Description
If we do what I am suggesting we can actually effect culture change worldwide and bring about a huge drop in energy use in a decade. This is the culture change model that was used effectively in introducing new grains in the Green Revolution and Family Planning in the most successful countries, like South Korea. In making changes of any sort the population needs to go from Awareness (know about the problem) to Interest (care enough to ask questions) to Trial (take a baby step like changing light bulbs) to Evaluation (like looking at your electric bill over time) to Adoption (taking on a number of baby steps) and on to Advocacy (when you not only have changed but are urging others to change).
To achieve these changes and advance through this well-worn model, we can focus on elementary and middle school education with programs that are designed to be entertaining and educational and go beyond mere awareness of the problem. This will work because kids are merciless in their nagging. Once they know what needs to be done, and once a mechanism is set up to reinforce their progress through the paradigm step by step and month by month, with the help of teachers and the cooperation of parents, this problem will be solved.
We have an idea that needs Proof of Concept. Who will join us in this study, and who will help us to get the grant for the $200,000 we need to get the test completed?
Almost 100% of the World's people go to at least a few years of school. These young scholars not only learn for themselves but they could be rewarded for taking their lessons home and sharing them with the adults in their lives. So the way to reach the most people with climate change messages is to focus like a laser on the elementary grades, and to continue that education into the middle school and high school grades as well. However at this point I would say without fear of contradiction that this is the most neglected population.
That is why I have designed Two Years to Change.
Summary -
Two Years to Change
With this program, we will measurably reduce carbon footprint and energy usage of tens of millions of households and tens of thousands of schools in the US, Canada and elsewhere, and will make hundreds of millions of dollars for stakeholders.
This proposal is for the proof of concept of Two Years to Change, a project empowering elementary and middle school children to take the lead in “greening” their homes over a period of 24 months with a different change each month. This will be the largest fund-raiser ever for schools.
The initial fund-raiser is a twenty-four month calendar, digitally composed online and printed by our designated “green” printing company, on recycled paper with soy-based inks. It will have class photos throughout, and kids’ birthdays listed on their birth dates, along with focused curricular components each month. In January 2011, families get discounts to change their lightbulbs, in February 2011 they improve insulation or weather stripping, etc., for 24 months. A very preliminary sample of this calendar/coupon book/yearbook/curriculum guide is available for viewing if start working together.
Naming rights sponsor will be a hardware chain like Lowes or Home Depot. Monthly sponsors, like GE or 3M, provide green products, discounts to families and rebates to schools. Every time a family makes a purchase, that product’s sponsor makes a contribution in kind to the school. Project includes a graphically rich closed social network for each classroom, where students can go to post accomplishments, where they can watch short films on ways to save energy, and where they can show off changes they have made. Numerous digital and actual prizes and awards will keep kids, classrooms, and entire schools moving toward the goal of reduced carbon footprint.
Every elementary/middle school in the developed world is a potential participant in the program. Every school forms a PTA “Green Team” and a member of that team drags and drops school photos onto an on-line calendar template in September. The kids meanwhile are soliciting sale of calendars from neighbors and relatives who prepay. In each school the program is self supporting from the start.
By the first of October orders start coming in and the first calendars are printed. When the principal sees how much money can be made, the kids will use these calendars as samples to solicit more sales for additional printings before Christmas.
Month by month from January for 24 months students will work with parents to take steps to reduce carbon footprint and water use. They will track family utility bills and every family will be eligible to enroll in a green savings program with Bank of America to save money for the big purchases at the end of the program – PV panels, solar hat water and energy efficient automobiles.
We will measurably reduce carbon footprint and energy use of tens of millions of households and tens of thousands of schools in the US and elsewhere. Money is made for stakeholders when calendars are sold, when coupons are redeemed, when rebates are sent to schools, and from the sale of naming rights, and the sale of sponsorship on the calendar and on the parent portion of the website.
Overall, our company can be characterized as a mission driven social enterprise specializing in a powerful fund-raising mechanism to help schools, families and entire communities to “go green”. Once initiated in any school no outside money is required, and the cash income for the school from calendar sales can be significant along with gains for schools in free green products.
Background
For many years people have talked about reducing energy use for millions of households, but no workable mechanism has been developed, until now, for motivating families in every community to take significant sustainability actions and to literally “go green.”. This program is designed as an efficient and scalable system for moving single households, schools and districts, entire states and even countries beyond awareness of environmental problems and on to action with regard to reducing energy use and thereby slowing or reversing climate change.
Today, because of budget limitations, educators are eager to find methods to raise significant money for schools and at the same time want to help their students to learn about and to care about the environment and sustainability. We will be creating the most powerful school fund-raiser ever and it will be tied to core curriculum for every grade level.
At the heart of this program is a calendar/coupon book/yearbook/curriculum guide that students bring home from school and that parents, neighbors and relatives buy for $19.95. Families buy this calendar just as they buy “The Entertainment Book” because of the coupons, but this item will be much more valuable to the family because it is also a green coupon book with monthly coupons for products to help the family achieve sustainability goals and reduce their power and water bills. Most important from the point of view of the student is that every child’s photo is in the calendar and their name is on their birthday. No relative or neighbor could resist this fund-raiser for their local school. From the teacher’s point of view the most important aspect may be the curriculum references and the energy and water saving lessons inherent in the project.
We will use calendar sales to raise initial money and from that month on, for a period of two years, schools will obtain monthly rebates on purchases by their families of “green” products. This will lead to significant and measurable reductions in energy and water use. Families use our coupons to get significant discounts to green their homes, and as a “quid pro quo,” our sponsors give rebates in kind proportional to parental purchases to the participating schools permitting them to “go green” as well.
Schools will be asked to form a “Green Team” of a few environmentally focused parents. Two Years to Change will create a website where the Green Team from any school can go in the early Fall at no cost to create a draft calendar and coupon book specific to their school covering two years and starting the following January. Using drag and drop technology they personalize this calendar for their school with class photos, and school mottos and banners; and they enter a list of student names and birthdays in a database, at which point the program automatically populates every student’s name to their birthday.
Every month in the calendar is a “Month of Change,” starting in January of the following year and running for 24 months. Once the calendar is composed, hopefully by the end of September, it is sent electronically to our green printer and a calendar for each student in the school is created to use as a “sales tool.” Schools buy these calendars in advance for less than $10 each and students sell them to their parents, neighbors and relatives for either $29.95 or $19.95, so the school makes between $10 and $20 on each calendar sold. Thanks to intelligent digital printing short runs are no problem, and coupons on each calendar are bar coded for that one school.
Each month in this two-year period is a Month of Change with a different purpose and with different commercial partners. For instance, January will be Change Your Lighting Month. sponsored by GE, or another company that manufactures compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) and/or light emitting diodes (LEDs). February will be Change Your Weatherization Month, sponsored by a company like 3M that manufactures insulation products. March will be Change Your Water Usage, sponsored by a company like Delta Faucets. April will be Change Your Yard and Garden Month sponsored by a company that sells organic gardening products.
Naming Rights to the calendar will be sold to our major sponsor, which will be Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Lowes, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, or True Value Hardware. Families get discounts for using the coupons attached to the calendar, and schools get rebates which will be calculated automatically by the sponsor based on coupons collected from that school. For instance if families buy $15,000 worth of LED lighting products in the first month, the sponsor of that month will give the school $1,500 worth of low energy lighting products as a “thank-you.”
Curriculum for that month will be at our web site. Also on the website will be a closed and password protected social network for each classroom, where the teacher and students from only that one classroom can go to post their accomplishments. This website will be graphically exciting for elementary school kids and as they green their homes they can see their graphic house on the website go green too. A very preliminary sample of this web-site is available for viewing if we start working together.
Two Years to Change will be established as a B Corporation, which is a new designation for businesses that combine the benefits of a non-profit and the earning power of a for-profit. This structure will give us the greatest tax and operational advantages based on the nature of our business and our anticipated growth. It will permit our participating schools to apply for government and foundation grants to start their programs and in some cases to buy their initial round of calendar/coupon books which students carry around as samples. Of course in every case these samples will be sold and additional calendars will be purchased as well.
Two Years to Change will be initially located at 402 Elderberry Court, Celebration, FL. Planned expansion will put us into a commercial property in the Orlando area after the Proof of Concept is underway, about 6 months after the program is initiated. Because of the digital nature of the project most of the employees can work from their own homes in their own communities and tasks can be sub-contracted to outside firms anywhere in the World.
After the proof of concept in calendar years 2011 and 2012, by 2013-2014 our operation will be producing [$4,000,000,000] ($4 billion) in sales of energy conserving products and services annually, yielding rebates to schools of about $400,000,000 ($400 million) worth of products and producing revenue for Two Years to Change of $40,000,000 ($40 million) for arranging to sell the calendars, arranging to redeem the coupons and rebates for the schools and in commercial sponsorships by our naming rights sponsor and monthly product sponsors. In addition the calendar manufacturer will earn gross Revenue of $10,000,000 for sale of 1,000,000 calendars. Two Years to Change income projected for fiscal year 2019-2020, without external funding, is expected to reach $800,000,000 ($800 million), based on $80 billion in purchases of green products and services by families in schools all over North America. Annual growth projections indicate an increase of 50% per year from 2012-2013 through 2019-2020. Growth will come from representation of this project at numerous educational conferences and by appearance on TV shows and by articles placed in major publications. We anticipate strong word of mouth promotion among PTA parents and Principals.
Two years to Change is at a point where we need to secure “Proof of Concept” for this project. We intend to raise $200,000 of “seed money” through ten to twenty investors who will each put $10,000 to $20,000 into the test of the program in approximately three schools. Funds will also pay for the ramp-up of the program to the national level once the concept is proven. These investors will each get 1% of the initial private offering of the stock of the company for each $10,000 invested. If the concept is proven to be successful little money will be required for expansion since each school needs simply to agree to proceed, and to take orders for the calendars from members of the community who pay up front for them. This means that schools immediately make money on the sale of calendar/coupon books. Our up-front cost is for brochures for schools.
Travel cost and overhead for our agents to go around to schools and promote the program can be covered on a commission basis. The more schools they start the more they stand to make in commissions on calendar sales and on coupons redeemed. This will motivate them to help the schools sell as many calendars as possible and to help the kids motivate their families to actually use the calendars.
I can be reached at davef@twoyearstochange.org if you wish to get involved in this project. What I need now are colleagues to help design the media and digital components of this program.
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