Current Funded Programs
As of July 15, 2011

High Meadows Fund grantmaking is focused in three areas:  reducing the use of fossil fuels in buildings and transportation; encouraging economically viable and environmentally sustainable agriculture; and promoting smart land use.  While several of our grantees fall into more than one of these focus areas, the projects we are currently funding are listed below by focus area:

Thermal Energy Efficiency

Central Vermont Community Action Council – Do It Yourself Energy Retrofit Program
Many Vermonters do not qualify for low-income weatherization services, but feel they cannot afford to pay for the contractual services of an energy audit and home improvement crew. In addition, it’s difficult to take advantage of public subsidies or rebates without purchasing contractual services or products off the shelf. This program partners with Efficiency Vermont and Vermont’s technical centers to provide skills training, auditing services, and access to rebates for homeowners who perform deep energy retrofits themselves and who achieve benchmarked targets of home energy efficiency. (www.weatherizationskillshop.com)

Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity – Modular Passive Home
High Meadows Fund is supporting a joint effort between Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity and Vermont Energy Investment Corp (VEIC) to build a modular Passive Home alongside a stick-built modular home in Charlotte, Vermont. VEIC will be monitoring the energy consumption of both houses during the first five years of occupancy. While a modular home is more expensive for Habitat for Humanity because the modular units are constructed in the factory setting, modular homes are typically less expensive in the housing market. High Meadows provided a grant towards the incremental cost of the modular home because of its potential value as a model for the affordable housing community. (www.vermonthabitat.org)

Middlebury College Solar Decathlon Team
An interdisciplinary team of Middlebury College students has been invited to compete in a national competition to design a net-zero house. Sixty students from 18 different majors are participating.  Middlebury is the only liberal arts college to be chosen as a finalist for this competition.  During the ten day judging period in the fall of 2011, the homes will be open to the public in Washington, DC.
(solardecathlon.middlebury.edu)

Sustainable Energy Resource Group and COVER, for the Upper Valley Home Energy Action Team
In collaboration with the Upper Valley Housing Coalition and COVER Home Repair, the Sustainable Energy Resource Group (SERG) has initiated the Upper Valley Home Energy Action Team (UV-HEAT) to expand home weatherization efforts in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire. High Meadows provided a challenge grant to encourage local funders to support this effort. UV-HEAT aims to cut energy use and spending by 30% or more for many Upper Valley homeowners; create a network of trained and certified UV builders to provide weatherization services; work with businesses to educate and provide service and energy-saving opportunities for their employees; recruit builders, employees, residents, and students to help in volunteer-assisted weatherization efforts; and provide a one-stop-shop for weatherization information and resources to UV residents.  (www.serg-info.org), (www.uvhc.org), (www.coverhomerepair.org) 

Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (several grants)
High Meadows is committed to promoting energy efficiency in residential and community buildings, and has made several recent grants to VEIC because of their leadership in this area. In 2009, one such grant supported initiatives to improve energy efficiency services to schools through a partnership with the Vermont Superintendents Association’s School Energy Management Program. A second, more recent grant is helping to design a Public Purpose Energy Service Company (PPESCo) aimed at helping public buildings to achieve deep energy retrofits. A third is funding the development of case studies of eight representative Vermont homes that have been retrofitted, with analysis of how they could have been financed. A fourth supports a project that advises colleges throughout the state on investing in energy efficiency building upgrades through the use of green revolving loan funds. (www.veic.org)

Vermont Housing & Conservation Board – Energy Efficiency Protocols for Multi-Family Homes
As part of a strategy to preserve Vermont’s affordable housing stock, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board (VHCB) conducted research into appropriate energy efficiency investments to help protect affordable housing projects’ operating budgets from rising energy prices, with support from the MacArthur Foundation (full report available at www.vhcb.org/roadmap.pdf). High Meadows has made a grant that will translate that research into operating protocols for energy efficiency retrofits in low-income multi-family buildings in Vermont. (www.vhcb.org) 

Vermont Natural Resources Council
High Meadows had made three grants to Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC). The first grant supports VNRC’s Community Energy Planning and Implementation Guidebook for Vermont Communities, in collaboration with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. High Meadows support is focused on distributing the guidebook and providing training for regional planning commissions, local officials and energy committees, and direct technical assistance to select communities. The second grant supports the 2011 merger of VNRC with Smart Growth Vermont. See below, under Biomass, for discussion of the third grant. (www.vnrc.org) 

Biomass Energy for Heat

Hubbard Brook Research Foundation – Sustainably Harvested Biomass for Green Mountain College
High Meadows is supporting a partnership between Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (HBRF) and Green Mountain College (GMC) to determine the market viability of securing a portion of the wood biomass required for GMC’s new co-generation facility from local forests using sustainable harvesting. In so doing, HBRF and GMC will test-drive harvesting standards with landowners, foresters, loggers, and biomass users, determine the feasibility of an affordable and reliable support of woodchips for local landowners, assess the potential sustainable supply over time, and explore financial and institutional structures to attract suppliers. (hubbardbrookfoundation.org)

The Northern Forest Center – Community-Scale Biomass Energy
As the push for the use of biomass for energy grows, the Northern Forest Center (NFC) is working across the four states of the northern forest to facilitate a balanced relationship between community health and forest resource sustainability. With High Meadows support, NFC has created and will maintain a database of existing and proposed biomass energy projects and the relevant federal, state, and regional policies, financing models, and other factors that influence the development of community-scale biomass projects. This database is available at the NFC website. In 2011, NFC will work with at least five northern Vermont communities to help them learn from other communities addressing similar challenges, as well as from the research community and private sector. NFC will also meet with community and business leaders and elected officials in northern Vermont to disseminate the information.  In a second grant, High Meadows is currently supporting NFC in their efforts to advance a regional investment strategy that will encourage natural resource-based development in the Northern Forest region. (www.northernforest.org/alternative-energy.shtml)

Randolph Area Community Development Corporation – District Thermal Plant
Randolph Area Community Development Corporation (RACDC), in partnership with the Biomass Energy Resource Center, is analyzing the feasibility and creating a business plan for a district biomass energy plant. The project is envisioned to provide district heating and combined heat and power to up to 433 existing municipal, manufacturing, commercial, and residential properties in the village and industrial zones of Randolph using locally sourced, sustainably harvested woody biomass. High Meadows Fund has provided funding to support this work, complementing partial funding from Vermont’s Clean Energy Development Fund. (www.racdc.com)

Vermont Natural Resources Council
High Meadows is supporting VNRC, in partnership with National Wildlife Federation in Vermont, to provide testimony at Public Service Board hearings on the potential impact of biomass electric plants proposed in Fair Haven and Pownal on forest health and forest communities. (www.vnrc.org)

Transportation

CarShare Vermont – Business Development Program
CarShare Vermont provides its members with access to a network of vehicles parked around Burlington for use whenever and for however long is needed. Payment is based on the amount of time that people have the vehicle and on how much they drive it. High Meadows is supporting CarShare Vermont's business development program to reduce employee commuting by private, single occupancy vehicle, and to develop a how-to-guide to share with other groups in Vermont who are interested in bringing car-sharing to their communities. (www.carsharevt.org)

UVM Transportation Research Center – Clean Cities Program
The High Meadows Fund is partly funding an initiative to reduce Vermonters’ expenditures on transportation fuel by promoting eco-driving. Eco-driving changes how we operate a vehicle while it’s in motion, as well as while it’s stationary. This grant will enable the Clean Cities program to conduct eco-driving workshops around the state, market research about the most effective message for changing driving behavior, and a pilot campaign to deliver that message to businesses, community groups, and general media in a region of the state. (www.uvm.edu/~transctr/?Page=cleancty/default.php)

Vital Communities – Upper Valley Transportation Management Association’s Smart Commute Initiative
The Upper Valley Transportation Management Association (UVTMA), a program of Vital Communities, has for 10 years promoted mobility options to reduce reliance on driving alone in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire.  Their focus on cost-effective ways to get cars off the road includes new carpooling strategies, transit and bike-ped planning projects, and a growing workplace trip reduction program known as Smart Commute.  Smart Commute involves researching commuting habits, needs, and opportunities, and consulting workplaces on commuter programs and promotions.  The project was piloted in 2009 with Mascoma Savings Bank in Vermont and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire.  Since that time, the UVTMA has brought 12 additional workplaces into the project, and plan to expand Smart Commute to 50 workplaces over the next two years.  Smart Commute has been successful in developing a real culture around mobility options in the Upper Valley.  In year one alone, results from 9 participating workplaces, representing 9,800 commuters, showed a remarkable 8% drop in drive-alone commuting.  As a result, Smart Commute measured a $1.3 million savings on fuel, and 2,800 metric tons of CO2 in 2010. (www.uvcommute.com) 

Agriculture and Food Systems

Addison County Relocalization Network – Wholesale Collaborative
Addison County Relocalization Network (ACORN) seeks to revitalize the local economy to help its communities provide sustainable sources of food, water, energy, employment, and other essential resources, and to promote conservation and a healthy environment. High Meadow is supporting ACORN’s planning and launching of a wholesale collaborative, a brokerage service that will market local produce from growers to institutions. (www.acornvt.org)

Center for an Agricultural Economy – Vermont Food Venture Center
The Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE)’s mission is to engage agricultural leaders in the emerging 21^st century food system, to build capacity, and to inspire the public to support and implement robust food systems, particularly in the Hardwick area. CAE will be the home of the new Vermont Food Venture Center (VFVC), a shared-use kitchen incubator for value-added and specialty food producers. A High Meadows grant provides general operating and capacity-building support to the launch of the VFVC. (vermontfoodventurecenter.org/about) (www.hardwickagriculture.org)

Highfields Center for Composting – Close the Loop, St. Albans!
The overarching goal for Highfields’ Close the Loop Vermont programs is to divert food “waste” from landfills and turn it back into soil that can be used to grow more food, closing the loop on the food system, and diverting 100% of Vermont’s food scraps from landfills to agricultural use by 2017. Close the Loop St. Albans! aims to provide a replicable model and new practical resources, such as a carefully designed hauling system, for expansion of the program to other regions of the state. (www.highfieldscomposting.org)

The Intervale Center
The Intervale Center aims to develop farm- and land-based enterprises that generate economic and social opportunity while protecting natural resources. The Center has been a leader in Vermont’s progress towards a more sustainable food and agriculture system. The High Meadows Fund is providing general operating support, to further the Intervale Center’s work to enhance farm viability, promote stewardship of agricultural lands and engage the community in the food system. (www.intervale.org)

New England Farmers Union Educational Foundation – Carbon Credit Project
High Meadows is supporting the New England Farmers Union Educational Foundation’s "Buy Local" Carbon Credit Project. The goal of the Carbon Credit Project is to reduce Vermont farm enterprises’ reliance on fossil fuels while improving farms’ sustainability and viability. The project will identify farm practices that will increase on-farm energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create marketable carbon credits, to be sold in the voluntary and pre-compliance markets. High Meadows funding provides a match for the Conservation Innovation grant from the USDA. (newenglandfarmersunion.org)

Rutland Area Farm and Food Link
High Meadows has provided operating support for the Rutland Area Farm and Food Link (RAFFL) as they transition from a start-up vision driven organization to a long-term strategy for having a positive impact on farm viability and economic development in the Rutland area. The grant supports RAFFL’s overall mission of developing a diverse and thriving local agricultural industry and food system for the Rutland area. (www.rutlandfarmandfood.org)

The Vermont Foodbank, Inc. – Kingsbury Farm
Kingsbury Farm, in Warren, Vermont, is an innovative leasing relationship between farmers and the Vermont Foodbank that increases the amount of fresh quality food available to low-income Vermonters, and offers an interesting model for increasing access to healthy food elsewhere. High Meadows funds were used for weatherization, rewiring, and safety improvements to the farmhouse at Kingsbury Farm. (www.vtfoodbank.org/OurPrograms/AgPrograms/KingsburyFarm.aspx)

Vermont Housing & Conservation Board – Vermont Agriculture Development Program
High Meadows Fund is supporting the launch of the Vermont Agriculture Development Program (VADP), a pilot program of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to provide intensive technical assistance to established, strategically targeted agricultural and food ventures as they plan for growth. (www.vsjf.org/project-details/18/vermont-agriculture-development-program) (www.vhcb.org)

Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund - Flexible Capital Fund & Farm to Plate
The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund (VSJF) aims to identify and fund market-driven solutions to Vermont's pressing economic, social, and environmental issues through grantmaking and technical assistance. In recent years, High Meadows supported VSJF in the development of a Flexible Capital Fund which offers “near equity risk capital” or subordinated debt to help grow natural resource-based growth companies in Vermont.  High Meadows now invests in that initiative.  High Meadows has also been a supporter of the Farm-to-Plate initiative, which created a 10-year strategic plan for Vermont agricultural economic development in the form of commodity, value-added and direct-to-consumer market channels. (www.vsjf.org)

Rural Vermont
Smart Rural Vermont is committed to supporting a Vermont local food systems that promote healthy farms and communities, and their initiatives serve Vermont's farmers and rural communities in many ways.  High Meadows Fund has provided support for Rural Vermont's general operations, with special interest in the organization's Small Farm Exemption Campaign. (www.ruralvermont.org)

Encouraging Working Farms and Forests and Vibrant Village Centers

Smart Growth Vermont
When Smart Growth Vermont (SGV) was an independent organization, High Meadows supported its work with local officials, developers, non-profit organizations, political leaders, and businesses to develop creative land use policies that enhance the state's prosperity and protect the state's distinctive landscape.  In the summer of 2011 Smart Growth merged with VNRC. High Meadows is providing support to ensure this merger is successful and that the important work to foster smart growth continues. (www.vnrc.org)   

The Vermont Council on Rural Development – The Working Landscape
The Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) is a partnership of federal, state, local, non-profit, and private partners that helps Vermonters and Vermont communities develop their capacity to create a prosperous and sustainable future through coordination, collaboration, and effective use of public and private resources. With support from High Meadows, VCRD connected diverse stakeholders for the agriculture and forest product industry to define and set long term goals for the Vermont Working Landscape, and collaboratively promote economic, regulatory, and other activity to realize those goals. The working partnership completed a policy action platform in late 2010 and continues to plan for moving that platform forward. (www.vcrd.org)

The Vermont Land Trust
The Vermont Land Trust (VLT) works to permanently conserve working farms and forests, community and recreational lands, natural habitats, and family lands that are vital to Vermont's rural economy and cultural and natural resource legacy. VLT also supports the sound stewardship of conserved lands and the enterprises that depend on the state's working landscape. High Meadows has supported VLT’s Farmland Access Program, which aims to provide qualified diversified farmers with access to good agricultural land and assist with the start-up or expansion of commercial agricultural businesses on that land. High Meadows recently made a multi-year grant to VLT to provide stable predictable support for conservation work. (www.vlt.org)

Other

Vermont Journalism Trust – VTDigger.org
A High Meadows Fund grant to Vermont Journalism Trust supports in-depth explanatory or investigative journalism by VTDigger on initiatives that improve Vermont's natural environment while encouraging long-term economic vitality. (vtdigger.org)