The Path to Funding: The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF)

TGIF organizers rally for support.

You have a great idea.

You have all these reasons why it’s a great idea.

You can list all the benefits it will create and how much it will contribute to your community.

But, there is one problem holding everything back: funding.

I realized as a freshman in college that funding is one of the key factors to institutionalization, which is imperative for environmental initiatives. Until entering this project in the Spring of 2018, I never had experienced the processes of handling a large budget for a research project. It’s a role that I thought was reserved for professionals and not one that I expected to take so early on in my career. Not only that, for over a year I was the sole person in charge of this recycling system, which put even more pressure on me to make the right decisions. Nevertheless, I truly learned a lot from my experience in finding funding, and it was especially motivating to do so for a project I cared very deeply about. I realize that this is an issue that many environmental initiatives struggle with, so I decided to make a three-part blog series about my path to funding.

When I was a freshman at UC Berkeley, I was hired as an intern to work on education and marketing about sorting waste in the on-campus dorms. A three-bin system (compost, recycling, and landfill) was installed in all dorm rooms and was implemented in order to give new Cal students exposure to UC Berkeley’s unique waste sorting system. I soon found out that they were funded by The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF).

The Green Initiative Fund is a fund made for UC Berkeley students to fund their “green” projects on campus. The Green Initiative Fund was created via a student fee referendum on the ballot during UC Berkeley’s 2007 ASUC elections. By voting “yes” on the referendum, UC Berkeley’s students created TGIF’s $5 per semester student fee and created the charter by which TGIF operates. Since its inaugural grant cycle in spring 2008, TGIF has awarded more than $3.1 million in grants to 230 grant projects. These projects have included the funding of 408 student sustainability internships (source: TGIF website).

TGIF was my initial point of interest for funding when I started, largely due to its close ties with the Student Environmental Resource Center (under which I am employed to lead this project) and student accessibility.

At the point when I started, I had “inherited” an industrial granulator (funded by a crowdfunding campaign) and a Filabot extruder and spooler (also funded by a previous TGIF grant). However, I recognized that I needed funding to maintain these instruments and purchase other materials to increase the ergonomics and scalability of this recycling system. Together, Scott Silvas and I put together a TGIF application for a mini-grant ($5,000 or less) to help further institutionalize this recycling system on the UC Berkeley campus.

All TGIF grant applications, including mine, are all public information and can be accessed through the TGIF website under the “Funded Projects” tab. This resource is the perfect place to see the ideas, goals, and impact of the plethora of green projects being done by students on the UC Berkeley campus. In addition, the application outlines the specific steps needed to be carried out, the sustainability goals or aspects that the project is tackling, explicitly how “progress” will be measured, and how the applicant will publicize their project.

TGIF holds a number of useful workshops before and after receiving the grant to help you in your journey. This includes grant-writing workshops, how-to-measure-metrics workshops, and the “Resources” tab on their website.

TGIF representatives tabling for support and to spread information about their program on campus.

The UC Berkeley community is extremely fortunate to have the presence of a green fund on campus that is so accessible for students to pursue their sustainability projects. I understand that not many schools have this privilege, but I would highly encourage students to actively create similar programs on their campuses. TGIF was formed by students, for students through a grassroots campaign utilizing social media, flash mobs, clever campaign flyers and slogans, class announcements, and news articles. On their website, TGIF also provides resources on how other schools can develop a green fund on their campus.

This blog post was written by Lauren Irie.

#Funding #HowTo #Grant