Communities of Practice

The Communities of Practice program connects leaders to one another so they can share ideas, foster innovation, and create results. The program brings together professionals with on-the-ground experience and national experts to shape and advance cutting-edge practices for growing an inclusive green economy.

Green For All facilitates three Communities of Practice:

• Retrofit America’s Cities focusing on city scale energy efficiency programs
• Green Pathways Out of Poverty focusing on green job training programs and career ladders
• Water focusing on creating high quality, broadly accessible jobs starting with the stormwater sector

Sign Up To Be A Part of the Community

The Communities of Practice Program facilitates information sharing and model development through intensive in-person meetings and conferences; production of tools, templates, and other resources highlighting best practices learned on the ground; and through an electronic newsletter that lets members know where models are being created and implemented.  Building this awareness among members accomplishes three goals, to: Link, Lift and Leverage.

LINK: Practitioners become aware of similar initiatives across the country and models and resources that like-minded programs have already developed. Members can use this information to connect with one another and share stories, insights, and analysis about their experiences, while finding opportunities to collaborate.

LIFT: Collective sharing allows members to identify the best ideas, models, and programs in the country and replicate them in their own programs. One of the key goals for the Communities of Practice program is to showcase and highlight the models that leaders lift up as best examples, as well as to distill the lessons from less successful attempts. Participants gain new knowledge that would be impossible for any one group to develop outside of the Community of Practice.

LEVERAGE: Members find ways to draw on one another’s strengths to make the entire field stronger. By leveraging their ability to share information and learn about the latest models and best practices being developed nationally and by having a platform for greater cooperation, members of a Community of Practice can generate outsized, large-scale impacts on both policies in the public sector and practices in the private sector.

Find Resources For Practitioners

• Retrofit America’s Cities Energy Efficiency Resources
• Pathways Out of Poverty Workforce Development Resources

Read the Communities of Practice Newsletters

Listen to National Learning Calls

The Community of Practice web pages were made possible by the generous support of the Mitchell Kapor Foundation (www.mkf.org)