Table of Contents
Hayes Barnard understands how considerably obtain to clear energy and h2o entry can alter a community. He’s also figured out how to fund it on a constant basis with out the want for charity galas, grant apps, big strategies, and worries about fluctuations in donations.

The former SolarCity executive is the founder and CEO of GoodLeap, a rooftop photo voltaic financing firm backed by the likes of Michael Dell and now valued at $12 billion.

But right before he released GoodLeap, Barnard concentrated on yet another passion with quite possibly even larger disruptive potential. He established GivePower, a nonprofit which installs h2o pumps and cleanse electricity generators in inadequate communities. It also established a new design for philanthropy, tied to rising demand from customers for clean up electricity and sustainable dwelling advancements, which could revolutionize how charities receive fiscal aid.

The tale of GivePower began in 2008 in the course of the financial disaster, when Barnard went to a village in Mali, West Africa, to assistance establish a college. He learned two critical issues: the local community essential electrical power to assistance electricity the community, as very well as laptops and other gadgets in a area university. Next, he listened to people waking up at three or four in the morning to go get water. “I’m like, wow, they wander eight miles a working day,” Barnard reported.

When Barnard’s earlier startup Paramount Photo voltaic was obtained by solar strength company SolarCity in 2013, he pitched a philanthropic situation for the offer: For each and every megawatt deployed in the U.S., SolarCity would put in photo voltaic electrical power on a university somewhere in the building world. The offer was solidified immediately after a vacation to Nicaragua to install solar electricity on a university.



Barnard’s pitch to businesses: “What if $20 could provide 20 years of h2o for a person that requires it the most in the acquiring globe?”



His nonprofit GivePower, released in 2014, expanded into putting in and offering clean water pumps following Barnard learned women of all ages in the Central American state had been investing hours a day receiving drinking water. Occasionally the water came from dirty resources, leading to serious overall health challenges, and the women missing understanding chances in the approach of going for walks many miles a working day.

“Women will not want to sit in the classroom until eventually 7 or eight o’clock at night time right after they fetch drinking water until midday each working day,” Barnard mentioned, noting the faculties were almost entirely stuffed with boys. “What if we could generate a magic h2o box that could make more than enough water on a each day foundation for everybody within just the village? And could we leverage our history and photo voltaic and battery storage in an effort to create individuals devices?”

The philanthropic partnership Barnard initially designed at SolarCity has now been integrated into GoodLeap. (SolarCity, founded by cousins of Elon Musk, was obtained by Tesla in 2016.)

GoodLeap’s finance know-how system connects installers of residential solar and sustainable residence enhancement assignments with loan providers. It offers home owners issue-of-sale financial loans equivalent to Klarna, Afterpay, or Affirm. GoodLeap lifted $800 million in its most latest funding spherical in October 2021, placing its valuation at $12 billion.

The round was led by MSD Partners, an expenditure adviser affiliated with the founder of the Dell laptop model. The swiftly expanding solar panel financing enterprise has supplied much more than $10 billion in sustainable property improvement loans, with nearly fifty percent doled out in 2021 by itself.

GoodLeap helps make a donation to GivePower with each individual transaction on its system. Barnard’s pitch to corporations: “What if $20 could provide 20 a long time of h2o for someone that demands it the most in the producing globe?”

The transaction metrics and giving ratios could be $20 for each transaction, a penny per watt of photo voltaic electricity, or $1 for each solar panel that is put in. GoodLeap also handles all of the nonprofit’s operational costs. “So individuals knew each greenback will go to a challenge in the area,” Barnard mentioned.

But one of the strange points GivePower gives is “sustainability as a service” by way of how it models and implements its have methods. The organization has staff members that convey teams of donors on treks to communities in Haiti, Nepal, Colombia, and Kenya to straight take part in the set up of GivePower’s thoroughly clean h2o and solar energy techniques.

GivePower handles all the logistics, as properly as supplying the metrics and implementation information of what joy to donated resources, the tales of men and women impacted, even the social media material for the associates to use in their personal advertising and marketing or inside communications.

“They get to see the influence,” Barnard said. “You know in which you happen to be heading to deploy a single of these devices, you are likely to conserve 30,000 peoples life in the developing environment that are ingesting poison just about every day.”



“[The philanthropic model] lessens turnover within just these firms, it connects the hearts and minds of these organizations alongside one another, and then we are much less of [only] a lover application supplier for them.”



Donation agreements with GivePower are for five several years, making economic setting up a lot easier. These extensive-term partnerships also free GivePower from the need for charity galas or other styles of regular non-income fundraising. Companions include Google, Johnson & Johnson, and European telecommunications company Vodafone.

As a consequence of GivePower’s function and philanthropic design, Barnard mentioned that he’s able to assistance lover businesses intrigued in sustainability fulfill all those objectives although also growing worker satisfaction and retention. Barnard said GivePower’s treks make contributors grateful for their work opportunities in a way that goes beyond the paychecks. “It lessens turnover within these companies, it connects the hearts and minds of these companies alongside one another, and then we are fewer of a spouse software supplier for them,” he said.

“You just get this enormous positive charge when you see individuals cry for the first time they’ve noticed working water, or the lights go on inside of of a single of these universities,” Barnard reported about the preceding trek individuals. “They occur back again with GivePower tattoos.”
Advertisement placeholder