loss reserve fund agreement sets the terms and conditions of the loan loss reserve fund between Michigan Saves and partnering lenders.

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

This progress report provides community members and others interested in EnergySmart with a clear snapshot of its progress. The report also provides a timeline of energy efficiency policies and programs in Boulder County.

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

An example of a detailed and thorough implementation guide written for the Michigan Saves program.

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.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges and strategies for marketing commercial financial products and attracting financial institutions.

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

This market assessment for the Boulder County EnergySmart and City and County of Denver energy efficiency loan program identifies the potential loan customers and demand for an energy efficiency upgrade financing program.

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

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 webcast provides guidance about the financial stakeholder engagement process and offers lessons from the field.

This webcast discussed financial program management.

Clean Energy Works Oregon's (now Enhabit's) experience implementing an on-bill financing program.

This publication outlines capital leveraging models and examples from across the country in which public funds were used to influence energy loan program capital.

Example of a program design flowchart showing key steps and relationships for the energy efficiency program in Eagle County, Colorado.

Presentation providing an overview of financing programs, a strategy for continuous improvement, tools for program management, a risk management strategy, and common risks associated with financing programs.

Example of an implementation plan developed by EnergySmart Colorado at the beginning of the implementation of its Better Buildings Neighborhood Program.

This presentation provides a list of resources and tips for running a social media campaign.

This webcast discussed the broad spectrum of needs financing mechanisms must address within integrated energy efficiency programs.

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.

A sample request for proposals from Boulder County, Colorado, to develop an energy efficiency and renewable energy rebate program.

This is a sample request for proposals (RFP) from Eagle County, Colorado, for marketing services.

Webcast with information on financing structure design for four energy efficiency upgrade programs, including methods used to conduct market evaluations.

Sample RFP from Michigan Saves for a third-party to conduct an evaluability assessment and process evaluation for the program during the first phase of implementation.