Who We Are:
The Relay Network is a national network of energy efficiency implementors who promote knowledge sharing, facilitate collaborative partnerships, and encourage joint innovation. As an alliance of mission-based non-profit organizations, we leverage each other’s expertise to extend our collective reach to the buildings, residents and communities that we serve. By working together, we create partnerships that enable us to better respond to and deliver on our missions and serve as a resource to each other to increase our capacity.
What We Do - Three Pillars
We strive to increase our knowledge in the building industry to better serve building owners, residents, and communities. We believe that learning and sharing our expertise with each other will increase our capacity to help others.
Relay Network partners host monthly Community of Practice (COP) calls to learn from each other, discuss best practices, and expand our breadth of knowledge on a variety of technical and programmatic topics that our partner organizations focus on.
We believe that we are stronger and more powerful together. That’s why we value collaboration and provide our partner organizations with resources to work together to make a positive impact on communities.
Relay Network partners work together on projects, programs, and research to broaden the reach of our services. This includes working in partnership on request for proposals, securing funding for growth, program design and delivery support, and sharing our collective expertise with partners through trainings.
We collectively lead successful demonstration projects and pilot programs to enact change and help solve real-world problems.
Relay Network partners identify, develop, and implement pilot projects and new technologies, discuss emerging trends in our sector, and conduct joint research to support innovation. Relay partners implement effective solutions to reduce the carbon footprint of the building sector and work together to promote market tranformation.
Our Mission:
The Relay Network is committed to advancing healthy, high performance buildings in disinvested communities. The Relay Network utilizes learning, collaboration, and innovation to grow its capacity to serve those communities.
Project Background:
Funded by the JPB Foundation, Elevate and New Ecology, Inc. initially convened the Relay Network to connect stakeholders from the energy efficiency and affordable multifamily housing sectors to explore strategies for increasing energy efficiency in multifamily housing.
Since its first meeting in Fall 2015, the Relay Network has grown to consist of 8 different mission-based organizations across the country with a cohort of actively engaged core partners and technical staff from each organization. Through a series of monthly Community of Practice (COP) calls, working group meetings and quarterly discussions, Relay partners connect regularly throughout the year to share their skills and expertise and work together on business development opportunities and strategy, with their activities culminating in an annual Fall convening to further build upon the working relationships they have established and find even more ways to collaborate and work closely together.