Start your own Neighborhood

Like our idea? Want to start an organization in your neighborhood, church, school, club, or group? If you are committed and know some people who would like to save some money let’s get started.

Your Green Organization will be part of Greening Neighborhoods and will have access to Greening Neighborhoods’ material, which you can use for your Green Organization.

There are a couple of ways to start a Green Organization. You can get a group started informally by canvasing friends and explaining the idea. When you have four people that is enough to constitute a Green Organization group.

Or you can get the help of an existing organization like a neighborhood civic association, a church congregation, a school classroom, etc. Many Organizations have mailing lists, conduct regular meetings, have 501(c)(3) non-profit status and will set examples for the general membership by having the leadership be the first to participate, all of which will be very helpful in getting your effort started.

Follow this link to download a Greening Neighborhoods Seed Kit that will get you started including:

1. A power point presentation that you can use to present the idea to your neighborhood organization. You can modify it as you see fit.
2. An outline of the program and eight ways to save energy and money.
3. A sample Baseline Energy Tracker spread sheet that you can hand out to your organization.
4. A sample gas mileage log that you can hand out.
5. A sample of your neighborhood’s web home page with the site’s address.
6. A sign-up sheet that you can use to sign up members or Greening Neighborhoods web address where new members can sign up on line.

When you get your Green Organization program started go to hello@greeningneighborhoods.com and we will plug you into the Greening Neighborhoods’ web site where detailed information will be available on your own link.

Baseline Energy Tracker

The Energy Tracker is the key to your Green Organization.  It is important that your new members use the Baseline Energy Tracker to log in their water, heating fuel, electricity, gasoline and recycling use.  Then when resource savings are instituted they will need to log those.  In that way two things happen.  First they will be able to compare the savings from before the change is made to after the change.  Second they will be able to see what their green house gas emissions are and compare what their household uses to the average of the rest of their group.

Tips

Weekly Tips are sent out through Greening Neighborhoods.  As a leader of your own Green Organization, you will be able to custom fit the tip to your group, issue one of your own, or pass it on as it is sent to you.

More Resource Saving/Money Saving Information

There are eight Green Papers on the Greening Neighborhoods’ web site under the “Saving Money” tab that will provide more ways to save money by saving resources.

There is an archive of blogs and tips on the Greening Neighborhoods Home Page.  These are categorized and indexed for easy retrieval.

Start Your Own Green Organization

You will need to develop a volunteer committee to help you with your Green Organization program. You should meet on a regular basis to discuss issues such as getting more members, having neighborhood wide energy conservation programs, getting local green merchants to promote their services, products or merchandise through discounts to participating members.

You can download a power point presentation that highlights what a Green Neighborhood will be like.   Click here to view the presentation.

You will be able to get additional support from hello@greeningneighborhoods.com and the Greening Neighborhoods’ web site.

Thanks and good luck,

George.