Host Organization Highlight: All In Energy
Semester in the City provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; our hands-on internship program allows students to develop professionally, receive mentorship from a social sector professional, and make a difference in people’s lives all while living in Boston with like-minded students. Our program is not only beneficial to students, but social impact sector organizations looking to help increase their capacity and inspire the next generation of problem-solvers.
The following blog post is an interview with UNH's Jordan Moyer who was a part of our Fall 2020 student cohort. She’s joined by her placement site mentor Gabe Shapiro at All In Energy, who’s the Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director, Partnerships. Here we learn about All In Energy's mission, how Jordan and Gabe have seen impact at All In Energy, and why the SITC program has been beneficial from a student and mentor perspective.
*Note parts of this interview have be edited and condensed for clarity
Can you tell me a bit about All In Energy’s mission?
Gabe: Our mission is to accelerate an inclusive transition to a clean energy economy - we do that in a couple of ways. One is that, especially in Massachusetts, we have these nation leading energy efficiency programs that are really beneficial. They help people save energy and money; they put a lot of money into tackling the problem in a logical way.
When you look at who is taking advantage of these programs the benefits are not equally distributed across the commonwealth. What you basically see is the families that are raising their hands to take advantage of these great programs are disproportionately in suburban towns and neighborhoods where the homes are larger, there's larger income, it's a generally whiter population with people that speak English. [Meanwhile,] in the more urban centers, there's more people that rent their homes, live in multi-unit buildings, have a higher percentage of immigrant populations, people who speak languages other English. Just generally, [in] the commonwealth communities of color, the participation rates are lower, and that's just not fair because those people are paying into the [energy efficiency] programs - they deserve to benefit from the programs.
[All In Energy] is set up to solve that gap. There's a number of reasons why that gap exists, which is no fault of the populations in those cities, but we're trying to close that gap so the benefits of the [energy efficiency] programs are more equally distributed. Then, at the same time, because we have these amazing incentive programs we have all these thriving clean energy companies which is great - totally support that! We work with many of them. At the same time, when you walk into the headquarters of these organizations, and these companies, it is still an overwhelmingly white male-dominated workforce; that's another problem we're trying to solve.
These companies would be better at connecting with the communities that we work in if they had people on staff who came from those communities, who spoke languages other than English, who have the cultural competency to create effective marketing programs, that could reach those community members. The way that we tie this all together is that we execute campaigns in partnership with cities and local non-profit organizations to create, in the non-COVID world, face-to-face interactions in a position of trust, with the trusted best interests of people in [the] communities [we work in]. [The people in those communities can then] listen, learn about those programs, and then take immediate action by scheduling an appointment to receive benefits from those [energy efficiency] programs.
The people that are doing that work primarily are [people] we've recruited like early career folks who want to get started in the energy industry who haven't had exposure before. They get the training on the types of programs, products, and the types of jobs that are available in the industry then we help them find their next step job in the industry.
The short story of what we're doing is we're bringing the [clean energy] companies into those communities and we're bringing talent from those communities into the [clean energy] companies. That's the two sided pathway that we're trying to create.
Left to Right - All In Energy SITC Fall 2020 Fellows: Jordan Moyer, Patrick Nkada, Terrence Theus
Can you tell me about your roles at All In Energy - what’s your day-to-day responsibilities look like and what’s the special project you’ve been working on?
Jordan: My position is a little bit different at All In Energy. I am the Finance Human Resources and Administration Fellow, so I work pretty closely with Gabe for the most part. I do payroll and monthly financial stuff like that on a day-to-day basis [including] working with our donations; my day-to-day isn't working in the mission side of the field, but I get to see some of that in the weekly meetings, which is really cool. My special project is actually making an employee handbook for All In Energy.
Gabe: Right on, like any organization we need to have the blocking and tackling of the administration. We've got to pay people. We've got to make sure we are doing the right things. Jordan also helped us do our 2019 tax filing. We had gotten an extension due to all the stuff that was happening with COVID back in the Spring; [this] was super instrumental helping us do that. We participated in the Payroll Protection Program with the Federal Government. She's been helping us have the loan be converted into a grant.
This happened to be good timing to have someone as capable as Jordan to help with not only her special project and the day-to-day of helping us do payroll and enter in the donations; there happened to be some idiosyncratic items that she was super helpful on as well.
Has there been a particular moment during the time in your roles where you’ve gotten to see first hand the impact that All In Energy was having?
Jordan: I can say at one point, it was really cool, we had a busy few days. I actually got to call some people [and] help out with the call team, which was interesting ‘cause that is not anywhere near something that I normally do. So, it was cool to be able to communicate with our customers and see how grateful they all were with the help we were giving them to be able to sign them up. I feel like since my position is so far away from that I don't always get to see the firsthand experiences. It was a really cool day - even when I was just transcribing their voice messages it was interesting to see how many people were calling and wanted our help and talking to them on the phone personally.
Gabe: As the Executive Director I see our impact every single day I’ve got plenty of stories to tell you. That was a really exciting thing that also happened this semester; there was a time limit of incentive that was like the sun setting at the end of September, so we wanted all the constituents and families and all of our partners to take advantage of it. We had been promoting it over the Summer, but as you know when deadlines approach people start to take advantage of that. We just got overwhelmed with inbound interest, and it completely overwhelmed our call team that's dedicated to this. So, all three of our CFSI interns stepped up to help out for a few days.
We were really grateful they, and we, could step up and help so many people take advantage of that incentive that was going away. It was an all hands - three days in a row, meeting every morning, getting the block and tackling of what we were going to do to make sure that we got back to every person that called us before the deadline so they could qualify for the program; it was quite the all-team effort - the CFSI fellows were integral to making that succeed.
Did you have a meaningful internship experience growing up that you felt helped you develop into the professional you are today?
Gabe: Yeah, you know - I have a lot of early career work experiences that were definitely meaningful. I'm not sure that I have anything that could be fully described as an internship or a fellowship. Really the most meaningful experience, my first job out of college, I was a consultant. One of the meaningful experiences I had was a project I was doing [that] was my first exposure to non-profit work. It was at this company called The Monitor Group; we worked with New Profit Inc., which is a venture philanthropy fund. We were supporting one of their portfolio groups Citizen Schools, which was actually the first organization that Eric Schwarz founded.
I got to go from this corporate world, which was exciting, and I was learning a lot, but I wasn't feeling fulfilled. Walking into the doors of this non-profit that was early stage but [had] palpable excitement about the work they were doing - you could tell the people really cared about the work. So, that was really meaningful just to understand, "Wow, there's work that I can be doing that can support me that also feels really good at the end of the day; we're really doing something to move society forward."
After that engagement I left the consultant company and went to go work for Citizen Schools, and I was there for four years. [I] became the Director of Finance, which is how I know how to do any of the work that I've been working on with Jordan; Jordan might be the first to note that maybe some of my information is sixteen years older [laughs]. That was a great experience, and I've really never looked back - really being committed to a mission driven organization throughout the rest of my career. Honestly, I wish I had that experience in college - it's one of the reasons I love working and being able to support the CFSI Fellows. I think this is a really valuable experience to get exposed to while you're in college to what's possible doing well by doing good - having a career in an organization that does have a mission.
How has having a mentor shaped your experience thus far and do you feel like you’ve been able to gain any professional skills by working with All In Energy?
Jordan: Having a mentor has been really cool! With my position Gabe and I have a meeting every Monday and Wednesday morning. The days after that I have my own schedule that I make and I know what I'm doing and I have assignments. It's been really cool because I have his guidance, but I also have time to learn on my own and I know when I need help then I can always reach out. It's been really helpful.
I feel like I've learned so much; on the professional side of it I feel like I have gained so much from this internship. Honestly, coming into it, I mean I'm only a sophomore, so I came into it and I was really nervous. I feel like it's really helped me grow in my professional confidence, I feel. I feel like now I have a lot more value in my own work and I feel more confident even asking questions - I'm not as nervous to reach out. It helped me to realize that people are people, whenever you're working with them, even if they are your boss or someone higher up in the company, everybody is there. Especially in an organization like this - everybody's there to help really.
I feel, especially with all the stuff I've learned in my position, the experience that I got helped me realize that I do want a career in the non-profit sector or something like that; I just recently added sustainability to my dual major because I learned more about it last year, and I knew I just didn't want to work just for work. I wanted to work for something that I cared about, so this has really solidified so much - what that could look like in the future for me which has been awesome. So, I feel like all of the experience I've gotten here has really been so, so helpful. I feel like I've grown so much and it's really going to be great for me in the future. It's really helped solidify everything that I want to do.
Has the experience of being a mentor changed how you view your work at All In Energy in any way?
Gabe: The last couple of jobs I had in my career, before founding All In Energy, I was at larger organizations managing large teams. [Then, I went] to not directly managing early career folks, but that's actually been really cool. To be working with folks who are just learning things for the first time and being able to teach them some of the skills that I know whether it be basic Excel skills or how to navigate QuickBooks or our payroll system. Teaching back is the best way to learn [something], so I'm always learning little nuances about how to optimize, how we're doing payroll, or how I should be entering in these various things. By teaching it I kind of understand the gaps in my own understanding of it; the nice thing about having a fellow or an intern is to say, "Look, I guess we don't understand this! Can you go and figure out what it is we don't understand and fill the gaps for us."
So, there were numerous times where that would come up, and I was like, "You know what? I don't know the answer to that question." [Laughs] So then deploying Jordan to do the research and then bring back solutions for us was great. So [having a CFSI Fellow] helped me understand better what we're doing. Jordan's been documenting and making playbooks and handbooks for us so the next person who has to come into that role will definitely be better set up. I have these reference materials for myself if I ever need to understand what we did or how we did it so definitely valuable for me as a mentor as well.
Pictured: Jimmy Hikmatullah, former SITC Fellow who now works at All In Energy as a Data Analysis Consultant
What experiences do you think you are having with CFSI that you might not be able to have on your home campus?
Jordan: Honestly all of them; how it works at UNH - I'm an accounting major, but I have to go through the business administration part of it first. I typically can't have an internship in accounting until the end of my junior year - I'm a sophomore so it's very early on. All of the experience I've gotten to do at All In Energy helped me see all of the different sides of business. This has given me such a great overview of, "Okay, so if I like this stuff better than this stuff I can always change to that." That's been really cool because without this internship, honestly, I would have so blindly been going into my major cause' I have some brief experience in high school with it, but that's very different than what it actually looks like in a business.
In addition to that my sustainability dual major, honestly, I had no idea how I was going to use it. I just knew I really enjoyed that topic - so having this has also really shown me "Oh, I can do both." I could really be involved in something that I care about and do something that I'm good at. So, honestly, all of the experience I've gotten here - I've learned so much so soon. All of the stuff that I've been doing with monthly financials and the tax forms I would have never learned until I probably graduated. I wouldn't have actually gotten to actively work on something like that, so it's been really, really, cool. I feel like I've learned so much more than I would have at my home campus, especially at this stage.
What would you say to any social impact sector organizations who are considering hosting a student fellow at SITC like All In Energy did this semester?
Gabe: We've participated in a lot of different internship programs and some of the challenges of rotating through a semester-by-semester internship program is that it's hard to work with people who are in school. You only have maybe ten to fifteen hours a week to work with [the interns]. It's really hard to gain traction - to make the investment to get somebody up to speed. Whereas I think the real benefit of the CFSI program is you get a lot of these people's time. You can really feel comfortable doing the full training, investing your time into building them up over the first couple weeks cause' then you really get to experience that return. [With] some other internship programs by the time you get people up to speed they're gone. So, that's been great. I've really enjoyed working with [the CFSI fellows] and also the other nice thing is that there's a really strong support network for [them] from CFSI. [The fellows are] getting this surround support, they're getting additional curriculum, and there's people that are taking care of them. I still am concerned about their wellbeing and do check ins with them, but I also can rest assured that there's another entity that is supporting them.
So, there's a ROI on your time investment and then honestly the value that you get from the money that you actually spend to CFSI I think is tremendous. I would say - we have other internship programs that cover the full cost of the wages for folks, but because you can get so much more out of the fellows and they get so much more integrated into the organization - huge impact return of investment. This is I think our third semester doing in a consecutive and we're charging on to next semester. The team does a great job recruiting folks - all of the fellows we've had have been really amazing. It's been a great experience every step of the way.
What would you say to students who are considering applying and interning with SITC like you did this semester?
Jordan: I would say absolutely do it. I feel like it sounds a little bit daunting at the beginning because it sounds like a lot - 2 classes and an internship, but you're so supported the whole way through the semester like Gabe was saying. Even at points where it is difficult people are always willing to work with you and work with your schedule and make sure that you're doing okay and your work is doing good.
There's no better learning than through experience. It's such a valuable program I would absolutely say to anyone who's considering it's going to be worth it. Even though it's going to be tough sometimes - coming out of it you're not going to find this experience anywhere else, especially while you're in college still.