Sustainable Fund Raising

In my real life, I'm active in a vibrant, urban church. In fact, I'm on both the Fundraising Committee and the Board. This after a decade of doing youth and young adult ministry. One of the things I am wrestling with now is how I can do a better job of integrating my concerns about climate change and peak oil into my work at the church.

My concerns are very much influenced by my faith. I think climate change and peak oil have the potential to cause massive human suffering, and therefore I have a responsibility to do what I can to avoid that. I believe that a benevolent and powerful deity exists, but I know that throughout history God has often not prevented human made or natural catastrophes. The Black Plague and the Potato Famine come to mind. In Bible college I developed a passion for the writings of the minor prophets, and over and over again they cry out to the people for the sin of being overweight while others starve. I think we're in a situation where the people who have the money have all the options and the people who don't are going to live or die based on how we spend it.

Okay. So that's the long and short of how an evangelical Christian can get really motivated by Global Warming. What does it mean in practical terms? Well, it means that I can influence a building other than my home. Buildings are estimated to contribute 48% of the CO2 produced on a daily basis, and commercial buildings constitute 17% of that. So everything I do for my home, I should be eager to also do for my church home. That includes paying for CFL and LED lighting and leading a project to change bulbs and continuing to look like a stick in the mud when I resist replacing our swamp coolers with AC.

It means that I can be a voice for less car-dependent congregational life. Home study groups can draw neighbors together instead of asking everyone to drive into church for every event. E-mail lists can allow for planning to happen outside of meetings. Providing secure, supervised bike storage can encourage more bike riding. And planning for public transportation and ride sharing would allow more people to engage those options (and perhaps encourage the bus system to run more buses on Sunday...)

And then there's fund raising. Fund raising is an essential element of most urban churches, just as it is of most school districts. As much as we grooved on the idea of "paying it forward" for a couple of years, we've lost the sense that by investing real money in our communities we are actually paying ourselves forward. We forget we benefit when we have strong schools even when we don't have kids going to them. Our churches compete with our shopping and for many of us, what church we go to and whether we go at all is subject to whims. So the idea of setting a significant chunk of my money aside for something that other people are getting more benefit from than I am is totally foreign.

Fund raising is designed to get organizations enough to survive on by providing you some other good or service you need or want. It puts these organizations back in the mall, obviously arguing for those dollars. So, how do we do that sustainably? At my church, we look for the following opportunities:

• Events that bring people together. One thing we do is for the summer months we have a barbecue after church on the lawn. We encourage people to buy lunch from us and stick around to have conversations.
• Re-sell items. We don't have a thrift shop, and I don't think we could get one to fly, but we have two events where we ask people to donate sell-able goods and then throw an event to sell them off.
• Sell services. We have a service auction where we auction off service donations ranging from haircuts to hotel stays.
• Events that showcase talents. We have enough musical and performance talent in our church to do concerts to raise money.
• Events that turn time into money. We have a contract with the local sports arena to staff a booth during season games. It works out to about minimum wage for the folks working, but the church gets the money and the stadium gets a booth full of folks who normally get paid more than minimum wage.
• Sell value-added items. A few years ago we gave up on the chocolate and wrapping paper sales. On the food side of things, there are many people in our congregation living with diabetes and heart disease. We knew the pool of people who could buy candy in good conscience was much smaller than the pool of people who wanted to give money. We also ran the numbers and hated the margins we were looking at. A $1 candy bar might net fifty cents for the church, but the time and the guilt associated really eroded that. We found a nursery that would sell us plants at wholesale, so we pot them up and get them ready and have a plant sale. We've also designed an attractive necklace we can make from items we buy direct from the cottage industries that make them and sell them, making 90% profit, as long as the labor is donated.

This is our stab at fund raising that supports our community in a holistic way.

Personally, I am urging us to look at some of the following as well:

• Waste-free events. We don't have a dishwasher or a working kitchen, so this is a little tough right now. But I think it's a good goal to work for.
• Using our property for power generation. Our buildings are mostly empty during work hours, which would allow us to upload solar and/or wind-generated electricity to the grid during peak use and download it during off hours.
• Selling home improvement items. I'd love to see us sell compact fluorescents as a fund raiser. I can't find a way to get our cost below what Home Depot sells them for when the local utility is doing their specials though.
• E-waste collection. One stream is to collect usable items and sell them to a re-seller. This is recent mobile phones and items like that. The other stream is things like CRTs. I think this would take an 'angel' to establish a bounty program. For every CRT donated, the organization gets a couple bucks and the recycling fee is covered.
• Low carbon fast. I think it would be interesting to get a Sunday School class or whole church to fast beef or most meat for a month and to make a donation to the church for every pound of meat avoided. Perhaps during Lent... Could also work for household improvements. Avoid using lights after 9 pm for a month and give .25 cents to the church for every kilowatt hour saved.
• Swap-o-Rama-Rama. An event where people come and re-make used items for their own use. Extra items could possibly be sold as a fund raiser.
• Honey-Do list. Keep a list of personal errands at the church. People who put something on the list add what kind of help they want and how much they're willing to donate for it. People who do the work go and see what's needed. Helps turn talent and time into cash.

WooHoo!

This morning I had an appointment and I'd planned all week to drive in to work to make the time fit. But when I got up this morning, I was actually brainstorming about how to walk/ride my bike/take the bus and make the time work. I ended up driving anyway, but it felt really weird. If it is the consuming that is feeling weird and the conserving that is comforting and normal, I must be making change.

One anxiety I've had is what the folks I work with would think of me. But two weeks ago, in sending an invitation to the office to participate in Bike to Work day, one of my co-workers said that she hasn't driven to work since March. And last week, two of the managers in my suite biked in on at least one day. This week I've had good exchanges with the coworker who's on Weight Watchers and trying to walk more, an engineer who bikes in regularly, and the afore-mentioned message-sender. So I'm experiencing some very real belonging, if not actual support. This is nice. In my home life, I've talked with four close friends and in spite of sharing a concern about the state of the world and shopping at natural food stores and taking other conservation measures, none of them are ready to re-think the assumptions they make about driving.

I get frustrated, but I think "ready" is the operative word. Four months ago I was happy that I'd cut my commute in half by moving. One month ago, I started to realize that I'd bought the car I'm driving to try to cover 100% of my driving, instead of shopping for the far more practical and economical 90% of my driving. And then it wasn't until Low Impact Week that I was ready to see my life schedule as flexible enough to encompass an hour of walking and 40 minutes of reading every day (that's the bus commute).

And that adds up to a kind of coming-out process. Being willing to be identified as others as something different from an assumed "normal." For most office jobs in the US it is "normal" to drive an SUV a half hour to work each day, eat processed food, work out in a gym, and then go shopping for more stuff to put in the 2000 sq ft home you share with one other person. But "normal" isn't healthy, or responsible, or even practical. It wasn't normal for our parents, it's just what it seems like every one else is doing. Or rather... what the people we notice are doing. And who are the people we notice? The ones we choose to look for. Bit of a catch-22 there. Look for people who are doing what you want to do and you'll find 'em, whether that behavior is actually healthy and happiness-making or not.

Low Impact Week

In the manner of time in my life, Low Impact Week snuck up on me. I guess that's appropriate in a way, it keeps me from making this week easier by doing extra work last week to prepare for it.

I have been meaning to ride the bus to work from my local park-n-ride, I have the coupons and everything. And for the last week my cat has been waking me up about 5. So this morning I grabbed the opportunity and headed out of the house with a full lunch bag and no delays to check the schedule. My bus left about 5 minutes after I got to the plaza, I had a lovely 20 minute ride through farms and great vistas (and I got to enjoy them since I wasn't driving), and then a 30 min. walk. All kinds of things I've been wanting more of in my life.

I even got to chat with a friend who was on her way to work.

I went to a commuter college for my bachelors and spent those years riding the bus and walking a lot. There's a part of me that knows *most* of the time, the weather's going to be fine. The walking part isn't too far. If I need more food than I have, I can find it. But in spite of all kinds of really positive, self-sufficient experiences with bus-aided mobility, when I get away from it for a while, shadows creep in. I think, "I can't take the bus today... it might rain/snow/be too hot." And yet I've taken the bus in those conditions, and learned that the really uncomfortable times are out at the margins.

There is a pocket of my poverty consciousness that gets triggered when I ride the bus. I did it because I was broke so much of the time, and now when I get on, I often feel broke in spite of the richness in my life.

I also feel a kind of defensiveness. I feel like people I know would only take the bus if they didn't have gas money, a friend to ride with, or if their cars were in the shop. So the joy in chatting with my friend today was that none of those questions came up. It seemed completely normal that I was walking to work. I would like more of those experiences.

And then there's the quote that was in my inbox when I fired up my computer:

Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.

-- Richard Branson (Virgin Founder)

I love that Richard Branson, who in many ways represents a "cool" I find appealing, knows about buses, and knows about them with a familiarity that gives him a point of grounding when it comes to the business game. It certainly challenges my poverty trigger.

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is sponsoring their 2nd Annual Dump the Pump day on June 21. It's an invitation to pick a day to go without using gas (or diesel); but also a day to try public transportation. Look for events near you.

The Power of One

No Impact Man's post Wednesday got me to thinking about the power of one person to change the world. Mahatma Gandi and Martin Luther King Jr. are evidence that it can be done, Theodore Kaczynski is a reminder that -- paradoxically -- one can't do it alone. The Lord of the Rings is a modern epic about the tension of everything important resting on the shoulders of individuals and the power of community and belonging to support and balance that load. Turning the tide against Sauron, against fascism, against global warming, took and takes both.

Our power is leveraged by the number of people we are connected to. Stephen Covey calls the things we can change directly our "sphere of control" and the things we can affect through people we know our "sphere of influence". As Rebecca Manley Pippert writes in Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World, we need a diversity of relationships and people in our lives -- people we are connected deeply enough to that we can talk passionately and intimately about different perspectives on the world -- to really have the give and take that changes minds.

My sphere of control includes the power to burn less fossil fuel, consume less, and demand food that is grown sustainably instead of in a monoculture. I have the power to eat locally and in season. That's a blip in the global picture. One point of light, in the language of the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

But then I also have the power to talk to 10 good friends about the choices I'm making, present a workshop on shrinking your carbon footprint to 100 people, and report on my experience with different attempts to 1000 people.

In addition, if I am willing to let others be critical of me, I have two other opportunities:

• At home, I expect to have to talk to my HOA at times. (I have not determined whether they can actually keep me from installing solar, but I expect to do a presentation either way.) and I expect that as solar goes up, as I argue for less grass and more community spaces in our complex, I'll get to meet some strangers who are truly curious and who might be sparked to action. I don't expect to change the world through rock music, but I think I can take one tiny subdivision and start them thinking about being a pre-existing green community as new-built green communities start going up around us.
• At the church I'm involved in about how we can reduce our carbon footprint and spark some more changes. I think I can find some folks and start a re-localization effort in my town, which is in danger of thinking of itself as only a suburb, rather than as the 100+ year old town it is.

As I said after I got my last power bill, the specific, tangible effects may be slow in coming. But in ISP class this week we were talking about "passionate indifference" which means staying engaged and passionate about things without getting invested in how others respond to us.

I come from a not-very-socially-skilled background. I won't blame that entirely on my family, some of it is a gift. But I've been very aware of the process it's taken me to be able to live in a house with friends. Coming to understand that there's a benefit to being engaged with others is part of that growth.

Saints

I grew up in a transitional urban neighborhood in Denver in the 70's. If you were to paint my life in broad strokes one that would have to be included was the time I spent across the street at our Mennonite neighbors' house. B., the father, was in training for ordination and his life in Denver involved what was essentially a re-localization project for the Hispanic main street and the neighborhoods surrounding it. K., the mother, ran the home front, which included taking in me and my siblings while my mom was going through job retraining and my dad was putting in long hours starting a business.

So, for a couple of years, their home was a second home for me, and it has taken up residence in my memory as a living witness to the power to opt out.

Some of the things I remember from their home are: The huge garden they planted in the back yard; the expectation that everyone contribute combined with the gentle, personal recognition for contributions; the encouragement to play, build, explore, and discover instead of sitting in front of the TV; eating fruits and vegetables with every meal; the way they created neighborhood around them by inviting people to show up; and the Dolly Parton poster in the bathroom... but that's a story for another place and time. ;-)

I don't know, but I think that their lives were pretty good examples of Mennonite principles. I know what I saw in their home was consistent with the More with Less cookbook. And I think, given that, the whole Mennonite culture of living simply and putting people before stuff is a light on the path of lower-carbon living.

Recommended Practices (so far)

I wanted to do an Earth day post of my top 10 tips... but I haven't tried 10 new things since starting this blog, let alone trying enough to talk about the "Top" 10. So I'm gonna summarize what I've done so far and whether it was worth it.

Change to CFLs - Definitely worth it. Virtually no impact in lighting in the house (my office is cooler without the halogens on and I think my cat misses curling up under the desk lamp) and changing 15 high-use bulbs saved $7 in the first month.
Driving Journal - Definitely worth it. I used a small notebook and wrote down the starting mileage and my destination for every trip I made. I now know I can have a very satisfying life on less than 8,000 miles per year.
Rechargeable Batteries - I think this is definitely worth it for anything I'm changing the batteries in more than once a month. Still up in the air for things that use less. I am considering whether, as batteries burn out, I will start swapping sets around... say one set for my remotes and my wireless game controller and another set for the calculator and adding machine in the office.
Wearing a hat to bed - Definitely worth it. Makes me comfortable enough in a cool bed to be able to warm it up before I get cold. Lets me turn the thermostat down a degree.
Choose to re-use - This is more an exercise in creativity than a specific thing to do. I'm getting more intentional about not allowing anything into my life that I'm only going to use once. I'm now brewing tea in glass jars at work and stashing them in the fridge for when I want a cold and/or caffeinated drink. And I'm using handkerchiefs.
Start a conversation - Definitely worth it. I'm very introverted, so this one is a challenge. But I'm finding that when I come up with a question that's based on my interests, people are interested in answering it from their experience. I've had really nice talks with energy efficiency experts, former farm kids, new farm managers, friends of various backgrounds, a bike renovator, gardeners, and at least a dozen other people I never would have known I had something in common with until I talked to them.

And the Oscar goes to...

I was so excited for Al Gore on Oscar night.

The next morning I started reflecting on An Inconvenient Truth again. I like to think it was a reminder of many things I already know and value... and yet... and yet I had exactly zero compact fluorescent bulbs replacing incandescents in my new house. I had to wonder if I really believed Mr. Gore... or if the message was still taking up residence in my, "gee, wouldn't it be nice if the world was different" category.

I don't know all that much about CFLs. In my first condo, I replaced a few lights with the elongated tube kind. They burned blue and they didn't fit in the same spaces my incandescents did. When I brought those lamps to the house I lived in with my ex, she nixed them. But the challenge Mr. Gore gave in his speech -- take the three bulbs you use most and replace them with CFLs -- plus the recent decision by Australia to outlaw incandescents... well, I decided it was past time to give it a try.

I bought $100 worth of bulbs at the local hardware store. This included a new fixture for the front porch, a couple of "daylight" bulbs, and a whole bunch of soft white spirals in different wattages.

The fluorescent fixture claimed it would save 75% over conventional fixtures, and at our house the front porch light can be on for 4 or more hours. It also had the bonus of being a dusk to dawn lamp -- turning on when the sun went down. Since I am usually the first one home and come home after dark, and in the dark, I started there. It turns out that 25% of the promised savings was because the light cycled on and off every 20 seconds, which the roommates vetoed. So I found another florescent fixture and changed it out again. The steady florescent light was acceptable.

I put the daylight bulbs outside the coat closet. The blue cast in the hall was another no-go for the roomies.

In the kitchen and the full bath, I mixed one incandescent and one soft white fluorescent in each fixture. These were completely inconspicuous to the roommates. Additionally I changed out 3 of the 5 bulbs in the dimmable dining room lamp. These also passed.

My conclusions from this exercise are:

• We are a soft white household.
• My roommates are fine with energy economy as long as it doesn't require major discomfort on their part.

I know the 5 bulbs we use most are among the 15 I changed, so by some measures I've done "enough". But given that Australia and the EU are banning incandescents, I'd like to go farther eventually. I haven't found a bulb that will replace the spot flood we have in the half bath... it's fully enclosed and the lights I've tried are too flat. Maybe that's a place for an LED replacement. I need to try 3-ways in three fixtures, and I need to replace a couple of torchieres.

I'm expecting to do my buying for these experiments from here. If you shop there, any bulb that doesn't say "daylight" is a soft white bulb... at least according to the customer service rep who e-mailed me.

Report Card Day

I just got my utility bill for the month of March. I had really hoped that the changes over the last month would make an amazing difference in my bill. Okay, so I still hope for magic. ;-)

Here's the bottom line:

Month	KWh	Therms
Jan	583	129
Feb	892	79
Mar	814	34

So, that's a difference of 78 KWh between our February usage and our March usage. Or 8.7%. How much of that is warmer weather and longer days and how much of that is conservation? I don't have real good stats on that. But since most of my conservation has been changing to CFLs, and I've recorded my changes at One Billion Bulbs, I'm gonna use their numbers.

According to my account, I've changed 15 bulbs. They're showing estimated savings of $7.55. They're also currently using a figure of 9 cents per kilowatt hour for Colorado, which means they estimate my changes have resulted in nearly 84 fewer kilowatt hours being used. They don't have a filter that allows me to see savings during a date range, so this does include a few days of February usage.

Hmm. So, it looks like, based on very rough estimates, my 8.7% savings, or 78 KWh, can pretty much all be attributed to changing CFLs over the last month or so (84 KWh). That's pretty reassuring.

But numbers over 800 KWhs feel high to me. I got a quote on a solar PV system and the estimator said, "I'd be really surprised if you were using over 400 KWhs regularly." And yet my 3 bdrm house appears to be using nearly twice that regularly.

What I don't know is whether the estimator was commenting on one person living here or a couple or more than that.

Month	# of people	KWh/person	Therms/person
Jan	2	291	64
Feb	3	297	26
Mar	3.2	254	10.6

It is rather comforting to look at it this way. It makes it easy to see that it is worthwhile to share expenses with others, even if the bottom line numbers go up because actually the per person use is going down.

My solar estimate was $15,000 to supply 400 KWh of electricity per month off my own roof. The economics of that are pretty interesting... the system pays for itself in about 20 years assuming that KWh prices stay in the 10 cents an hour range. It pays for itself more rapidly if electricity costs go up... which is likely considering retrofitting power plants to sequester carbon and increasing demand for coal and natural gas worldwide. I am disappointed that 400 KWh isn't enough to make my household self-supporting. But maybe that's an indication that there's more to save. Hmm... how many more bulbs can I change before my roommates revolt? ;-)

Changing with others

The New York Times last week ran an article on this guy. The hook for their article was "The Year Without Toilet Paper", which did what good headlines do... got a lot of people worked up and interested. The toilet paper issue aside, I think the article's main point is what it looks like when a couple of New Yorkers try to hang on to what's essential about their lives and put the rest up for re-evaluation.

One of the things that's obviously essential to this couple is their relationship. But in the article, and more so in the blog, we hear the voice of one part of that couple. I wonder how you create such radical change without everyone having exactly the same values.

I've been wondering about this in my own home. There are three adults living here and I am dating. We all come to this place on the planet for different reasons, but there's something in each of us that makes this place a good place to be. Saturday morning we decided to go out for breakfast, and spontaneously decided we should take the recycling too. We got into a conversation about why we recycle. I'm motivated by global warming and reducing the impact of humans on the other species of the planet. Roommate #1 is motivated by a sense of duty. This is just what you do. Roommate #2 is new to recycling, but she knows it's important to us, so she participates as well. So we have different values that lead to the same end result. We all sort and look for times to take the recycling over to the recycling yard.

I have been changing the incandescents for CFLs unilaterally. This is not a value we all share, so in fixtures that take multiple bulbs, I've only changed half the bulbs for CFLs. This means there are still 8 high-use bulbs that could be changed out... and I could go there, but it is a higher value to me to have the house full of people than to use the minimum amount of electricity.

Similarly, Roommate #1 uses an electric blanket and Roommate #2 uses a space heater. Are these the most efficient ways to heat the areas that are most essential for comfort? Perhaps so. But I guess that's another of the areas where I'm not going to make decisions for others.

I'm also seriously researching my garden options, and both roommates have been very upfront in saying that I can't rely on them to help. That's good to know.

So the thing that intrigues me most about No Impact Man is this: how do they communicate about these things? What values do they each bring to the project?