About RE-AMP

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RE-AMP is a seven-state network of nonprofits and foundations, striving for Midwest leadership in 21st century clean energy by reducing electricity sector global warming pollutants 80 percent by 2030. This ambitious project unites organizations interested in renewable energy development—including environmental groups, ratepayer groups, labor, rural economic development groups, and others—to work for sound policy solutions to stop global warming.

Member organizations form the backbone of RE-AMP. The network of member organizations elects a steering committee, which guides the policy formation, fundraising, and evaluation of the system as a whole. Member organizations can get involved by participating on one of four working groups that provide a platform for networking, strategy development, and fundraising for the group as a whole.

Why join RE-AMP?
Members of RE-AMP, foundations and non-profits, work together to leverage their expertise, strategies and resources to create impacts that are “greater than the sum of their parts.” By participating in RE-AMP groups better understand what they can do in the context of what other organizations in the region are doing, thus better positioning themselves to succeed. Connecting with colleagues in RE-AMP gives each member access to a wealth of information and intelligence about events, policies, legal cases, data, political alignments and more that would otherwise be challenging and time consuming if not impossible to gather on one’s own. In short, the benefits of participating in a working group include networking, direct support, coordinated tactics, and fundraising. By working together, we all work smarter and faster.

Who can join RE-AMP?
Incorporated nonprofit groups or foundations who have work (or an active aspiration to work)

  • increasing energy efficiency or
  • new clean electricity;
  • stopping new dirty coal plants or cleaning up existing coal plants; or
  • global warming solutions

within the RE-AMP states (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Michigan and Wisconsin) are eligible to join the RE-AMP network.

RE-AMP member organizations agree:

(1) to the RE-AMP goal of Midwest leadership in 21st century clean, innovative, modern, efficient energy and an eighty percent reduction in electricity sector global warming pollution by 2030, and

(2) to adhere to RE-AMP groundrules, below.

Funders participating in RE-AMP are expected to:

  • Share relevant funding priorities by posting in the RE-AMP Commons;

  • Encourage grant applicants to demonstrate how their efforts relate to RE-AMP indicators and ground rules;

  • Require prompt disclosure of grant decisions to the RE-AMP online Commons; and
  • Encourage grant recipients to report against indicators and participate in the cross working group meetings.

Nonprofit organizations are expected to:

  • Share information;

  • Work toward coordinated priorities;
  • Coordinate messaging and frames;
  • Set indicators and share progress;
  • Disclose the focus of requests, funders and amount for projects which receive funding; and
  • Participate in periodic cross-working group collaboration through periodic meetings.

How to join.
Does your organization meet the above eligibility guidelines? Please join us! Membership is free. Simply complete the membership application. Contact Rick Reed at 510-525-4432 or risible@sbcglobal.net with questions or for more information.

RE-AMP’S STRUCTURE: WORKING GROUPS, STEERING COMMITTEE, AND SHARED ASSETS

Working Groups
There are five working groups in RE-AMP. A working group is a bunch of advocates that get together to network, learn, fundraise, and share strategies on one of the critical goals of RE-AMP. Working groups generally meet monthly or bi-monthly by phone, and in person at least once per year. The active working groups in RE-AMP include:

Energy Efficiency: Lola Schoenrich, (Minnesota Project), Working Group Leader

  • Reduce electric demand by at least one percent per year in the region (beginning in 2009), increasing savings over time to 2% per year.
  • Reduce natural gas demand by at least one percent per year in the region through efficiency measures
  • Reduce growth in CO2 emission annually through efficiency measures
  • Increase economic development opportunities for energy efficiency

Clean up Coal: Bruce Nilles (Sierra Club Midwest Office), Working Group Leader

  • Prevent construction of new coal power plants that emit global warming pollutants
  • Replace existing fleet of coal plants with carbon-neutral generation technologies

Clean Energy: Michael Noble (Fresh Energy), Working Group Leader

  • Launch a $5 billion private/public partnership project connecting Great Plains wind with Midwest customers, offsetting demand for coal generation that emits global warming pollutants.
  • Establish collaborative mechanisms that encourage other technology innovation projects that put the Midwest in the forefront of clean energy, including innovations that can take wind power to high market penetrations.

Global Warming Solutions: Keith Reopelle (Clean Wisconsin), Working Group Leader

  • Establish policies in the Upper Midwest and Great Plains that will achieve an 80% reduction of global warming gasses by 2050 through development and execution of a robust and effective Midwest multi-state global warming campaign.

Foundation: Becky Erdahl (Carolyn Foundation), Working Group Leader

For more information on RE-AMP Working Groups, contact Elizabeth Wheeler, RE-AMP Coordinator, at coordinator@reamp.org.

The Steering Committee
The Steering Committee is comprised of 12 members – 5 working group leaders; 2 Foundation working group members; 3 at-large elected members, and 2 members appointed by the Steering Committee itself. Right now, these are the people on the Steering Committee:

  • Keith Reopelle, Clean Wisconsin (Global Warming Solutions working group leader)
  • Becky Erdahl, Carolyn Foundation (Foundations working group leader)
  • Bruce Nilles, The Sierra Club (Clean Up Coal working group leader)
  • Michael Noble, Fresh Energy (Clean Energy working group leader)
  • Lola Schoenrich, The Minnesota Project (Energy Efficiency working group leader)
  • David Wooley, Energy Foundation (Foundations representative)
  • Jennie Curtis, Garfield Foundation (At-large representative)
  • Kate Gordon, Apollo Alliance (At-Large representative)
  • Gretchen Bonfert, McKnight Foundation (Foundations representative.)

Rick Reed, Garfield Foundation, and Elizabeth Wheeler, RE-AMP Coordinator (staff) staff the Steering Committee.

The Steering Committee is charged with providing strategic guidance for the RE-AMP network. Specifically, it plays a leadership role in collaboration among member organizations, engages in discussion about, and facilitates decisions around annual strategy priorities, allocates funding for RE-AMP’s infrastructure and special programs, fundraises, and plans the annual meeting.

To learn more about the Steering Committee, please contact Elizabeth Wheeler, RE-AMP Coordinator, at coordinator@reamp.org.

Shared Assets

The Media Center. The Newsroom is the online presence of the Media Center for RE-AMP. The mission of the Media Center is to change the current media dialogue on energy to one that supports the RE-AMP goal of reducing global warming pollution in the Upper Midwest by 80% by the year 2030. The vision of the Media Center is to offer maximum media relations services and support to organizations in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin working toward this attainable goal. We do so with the like-minded network of communications and public relations professionals who serve as the state partners in our work. Read more about the Media Center. Read more about the Media Center.

The Commons. The Commons at www.reamp.org is RE-AMP’s “town square” community website. It is a secure online community that provides for an area for advocates to collaborate on shared documents, have open communications, keep track of the most recent happenings in the RE-AMP community, and use web-based meeting tools.

RE-AMP member organization staff are eligible to join the RE-AMP Commons. When you sign up for a Commons user account, you gain access to these resources as well as full access to working group collaboration areas (files, email listservs, calendar of events, etc.) for working groups that you have joined. In addition to these resources, you may elect to receive a weekly digest email keeping you up to date on activity on the Commons (blogging and resources), a monthly Network update newsletter, as well as the ability to receive updates on the newest Commons content through RSS feeds.

Learning & Progress. Incorporated into the Commons is a Learning and Progress system where grantees and foundations submit information into a database system from which system wide information and project specific information can be requested. The information is valuable for making strategic decisions as a whole network, working group, individual organization or foundation. Members can search for key data to create grant proposals, report progress, write news releases and more.

Facilitation. Expert facilitators are available for organizing and conducting and capturing outcomes for face-to-face or web-based meetings of the working groups and steering committee. A web-based meeting tool is available 24/7 to RE-AMP members for conducting online meetings relating to the RE-AMP goal when sharing visual material is helpful.

Research. RE-AMP funders also sponsor special projects to conduct needed research on topics on the RE-AMP process itself, providing valuable information for the whole group to successfully move projects forward.