03/20/2023

TIME

FEATURED: In Puerto Rico, a Small Town Takes Climate Action Into Its Own Hands

After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, some residents of the town in the island’s mountainous central region were left without power for 11 months before Puerto Rico’s utility brought service back online. Now, thanks to the new project, 14 local businesses will be able to produce their own electricity and run for about 10 days using batteries connected to solar power installed on their roofs, even if connections to the main grid fail again.

10/18/23

FREE SOLAR? ALEX HONNOLD’S OTHER MISSION

The foundation now attracts over 2,500 applications for project partnerships from more than 150 countries – representing a $150mn investment – against a current $2mn purse. Honnold is determined that its impact continues to scale: “I want to feel like we’re on the right side of history, that we’ve done more good than harm.

09/21/2023

SOLAR-POWERED SURVEILLANCE TECH HELPS INDIGENOUS GROUPS PROTECT THE AMAZON

Every few days, Nixon Andy grabs his spear, packs up his drone and walks deep into the Amazon rainforest on a two-day expedition to search for illegal loggers, miners and hunters.

09/23/2023

TRUST BASED PHILANTHROPY IS KEY TO A JUST TRANSITION

After finishing college, Janell was looking for a way to use her business administration degree to do something beneficial for her Diné (Navajo) community. She stuck with what she knew and worked in the fast food, hospitality and educational services industries in a border town of the Navajo Nation. But she couldn’t shake the feeling of wanting to do more. In 2021, she saw a social media post from an organization with a name that attracted her attention. 

WONKETTE

06/01/2023

Hey, Puerto Rico, Way To Go With All The Solar!

If you want a sense of what the energy transition looks like, take a look at the mountain town of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, which earlier this year completed "the archipelago’s first cooperatively managed solar microgrid," as Grist puts it. The "cooperatively managed" part is especially important while the project was supported financially by a nonprofit, the Honnold Foundation.

POLITICO

05/17/2023

The rock climber funding solar systems in Madagascar

Alex Honnold wants to scale more than just massive cliffs.

Honnold Foundation, the charity the Las Vegas-based professional rock climber founded in 2012, gives nonprofits small, unrestricted grants to fund solar installations — mostly in developing countries, but also in West Virginia, New Orleans and Brooklyn.

REUTERS

04/20/2023

In Puerto Rico, solar power microgrids boost hurricane resilience

When Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico and decimated the Caribbean island’s power grid five years ago, the lights stayed on in one building in the mountain town of Adjuntas. The Casa Pueblo environmental group had equipped its Adjuntas headquarters with solar panels and storage batteries - a model of green self-sufficiency that inspired the organization to launch a pioneering community-run microgrid in the town.

Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA)

04/04/2023

ENERGIZE YOUR IMPACT: How Foundations Can Accelerate Solar

for LMI-Serving Community Institutions

This report was produced as part of the Scaling Up Solar for Under-Resourced Communities Project. This project, led by the Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA), seeks to accelerate the development of solar projects for three distinct subsets of the low- and moderate-income (LMI) solar market: single-family homes, manufactured homes, and community institutions, including multifamily affordable housing.

ADVENTURE

04/03/2023

Alex Honnold is optimistic about our collective future (and he has his reasons)

I know this optimism might sound misplaced, but would you rather live now or in the 1940s? Now or in the 1920s? The 1800s? 1600s? By almost every measure, life is better and safer, and more comfortable now, for more people globally, than it ever has been. The issue is that all this progress is happening at the expense of our environment. That’s what we need to fix right now. We need to address that balance.

WBEZ.ORG

02/14/2023

Southside Blooms teaches young people to grow flowers, create arrangements

Southside Blooms is giving adolescents and young adults opportunities to learn how to grow flowers and sell them too.

Reset learns more about the program in Englewood.

FAST COMPANY

01/09/2023

Why venture capitalists should invest in nonprofits the same way we support tech startups

Many executives will tell you that they “have a corporate social responsibility strategy” or that they personally “donate to charity” based on the proceeds they get from an acquisition, initial public offering, or other liquidity event. Whatever their motivations are, their charity of choice will benefit from that money, which is a huge win. What’s often harder to give, and just as valuable, is time.