Non Profit NewsPod: SMUD Shine Awards Application Window NOW OPEN

00:09 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Kevin Burdick, welcome to this nonprofit podcast news pod. 

00:13 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Thanks so much for having me really looking forward to it. 

00:16 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Boy, we've got some really exciting news for our nonprofit community. But let me briefly introduce you. You are the Sustainable Community Partnership Specialist at SMUD or, for those less familiar, sacramento Municipal Utility District. We're going to talk about a very important program to our nonprofit community and that is the SMUD Shine Awards program. Would you give us a high-level overview of what the Shine Awards are and their significance to local nonprofits? 

00:44 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, totally so, Shine Awards it's really a game changer for our local nonprofits. It's been around since 2017, and it's been a funding opportunity for kind of calendar year projects. They might be based for a certain program or might be infrastructure-based improving our HVACs for our nonprofits and getting them off a gas heater and moving them to electric and making sure they're paying the best rates possible here in Sacramento. So, like I mentioned, it started back in 2017. Really, to date, we funded over $4 million in projects with our local Sacramento community, which is so incredible. But since 2017, a lot has changed. We've all changed. I don't think I had this beard in 2017. 

01:30
But one thing that we particularly noticed at SMUD was there's a lot of areas in Sacramento that aren't getting as much love and attention, that need that attention. 

01:35
So there were a couple reports that had come out, one from the Brookings Institute that showed that there were some significant gaps in economic vitality in the region, and there were some things that we wanted to make sure that we took care of, to for lack of a better word shine a light on those communities. 

01:53
And also, in addition to that, the American Lung Association came out with some reports that Sacramento was bottom 10 in air quality in the United States for certain metropolitan levels, and that's something that we don't want to lead in. 

02:09
So really, in 2021, smud came with the ambitious zero carbon plan by 2030, which we've been promoting on our website since 2021. But now programs like Shine and some of our other philanthropic endeavors have really aligned with that zero carbon plan so that our nonprofit partners aren't really left behind in this effort. So we focus a lot of our Shine Awards and our funding with our local organizations here in Sacramento, providing funding opportunities up to $100,000 to do some incredible programmatic-based things around clean energy, but also a little bit more of those infrastructure-based programs really helping out those community centers making sure their HVAC units are current and not wasting energy so they can hopefully cut energy savings on their bill so they reinvest that back into the community. But we've just seen so many amazing projects over the years and our applications are open now, and so we're looking for some really good opportunities for the future. 

03:03 - Jeff Holden (Host)
And let's touch on that application window. It's open June 1st and it closes July 31st, correct? 

03:10 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yes, that's correct. So, and we want to make sure that our nonprofit partners have every opportunity to apply. Of course, sometimes you see these opportunities pop up and all of a sudden it's July 31st and you want to make sure you submit the application. But it's never too early to apply, so we open up June 1st. We've already started to get some applications that have been submitted, but some organizations definitely chip away at it over the two months, but you can definitely make sure that you get that submitted by July 31st. 

03:35 - Jeff Holden (Host)
And I know a significant number of the guests that we've had on the Nonprofit Podcast Network are actually Shine Award recipients, so it says that they are engaged, which is really encouraging. 

03:46 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, totally, and for us, one thing we like to somewhat joke about is that when you're a Shine awardee, you also get us as a partner, you get me, and having a relationship with SMUD is just such a great, it's just a great stamp of approval in the Sacramento community. And we also get so many other opportunities that come to us that we make sure our Shine Award partners are aware of. Like, for example, we just had a webinar a few weeks ago with our chief lobbyist in Washington DC talking about the state of federal funding, and the people who attended that webinar were individuals who have received Shine Awards in the past our current cohort and other community partners. So we really not only do we share the award, we really want to share all the resources that we have available too to make sure that our nonprofits are taken care of. 

04:34 - Jeff Holden (Host)
When you do an outstanding job, either on the website or through other promotional venues, where you recognize the awardees as well, which is significant because it gets them some additional promotion, awareness for their organization and the fact that they are participating in something that is beneficial to the community in so many different ways. 

04:52 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, there's so many amazing nonprofits you know in this region and so many that you mentioned that you've had on your show, and you know. We just want to uplift the amazing work that they're doing but also make things a little bit easier Wellspring Women's Center, for example. If they have a facility right and we don't want them having to spend so much funding on their energy bill, so if we can replace some of their, make sure that their building is energy efficient so that they can use that funding towards something else. Everybody knows in 2025, our wallets are a little bit tighter. The costs are higher than ever in so many categories. The last thing we want these organizations to worry about is their energy bills, because they're usually convening these individuals in these spaces and want to make sure that they're taken care of. 

05:35 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Let's talk a little bit about some of the geographical limitations you've got, because it's not everybody who is listening to this news pod. It really does have some limitations, and that's the SMUD service territory. Give us an idea of what that is. 

05:50 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, sure, as much as we'd love for every nonprofit to be able to take advantage of this opportunity, we are kind of service Sacramento County. We're funded by our customers, we're community owned and so with that a lot of our programmatic or our funding limitations are based in the area that we provide power in, right in our service area. But what's really nice about this specific program? As long as the project is being delivered in this territory, in this area, they'd be eligible for a Shine Award. There's a lot of organizations that you know might be based in West Sacramento Roseville, rockland, et cetera but they do programming all over Sacramento in communities that need a little bit of help. So this Shine Awards program will allow for them to participate because they are in our service territory. So that makes it add some a little bit of flexibility there. 

06:39 - Jeff Holden (Host)
I'm glad you clarified that because I'll bet there's a lot of people who have that opportunity where they do have either branch offices or facilities that are in Sacramento County. Sure, and you had mentioned earlier in the conversation, $100,000 is the top end of the grants, the awards. They start at $10,000, is it? 

06:56 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Well, they start at $5,000, I think is what we had initially started our conversation. There have been some organizations that have actually received less than that. It's just based on what they are looking for. So maybe I'll talk a little bit about the funding limits. So, in addition to Shine Awards being good for one year, we do it during the calendar year. We also require the nonprofit to have somewhat of a match in this process. So the match kind of allows us to make sure that the nonprofit has some skin in the game, allows for the project to be delivered not only delivered, but really on time and on budget. 

07:29
So we have three funding levels. The first is $10,000 or less. That's called our Spark award level and we require a 25% match for that. We also have our Amplifier award level level, which is ten thousand and one dollars, going all the way up to fifty thousand dollars, where the match amount just increases up to fifty percent. And then we have our transformer award. These are kind of the more significant projects where it'll be fifty thousand and one dollars, going all the way to a hundred thousand dollars, and we require a hundred percent match on that. But what's really nice and really flexible is that we also allow for some in-kind to be as part of the match. So oftentimes, you know, with Shine we can't pay for any labor costs or some staff overhead. A lot of times the nonprofit will pay for that the labor or the you know service delivery on their own anyways and that satisfies the match and that makes it so convenient and just adds a lot of flexibility to the program. 

08:21 - Jeff Holden (Host)
What a spectrum of service that allows, though, for a nonprofit. Let's say, they've got a capital campaign new building, yeah, and they can leverage that. That's $100,000 less that they have to spend. That can go into more, whatever it happens to be, for that facility or capital campaign. Exactly, I'm sure that this is not an unlimited amount of funding. Is there a cap? Is there a certain number that you hit? When it's there, you're done. 

08:45 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, it's a good question. We do have a budgeted amount. However, it really just depends on the compelling applications that we receive. I'll just run some examples of some past Shine cohorts. So this current year we have 21 nonprofits that we invested in and we invested $532,000 in total through those projects. Last year it was 29 nonprofits and it was $580,000 that we invested. So it really just depends on the compelling applications that we get. There's not necessarily a dedicated set amount and all we want is we want to get these applications and we're like oh man, this is a no-brainer, we got to fund this and because that makes us happy, it makes and we know what the heart of our nonprofits, they know what's best. So oftentimes, like we just want to feel that in an application and sometimes we might fund a little bit more, sometimes we might fund a little bit less, just given on the, you know what we receive. 

09:36 - Jeff Holden (Host)
And speaking of application, as many of us would attest, some of these applications and grant forms can really really be cumbersome. Do you have guidance for people who are going through the application process? 

09:49 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, absolutely so. Right now we're actually hosting a variety of technical assistance webinars. We're doing a couple in-person sessions as well, where we're an open book. We'll show you exactly the guidelines of the program. We'll show you the past projects that we've invested in, but we'll walk you through the application and show you every question, want to make sure it's a very good blend of both of our organizations together, so that could be a little bit of a challenge, but we'll walk you through that and we're an open book up until July 31st. 

10:31 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Roughly how much time should somebody allocate to the application completion process? 

10:37 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, it's good. So we there's a few things we have seen different organizations basically chip away at an application. You know you're able to kind of save your progress as you go and they use the whole two months. Those are our, I would say, those are our overachievers, right. And then there's definitely some that wait to the last day and we've seen they start and finish just in the span of a couple hours, maybe with a cup of coffee or something I'd imagine. So for most organizations I think it would probably take three or four hours going through. We don't ask very in-depth questions. We do ask some of the basics, like tell us about your organization, all the amazing things you do, the programs you're currently providing, what's your project, what's your budget. Give us a couple letters of support from maybe your board and some collaborating organizations, if you have any, and submit, and then we'll start the review process. 

11:26 - Jeff Holden (Host)
And you mentioned you go through. The compelling ones are really those that stick. What is it, in terms of evaluation, that you use? How do you decide who gets what? 

11:39 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, it's good. Fortunately, with Shine Awards being around since 2017, we have had so much interest internally on helping this program succeed. So it's not just me reviewing these applications, it's a whole host of people here at SMUD. We have our executive teams who review our department staff. We have various subject matter experts. So if you're asking about a program around energy efficiency, we have people who speak that language and know what they're looking for and score everything. So it's a very competitive process. But the one thing I tell every single organization is you have to assume that someone might get your application that has never heard of your organization before, even though they lived in Sacramento for 10, 20, 30 years. So really make sure that you're selling your organization, and even though they lived in Sacramento for 10, 20, 30 years. So really make sure that you're selling your organization and all the amazing work that you do. 

12:26 - Jeff Holden (Host)
That's a very key point and I can't stress that enough because there are so many nonprofits in the community and the likelihood if you're in a space, you may not have heard of something that's over here, or over here and maybe just in a lane that isn't your lane, so it's very likely you haven't heard of it. How many applicants do you see on an average year or how many applicants do you expect this year? Do you have any idea? 

12:50 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, there's definitely a range. We've gotten everything from 100 applications to 200. And I don't say that hopefully to scare anybody off right, like limiting 200 applications down to 21 or 29, like I mentioned earlier, is definitely a challenge on our end, but we always do. The reason why I wanted to say that was just because we just want to have those compelling projects where we're just like, yeah, this is a no brainer, we have to fund this, we're going to do it. And what's really nice about Shine is we've had award participants come back and apply saying, oh, it's been great working with SMUD, I want to do another project, I'm going to do something maybe a little bit different, or we're going to be able to expand this project because of this, and that's been incredibly special. 

13:28 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Yeah, that's awesome, especially once they understand the process they get in and if they are compelling enough, they may get the award again too. Yeah, exactly. You also have the application in multiple languages, which I think is really significant for anybody who's listening to say well, you know, we don't have a staff that speaks English. Really well, you accommodate that. Can you tell us just a little bit about that language accommodation? 

13:53 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, absolutely so. One thing I love about SMUD is that we completely reflect the diverse community that we serve. So if you're on SMUDorg in general up at the top, you can click and change the languages. I think we serve 15 different languages on our website alone, and then for Shine, for some of our printed materials, applications, et cetera. We have those all produced in about eight different languages, I believe. So we just don't want any barriers to prevent an organization like you mentioned from applying, because oftentimes they're so tied up in the work that they do and they hit that roadblock they're less likely to apply. So we want to remove those barriers wherever we can. 

14:28 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Boy, the significance of what this program could mean to an organization. Just offsetting some of that expense. Maybe it's operational, the air conditioning goes out, they don't have the ability to even staff because of the heat, and here you are, as a savior, at some point coming in. That could really make a difference, make or break an organization just with the Shine Awards, not to mention all that they do for the community. 

14:51 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, I mean. One thing that's really special is we are the energy people and we understand that a nonprofit may not understand how old their HVAC is and why it's so inefficient. And we have the people who will. During this process, during this application process, they'll come to your community center, food bank location, your church, and do a full energy assessment and tell you, hey, you could really benefit from a new HVAC system. 

15:17
It looks like this is 20 years old, or hey, that gas heater you have. You're not paying SMUD rates on your gas in the winter, you're paying a different utility and our rates are actually 50% lower than theirs. So you should consider paying for this. And we'll show you the not only how much greenhouse gases you're saving and what it's doing for your carbon footprint, but we'll show you how much funding you are saving each and every month. And again, that's money that goes back into the nonprofit so that they can do more service delivery. Again, I think this past year has been so challenging for everyone and all of our nonprofit partners losing funding, uncertainty around funding. If there's something that we can alleviate there on the energy side, we will do it. 

15:55 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Key point and uncertainty is the word With the application of how this could work. I'm just thinking from any organization. I mean, we've got lighting, we've got refrigeration, we've got heating and air conditioning so many places that they could benefit with just the assessment. So it's worth it to reach out and get the assessment, if nothing else, to identify where the opportunity might lie, too correct. 

16:19 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, absolutely. And our kind of energy services side isn't just limited to June and July during the shine process, so they can get an assessment and decide, hey, well, there actually are some rebates available through SMUD anyways, might as well just do this. And what's really nice that I always hit on is that even if you're just hearing about Shine today and you're like, hey, it sounds cool, like a lot of funding, I just don't know if we're ready. That's okay too. Right, shine will be here next year and the year after that. 

16:48
So you have time to think about this and and I love having these conversations in june and july, don't get me wrong but let's talk in august, let's figure out a really kind of impactful project that blends one of our amazing non-profits in the sacramento community and smud, and again then we create that like application that comes in. That's oh my gosh. We have to fund this. This is changing people's lives. That's incredible. So I do recommend that for anybody listening, this is a good time to have these conversations year round, not just in June and July. 

17:16 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Key point, because some of the people that we're speaking with in the studio we see that they've got a capital campaign, they've got a building project coming up not until next year. But why wait? Get started on that process today, because if you can alleviate some of that expense through an award, all the much better. 

17:31 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Yeah, and I think you know we all need a deadline, right, you see, apply by July 31st. You're like, all right, I'm going to do it. And then it's all of a sudden I mean we're pretty far into June now, so like time is flying. But just know, you know we really want to work with our nonprofits in the community and this is definitely a program that will continue past this year, so we can always talk about ways to team up with each other in the future. 

17:52 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Closing comments. Before we wrap Kevin. 

17:55 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
I would say first, I think thank you for what you do. Providing this opportunity for our nonprofit community is so special. Giving us the chance to talk about Shine is amazing. Biggest thing for anybody listening again. June to July 31st that's our application deadline. We'll go through an extensive review process. We'll let everybody know at the end of the year. If you want to learn more, go to smudorg slash shine. See everything on there from what types of projects we funded in the past. You'll see the different funding levels. You'll see our schedule for coming webinars. You'll get my email. If you want to hit me up, let me know please. We're an open book, so please visit our website and we'd love to see some great applications. 

18:31 - Jeff Holden (Host)
I will put this in the show notes as well, but did you say actually they can email you directly? They can speak with you specifically? 

18:38 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Absolutely yeah. At the bottom of the website it'll have. Our Shine email inbox goes right to me. I read every single one of them and make sure that all of our nonprofits have all the resources that they need to put in an application. 

18:50 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Okay, everyone, you can actually speak to, kevin, so it is well worth your time, energy and effort to at least start the process. If it's not going to be appropriate for you, that's fine, but start, because there's so much to be gained for it. I am so proud to be a part of a community where we see our nonprofit utility, smud, making such significant contributions to the very nonprofits you serve. What an exciting program and one of our truly great benefit to the community in so many ways. Kevin, thanks and thanks to SMUD for all that you guys do to support our nonprofits and let's get a record number of applications going this year. 

19:27 - Kevin Burdick (Guest)
Let's do it. If we do, it's all thanks to you. This is something different that we haven't done before, so I think this is the year I appreciate that Well, and I really appreciate you sharing the program with us. Absolutely. Thank you, Jeff. 

19:38 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Smudgeshine Awards. You can find the link to the awards in the show notes as well, and thank you for listening to this news pod brought to you by the Nonprofit Podcast Network.