Covenant Solar Initiative

Chéri Smith is Founder of Covenant Solar Initiative.  Her experience in addressing climate change and struggling economies with renewables spans two decades, including senior leadership and advising roles with Tesla Energy, SolarCity, and the U.S. Department of Energy.  She is focused on Solar Capacity Building, Project & Program Development, Policy, Finance and Workforce Development - volunteering the majority of her time to marginalized and vulnerable populations. A descendant of the Mi'Kmaq tribe of Maine/Canadian Maritimes, she has made it her life's work to deploy her expertise towards the revitalization of indigenous American communities.

She serves as an Advisory Board member for the Masters in Renewable Energy & Sustainability Systems program at the Pennsylvania State University, an Advisor to the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, served on the Education Advisory Committee for SEIA's Solar Power International and was an appointed member of the Buffalo, NY Workforce Investment Board.

Covenant Solar Initiative is a solution for eliminating the rampant energy poverty that exists in Native American communities.  Covenant is led by a team of Native change agents in tribal communities, solar industry veterans, and energy finance experts.   Our innovative, native-led solar economic and workforce development programs are highly responsive to the social, economic, and environmental conditions of Indigenous American communities. After years of development and demonstration projects on the Northern Cheyenne and Standing Rock Sioux reservations, our full-scale pilot is ready to launch.

By empowering tribes and their members with the knowledge, skills, and tools required to eliminate the extractive energy systems in their portfolios, themselves, replacing them with clean, regenerative systems, we are leveraging the potential of solar energy as an instrument to completely transform entire economic, ecological, and social systems in many of the most marginalized and disadvantaged communities in the country.  

There are 567 federally recognized American Indian/Alaska Native Tribes in the US. The current Native population is 6.79 million, with 30% living on reservations .  The Energy Information Administration estimates that 14% of Native American households don't have access to electricity. For those that do, it comes at great cost. Discriminatory pricing practices result in rates that are roughly twice the amount paid by non-Natives. Because 1-in-3 Native Americans in the U.S. lives in poverty, these high energy costs often force families to choose between food and electric heating of their homes. People resort to burning things to keep warm. When they run out of things to burn, some die of exposure to cold. 

Existing and previous efforts to deploy solar energy in Indian Country have largely focused on one-off, externally managed projects that have value, but don’t address the core issue of poverty and joblessness in Native communities.  The Covenant model is quite different. The effects of this program will help to eliminate the crippling effects of energy poverty among Native people, restore sovereignty to Indian tribes, while leading the way for communities across the globe to embrace more regenerative approaches to energy, health, and the stewardship of Earth. 

Our first-of-its-kind approach to solar development will result in the establishment of Native-employee-owned solar cooperatives on reservations, enabling tribes and their members to reap 100% of the benefits of solar, rather than sending most of every dollar spent on energy outside of the community.

In partnership with Tribal Colleges, Covenant has created specialized programs to teach solar entrepreneurship, installation, maintenance, and financing to Native people. These programs prepare tribal members to develop, construct, and maintain solar energy systems in a way that is responsive to their unique economic, ecological, cultural, and social conditions, and that maximizes the inclusion and engagement of local labor and businesses.  

With our partners at Yale University, we have created innovative, regenerative financial mechanisms to support these new entities, which will result in solar-driven economies in tribal communities, built and led by Native people.  Our systems-based engagement method is underpinned by a sophisticated and elegant approach to solar development - which weaves expertise in policy, economic development, workforce development, solar technology, and systems operations - to plan, design, build, and maintain solar energy systems in a manner that builds capacity for tribes to both eliminate energy poverty in their community, and reclaim their energy sovereignty. 

Over two million people reside on Indian reservations in this country, which are often referred to as the “Third World” of America.  Unemployment rates exceed 80%, and 90% of tribal members live below the poverty line. Our work is focused on dramatically improving the lives of these Native Americans. 

Our team is diverse, with several Native members. Our Executive Director is Cheyenne. We have all worked hand-in-hand with tribes on reservations for over 20 years. 

Our approach was designed to yield substantial outcomes, swiftly:

• We partner with Native community and spiritual leaders, colleges and universities, and national technical, finance, and workforce experts to establish robust solar education and deployment ecosystems that are financially regenerative, creating jobs for Native people serving their own communities. 
• We convene wisdom and expertise from broad disciplines, to help build the capacity of Native American communities to plan, build, and maintain solar systems in a way that is responsive to their highly unique cultural, economic, and energy systems.
• Our efforts are designed to have maximum effect on economic development and the eradication of energy poverty.  Ultimately, tribal self-sufficiency is strengthened, sovereignty is preserved, and sacred covenants to preserve and protect Mother Earth are fulfilled.

Covenant was founded with the belief that solar energy has the potential to transform environmental, social and economic systems towards vibrant and vital indigenous American communities.  The central shift we pursue is the elevation of tribes towards self-determination, above and beyond the divisive and reductive systems which have been detrimental to first nation communities in the United States for generations.  

Our model takes a culturally sensitive, inclusive, and systems based approach to addressing climate and energy challenges. Our approach supports ancient belief systems, while applying modern technology to solve some of indigenous Americans’ longest standing problems.

The Northern Cheyenne’s homelands sit atop the richest seam of low-sulfur coal remaining in the country. Worth billions of dollars, the coal is a tantalizing resource. For nearly a half-century, since 1973 when mining behemoth Arch Coal offered the Tribe a hospital in exchange for “exploration rights,” Arch has pressured the Tribe in court to mine the coal. Yet, despite the promised riches, these proposals have been rejected by the Cheyenne, as they have stood fast in their resolve to preserve their homelands.  

In 2016, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe adopted a series of unprecedented resolutions eschewing fossil fuels and endorsing green energy. That March, conceding the strength of the tribe’s convictions, Arch Coal reluctantly withdrew its 40-year-old mining application.

In the wake of this victory, the Tribe, feeling insecure about its energy and economic future, issued a humble invitation to their friends who had helped them since 2002 -- the energy experts who now comprise the Covenant Solar team.  They asked for help to create a regenerative way forward, a culturally-sensitive and holistic approach to building their economy, while honoring sacred covenants to protect and preserve the Earth.  Our answer to that call was the genesis of Covenant Solar Initiative.

I am the great-great-granddaughter of Lucy Wood, a first-generation Native American from the Mi'Kmaq Tribe of Northern Maine.  She married Alvin Thompson, a white man from Britain.  When I was six, visiting my great-grandmother, their daughter, I had a profound experience which has shaped my ideology. As much as I yearned, I was not allowed to speak about our Native ancestry, for reasons I have only come to understand as an adult.  My grandparents lived in a small Maine town which had Native community within it.  One day, they took me to buy pair of moccasins at a general store in the Native part of town.  While there, I learned the Native man ahead of us was buying a can of dog food and loaf of bread... to make sandwiches...because that's all he could afford.  "How could this happen in a just world, that some humans had so much, and others had NOTHING?  Especially THEM, Grandma. They were here FIRST."   I still haven't overcome the overwhelming sadness and anger, decades later.  That moment and those feelings were etched on my heart and soul and are what drives me to contribute my unique skillset to eliminating poverty for Native Americans.

Covenant Solar Initiative aims to disrupt the devastating cycle of energy poverty, for as many Native Americans as possible, as soon as possible.  To fulfill this mission, substantial and specific expertise is required, as well as proven cultural sensitivity.  This is why we have assembled a distinguished team of tribal, educational, and community development leaders — along with some of the nation’s foremost experts in solar technology, education, energy policy, finance, and economic development — hailing from academe, government, as well as from solar industry innovators, including Tesla Energy, SolarCity, and SunRun.  

With that being said, it is important to note that the Initiative's primary purpose is to serve as a catalyst -- recognizing that it isn’t enough to just import a bunch of experts to solve an indigenous community’s problems for them.  Rather, we work together, learning as much as we are teaching, to effect tremendous positive change for Native communities. We do this in a holistic way, which supports and honors the customs, traditions, and belief systems of Native people. 

We are a currently a fiscally-sponsored project of Earth Island Institute, which provides us a highly respected institutional home with robust administrative, legal, and financial systems and infrastructure, freeing us Founders to do the important work we are committed to doing.  We will seek our own 501(c)3 designation some time in the future, once we are certain we have the staff resources to support the infrastructure needed to do so.

In the years since Covenant was founded, the Founding Team has overcome significant obstacles, delaying the development of the project.  Otto Braidedhair, our Executive Director, had to step away from Covenant for 2018 to care for his terminally ill wife, who passed away from cancer.  

In 2019, Dr. Riley, our Academic Director, had to attend to a significant family matter, could not work for the better part of the year. I, too, could not dedicate very much time to Covenant in 2019, because of two family crises: my 20-year-old son, an Army soldier, returned home when he sustained a traumatic brain injury while deployed in a war zone in the Middle East.  At the same time, I was caring for my mother, who then passed away from a terminal illness in December.

Despite my personal challenges, and losing the support of my co-founders for many months, I did not give up. I committed to working on Covenant as much as I possibly could during this time, collaborating with Yale to develop our financial model, continuing in an advisory role with the Tribe, and creating our Community Development Framework in collaboration with U.C. Berkeley.  Our team is strong and resilient!

In 2016, while Head of Workforce/Training Development for SolarCity, I had also been advising the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council on solar energy feasibility.  When Arch Coal withdrew their application to mine their land, I arranged for SolarCity to donate a 100kW solar array for the tribal capitol building - a fitting gift to honor their resolve.  At the time, this was the largest solar array on U.S. tribal lands, with a value of $500,000. It produces 40% of the building's energy.

Working nights and weekends, I managed the development and management of this major project – including the design, procurement, installation, and commissioning - pooling resources and labor donated by SolarCity and other companies.  This was no easy feat, as the Northern Cheyenne Reservation is in a remote corner of Montana.  Everything - including the crews and equipment - had to be imported from other states.

A month before the array was to be installed, SolarCity merged with Tesla. Elon was now in charge.  He announced he was "cancelling" this project. After risking my job to stand up to him, outlining the myriad reasons why we should not renege on our promise to a Sovereign Nation, the project was completed.

Currently in the U.S., there is much talk about, and investment in, developing solar on Indian Reservations.  While the environmental benefits of solar vs. fossil fuels are clear, the positive economic benefits to tribal governments vary greatly by project, are contingent on myriad variables.  The direct benefit to tribes and their members is often negligible and, sometimes, detrimental -- especially with developer-led, utility-scale projects.  Small, Native-built projects and programs are becoming common, but these do not have the elements of a scaleable approach to economic development, nor are they guided by a national team of experts.

The Covenant model is both scaleable and replicable, and can be deployed in virtually any tribal community. In addition to the Northern Cheyenne we have a project running on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, and have built trust and working relationships with the Southern Cheyenne of Oklahoma, the Northern Arapaho of Wyoming, the Southern Arapaho of Oklahoma, and the Navajo. We plan to launch future iterations of the program on these reservations, once we've refined it with the Northern Cheyenne and Standing Rock programs already underway.

The key strategies of Covenant Solar Initiative are unique, as they are focused on creating jobs and re-localizing energy economies. All with the goal of not only keeping 100% of the money spent on energy within the community, but actually earning a return on it, via the highly innovative component of our model -- a revolving fund -- the financial mechanism we created in collaboration with Yale.  

PURPOSE

To eliminate poverty, diminish climate change, and create thriving indigenous communities with the clean and regenerative power of solar.  

PROBLEMS

Native Americans experience unemployment and poverty rates at disproportionate levels.  The resulting stress contributes to communities being torn apart by alcoholism and drug abuse.  Life expectancy is very low, due to inadequate nutrition and education, and dangerous indoor air quality from the burning of wood and coal inside homes for cooking and heating.

The homes with electricity have inefficient electric heat, and inadequate insulation.  People can't afford the discriminatorily high electric bills, so, the utilities disconnect their power. Wood is scarce, so they burn anything they can find to keep warm.  When they run out of things to burn, people die of exposure to cold.  

Existing and previous efforts to deploy solar energy in Indian Country have largely focused on one-off, externally-managed projects that have value, but don’t address the core issue of energy poverty in Native communities.  

STRATEGIES

Partner with Native community and spiritual leaders, colleges and universities, and technical, finance, and workforce experts to establish robust solar education and deployment ecosystems that are financially regenerative, creating jobs for Native people, serving their own communities. 

Convene knowledge from broad disciplines, to build the capacity of Native communities to plan, build, and maintain their own solar systems.

Create Native-owned solar cooperatives, and assist tribes in navigating existing systems, facilitating beneficial collaborations and advocating against discriminatory utility practices.

TARGET CONSTITUENCIES

Native American communities where energy poverty is of particular concern.

SHORT-TERM OUTCOMES

Native people are trained in solar installation, operations, and maintenance.  Technical and management assistance is provided to Tribal governments on the deployment of community solar projects.  Newly-trained tribal members are employed to work on these projects.

LONG-TERM OUTCOMES

Thriving, regenerative economies are created through the implementation of educational programs, innovative financial mechanisms, Native employee-owned solar enterprises, and the resulting jobs created within tribal communities. 95% of every dollar spent on energy remains in those communities.

ULTIMATE IMPACT

Tribal self-determination and sufficiency are strengthened, sovereignty is preserved, and sacred covenants to preserve and protect Mother Earth are fulfilled.

Currently, our project serves the Northern Cheyenne of Southeastern Montana, with a population of 5,025 currently residing on the reservation, and the Standing Rock Sioux, with a population of 7,250 currently residing on the reservation.

We have been invited by several tribes to bring the Covenant program to their reservation communities.  In early 2022, we will begin on-site planning for the Southern Cheyenne & Southern Arapaho Nations of Oklahoma. 8,700 Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal members, currently reside on this reservation which is shared by both Tribes.  

The Northern Arapaho Nation will be the fourth tribal community we will serve.  There are 26,500 people currently residing on the reservation.  On-site planning will in 2023, with program launch anticipated in the fall of 2024.

It is important to note that these four Tribes - the Northern Cheyenne, Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Northern Arapaho - like most Tribes in the U.S., are impacted to this day by the history of European colonization and violence. In the case of these Tribes, however, this history also includes the US army-led Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, in which hundreds of their people were killed, the majority of them women and children.

Violence, broken treaties, forced assimilation, and the lack of any tangible economy since the deliberate extermination of the buffalo by colonists have all taken their toll. As a result, these Tribes are among the poorest, most socially disadvantaged people in North America.  We are prioritizing their profound needs, serving these communities first.

Our goal is to improve the lives of 40,000 Native Americans in the next five years.  We feel this goal is realistic and achievable, because of our team, our expertise, and our commitment: 

• Our team is comprised of tribal, educational, and community development leaders — along with some of the nation’s foremost experts in solar technology, education, energy policy, and finance.

• The Covenant approach is unique, as it is oriented towards capacity building, long-term economic development, and job creation - not exploitive projects by outside developers which do little or nothing to improve the situation of energy poverty for Native people.

• We are empowering tribes with the knowledge, skills, and tools required to eliminate extractive energy systems in their portfolios, and replace them with clean, regenerative systems - themselves. The Initiative serves as a catalyst, recognizing that it isn’t enough to just import a bunch of experts to solve an indigenous community’s problems for them.  Rather, we work together to effect tremendous positive change, in a way that supports and honors the customs, traditions, and belief systems of Native people.

• We are Natives and we are Solar Experts, working together, providing evidence-based solutions, driven by a promise to leverage our experience and the potential of solar energy as an instrument to transform entire economic, ecological, and social systems.

• The Covenant model is scaleable and replicable, and can readily be adapted for use in disadvantaged communities all over the world.

The only true barrier to accomplishing our goals would be a lack of a consistent stream of revenue to keep the operations of Covenant Solar Initiative, the non-profit itself, running.  The programs which we are establishing in tribal communities are designed to be self-sufficient within a short period time.  As Covenant does not charge tribes for our services, we must identify and secure streams of long term operational/unrestricted funding.  

We are confident that we will be successful in raising this funding, based on the tremendous impact the Initiative will have on so many lives.

NOTE:  Our Indiginized Energy project on the Standing Rock Reservation is fully funded for the next 5 years.

With a small grant, we have engaged the services of a team of fundraising communications experts, and have recently completed a Major Donor fundraising plan which we will launch in August, 2020. We will also launch a Foundation fundraising effort in early 2021.

We currently partner with several organizations, including:

Yale Center for Business & The Environment

Partnered to create the financial modeling tools which have allowed us to prove the financial assumptions for our native-owned solar co-ops, and will provide the data infrastructure to support the revolving fund. 

UC Berkeley Master of Development Practice 

Partnered to create the framework for solar community development, based on principles derived from globally-proven models.

Raise Green

Partnered to develop impact investment opportunities for tribal solar projects.

Chief Dull Knife College

Partnered to create programs to teach solar entrepreneurship, business development, and financing to tribal members, leading to the establishment of a Native-Employee-Owned Solar Cooperative and/or Native-owned solar businesses, on each partner reservation. Established programs to teach tribal members how to design, install, operate and maintain solar systems.

ecoCheyenne

In cooperation with the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council, and advised by members of the CSI Team, grassroots environmental organization, ecoCheyenne, is providing community outreach to support development of a robust, resilient, and diversified new “green energy” economy, with investments targeted to improve the quality of life on the 440,000-acre Northern Cheyenne Reservation in remote southeast Montana.

GivePower Foundation

Indigenized Energy was fiscally sponsored by GivePower - the now independent former foundation of SolarCity - from which Covenant Solar Initiative essentially spun off.  Covenant has taken on IE, and the shared mission of both organizations to eliminate poverty and the use of fossil fuels in indigenous communities.  This sub-project is fully funded.

The promise of solar economic development is only realized through the convergence of diverse expertise in policy, education, technology, and systems operations.  Our model is designed to yield substantial outcomes, swiftly

• We convene wisdom and expertise from broad disciplines, to help build the capacity of Native American communities to plan, build, and maintain solar systems in a way that is responsive to their highly unique cultural, economic, and energy systems. 
• We partner with Native community leaders, leading colleges, national technical, finance, and workforce experts to establish robust solar education and deployment ecosystems that are financially regenerative, and create jobs for Native people, serving their own communities

Our efforts are designed to have maximum effect on economic development and the eradication of energy poverty.  Our engagement method is carefully aligned with the ways tribes have naturally evolved for centuries.  We build relationships with tribal elders to establish trust and acceptance, and design interventions tailored to each indigenous community’s unique conditions, with an eye on future generations.    

A primary focus of the Initiative is working with tribal governments to assist them in developing energy policies and programs that are responsive to evolving energy challenges, as well as opportunities.  Simultaneously, we engage with the national network of Tribal Colleges, to deliver education and training in Solar Business Development, Management, Installation, Safety, Operations, and Maintenance.  

Our program enables tribal governments and individual tribal members to exploit the power of the sun for the purposes of economic development and environmental stewardship, with tremendous human impact. 

Covenant Solar Initiative's path to financial stability lies in securing a stream of funding for the next 5 to 10 years. The path to financial stability for the communities we serve lies in the regenerative qualities of solar energy.  As our solar development projects mature, they will generate the revenue to pay back investors, as well as contribute to the revolving fund which will be established for each community.

We are working to raise operating capital through philanthropic and impact investor sources.  We are also establishing an LLC to offer securities for sale in tribal-led projects, via a crowd-funded, impact investment program via Raise Green.  The tribes will use these resources to make strategic investments in renewable energy and recapture value from renewable energy generation, to yield ROI for investors and grow each revolving fund.

We are seeking philanthropic or grant funding in the amount of $500,000 for the next two years.  This funding will allow us to bring our Founders, who have been working as volunteers for many years, on board full-time.  It will allow us to travel to the reservations we serve, and implement the extensive programs we have created.  We have in-kind donations of equipment, tools, solar panels, etc., so Prize funds would be used for salaries, travel, and administrative expenses.

It is our goal to raise these funds in the next six to eight months, not only because "the time has come", but, because there are currently major opportunities for solar development that exist on the Northern Cheyenne reservation, funded by the US Department of Energy, which will require us to be fully engaged and present to capitalize on these funds.  We risk losing these opportunities if we cannot fund Covenant this year.

This funding will be kept separate from the funding raised by and for the Native-owned cooperatives we will be establishing on each reservation.  They will have their own funding streams, and be managed by committees of Native and non-Native individuals.

$125,000 for the remainder of 2020 would allow the Core team (four individuals) to come on to payroll, and dedicate 100% of their time to the Initiative.  It will also cover travel and expenses for the three team members not located in Montana.

As Michael Scott, Director of the Montana Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Beyond Coal Campaign, said:  "We have been waiting for your program for two decades."  The need is great, and the time is now.

A quick glance at social media confirms that there is a tremendous climate justice uprising happening in the United States.  Native people are catalyzing this movement, sending a clear message to elected leaders, to industry, and to the world that they will no longer tolerate the fossil fuel regime, and its destruction of sacred lands and indigenous ways of life.  They are saying NO to extractive industries and dirty energy.  Covenant Solar Initiative offers communities something to say YES to.  A regenerative way forward.  A culturally-sensitive and holistic approach to building sustainable economies, while honoring sacred covenants to protect and preserve our planet. 

Beyond the money we need to operate, the Award and gravitas of this Prize would allow us to demonstrate to investors and donors that our efforts have been recognized and validated by a world-respected institution such as MIT.  We would greatly benefit from the unique opportunity to access the professional management and development services, mentorship and coaching, educational training, capacity building, and connection with influencers, industry leaders, and experts through the Elevate Prize Foundation’s two-year program.

While we are professionals at solar energy and Native issues, we would tremendously benefit from the professional management and development services, mentorship and coaching, educational training, capacity building, and connection with influencers, industry leaders, and experts through the Elevate Prize Program, as well as the assistance with a tailored media program, something we desperately need.

We benefit broadly from the partnerships and relationships that the Elevate Prize Foundation program offers, and appreciate the opportunity to align the available resources with our needs.

We would be eager for the Foundation's recommendation for entities with which we might engage in a public-private partnership.