Member Area
What's New
Calendar of Events
Newsletters
Bulletin Board
Publications
Membership
Member Discounts
The means to be daring and innovative
April 10, 2006
By Adele Holoch
Correspondent
For the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, making a difference in the Vermont economy is a task that starts at the ground.
Since it was established by the Legislature in 1995, the Montpelier-based nonprofit organization has been furthering sustainable development in Vermont by providing grants and other forms of support to state businesses and business networks.
Through its grants -- like $2,500 grants awarded to Sugarbush and Smugglers' Notch as incentive to use biodiesel fuel in their snow machines -- aren't always large, they're meant to make a lasting impact. For the ski areas, "that small amount was enough for them to say, 'All right, we'll take a risk,'" said Ellen Kahler, the jobs fund's executive director.
The legislation that established the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund stated the purpose of the fund was to serve "the dual goals of creating quality jobs and conserving and protecting Vermont's social and natural environments" it was identified as being of "primary importance to economic vitality and the quality of life in Vermont."
Between 1997 and 2006, the organization received more than $2 million in state appropriations, making about half of that funding available to more than 100 sustainable development initiatives and organizations in the state, Kahler said.
The fund has also used its capital to leverage an additional $4.7 million in funding from other state and federal sources and private foundations, she said.
The organization's relative independence from the state -- it is now a nonprofit, charitable 501(c)3 organization -- gives it the flexibility to take greater chances with the initiatives it supports, Kahler said.
"The opportunity for us is that we get to try riskier propositions. We get to take chances that state entities like the Department of Economic Development just can't. We think of ourselves as pioneers," she said.
Focus
The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund focuses its efforts in five economic and market sectors: renewable energy, environmental technology, forest products, sustainable agriculture, and waste and pollution control.
"What the Legislature was interested in back in 1995 was that we need an organization that's going to think ahead 10, 15, 20 years, and look at what our economy is going to look like in the future," Kahler said.
One key role the jobs fund plays for businesses and networks in those sectors is to provide early-stage funding for "innovative new projects and programs," she said.
Providing grant money isn't all the jobs fund does to support sustainable development. The organization also works to create and support networks.
Among those the fund supported is Vermont WoodNet, a network of wood-product businesses established in 2000 to create joint manufacturing and marketing opportunities.
The organization has also supported the Vermont Biofuels Association, a group of individuals -- including biofuels producers, farmers and engineers -- interested in exploring plant-derived fuels for Vermont.
"Especially in a state that is so rural, like Vermont, in order to compete in the global marketplace, in order to be able to sell as many of their products locally, it's a very useful strategy to have businesses come together in the form of a business network, or an association," Kahler said.
The organization has also supported the state's organic seed growers by providing grants to fund the Seed Production Technical Assistance Program designed by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, or NOFA.
"NOFA had been getting interest in this topic, and they asked if I would be willing to develop a technical assistance program around it," said Tom Stearns, owner of High Mowing Seeds, an organic seed company in Wolcott. The program, Stearns added, involved "helping farms diversify what they were doing, so they could retain the jobs they had or create a new niche of seed production in Vermont."
The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund provided two years of funding to support the project, and Stearns said it made a difference.
"There are a number of people who are actively growing seed, both for the local market and for the rest of the country."
Conduit
"The jobs fund acts as a conduit and a catalyst for sustainable development initiatives in the state," Kahler said.
In addition to supporting networks of businesses actively working toward sustainable development, the jobs fund has developed an effort called the Cornerstone Project. This began as a network of institutions -- including the University of Vermont, Vermont Law School, Middlebury College, and the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services -- that agreed to look to Vermont wood products from sustainably harvested forests for their construction projects.
"We have helped to convene a group of people and institutions to basically say, 'Hey, when you're doing construction projects, how about getting as much Vermont wood into those construction projects as you can?'" Kahler said.
The success of the first Cornerstone Project led the jobs fund to begin a second project geared toward the use of biofuels. Its grants to Sugarbush and Smugglers' Notch was part of that project, which aims to develop the biodiesel market in Vermont.
With the ski areas, "what we heard back is that they're very satisfied with the use of biodiesel instead of petroleum-based diesel," Kahler said.
The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund "is always going to be small-scale, and somewhat out of the central thinking of economic development," said Spencer Putnam, a member of the jobs fund board and executive director of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.
"But I think it's important to have an agency like that, that's keeping Vermont true to a lot of the traditional values of sustainability and self-reliance. I think it is going to be an important agency to Vermont's future economic development." Profile NAME: The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund
WHAT IT DOES: A 501(c)3 organization established through a Vermont Legislature mandate in 1995. The VSJF works to provide funding and other forms of support to environmentally and socially sustainable Vermont businesses and business networks.
ADDRESS: 61 Elm St., Montpelier, VT 05602
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Ellen Kahler
INFORMATION: www.vsjf.org or call 828-1260.
Vermont WoodNet
P.O. Box 4562
Burlington, VT 05406
email us
Copyright 2008 Vermont WoodNet, Inc.