Our Story
GiveSolar was founded in 2018 through the support of a grant from the Merck Foundation’s Neighbor of Choice Program. GiveSolar operates as a project of New Community Project, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
Jeff Heie is the Founder and Director of GiveSolar. Jeff has been involved in advocating for clean energy since 2000. He brings over twenty years of skills and experience in advocacy, community organizing, networking, fundraising, and solar installing.
The Backstory
In November 2016, Jeff and Tim Godshall coordinated the first solar barn raising at the Gift & Thrift store in Harrisonburg, VA. Gift & Thrift is a thrift store that benefits the worldwide relief and development efforts of Mennonite Central Committee. The solar barn raising, which occurred on November 5, 2016, was a collaboration between Gift & Thrift, Secure Futures, the Harrisonburg Carpenters’ Guild, and the Voluntary Gas Tax. This event led to the founding of GiveSolar.
On November 5, 2016, members of the community came together to support the nonprofit, installing solar panels (63 kW) on the roof of the building. In addition to reducing greenhouse gases and reliance on fossil fuels, the system will save Gift & Thrift an estimated $400,000 over the next thirty years, allowing them to more effectively achieve their core mission.
The success of this first solar barn raising made it clear that the idea had wings. If a community-powered solar project could work for one nonprofit, we thought, why not for others? And so GiveSolar was born. Since 2016, GiveSolar has organized crowdfunding campaigns and solar barn raisings on non-profits and Habitat for Humanity homes across Virginia.
Habitat for Humanity Partnership
In 2020, GiveSolar was asked by a board member of Central Valley Habitat for Humanity to collaborate on a pilot project that aimed to prove the concept of installaing solar on HfH homes. The success of the pilot project led to the launch of a Solar Seed Fund campaign that sought to create a revolving funding stream for installing solar on all appropriate Habitat homes in the service territory of Central Valley Habitat. The campaign raised $127,000.
In 2021, GiveSolar partnered with Habitat for Humanity Virginia to develop and implement a statewide solar program benefiting Habitat households. The statewide scope of the solar program led to a donation from the American Institute of Architects who donated partial funding to install solar on 70 to 80 Habitat homes. This donation allowed GiveSolar and Habitat Virginia to attract other funding and scale our statewide program.
