VERDE
Mission Statement
Verde serves communities by building environmental wealth through social enterprise, outreach, and advocacy. Our theory of change is that sustainability can be reinterpreted as an anti-poverty strategy. Since 2005, Verde has brought environmental infrastructure to low-income neighborhoods, engaged residents to design and implement these projects, and ensured that environmental investments contribute to community well-being.
About This Cause
Verde has five programs designed to build environmental wealth in low-income and people of color communities: 1. Verde Builds is a social enterprise general contractor that works to increase minority- and woman-owned business participation in sustainable green building construction. The program addresses poverty by increasing wages and opportunities to women and people of color by securing construction contracts and then sub-contracting to minority- and woman-owned businesses. For example, Verde Builds built Cully Park, a $14 million project and awarded 70% of the dollars to minority- and woman-owned businesses. 2. Living Cully is an anti-poverty collaborative led by Verde since 2010 reducing displacement and increasing livability in the low-income, people of color Cully neighborhood in Northeast Portland. The program is having incredible impact: 22 acres of land purchased for affordable housing production, 2 mobile home parks purchased, rehabilitated, and 165 very low-income families stabilized; passing the state’s first mobile home park ordinance protecting 3,000 very low-income families across Portland. All this work has been done through close partnership with neighborhood churches. 3. Energy, Climate & Transportation is an advocacy program working to create environmental investments and policies to benefit low-income Oregonians. The program’s impact is dramatic: it led passage of the Portland Clean Energy Fund in 2018, which will distribute $40 million to $60 million annually to non-profits in Portland for climate investments in low-income and people of color communities. It now leads statewide efforts to reduce carbon emissions and increase transit and transportation investments. 4. Outreach is the glue of the organization as it builds community power through leadership development by organizing low-income, people of color in Cully, Tigard and Gresham. The program has graduated over 50 leaders from its nine-month leadership training program in the last six years, convenes regular monthly gatherings of 25 plus low-income residents and routinely activates hundreds of people through e-mail and social media to act. 5. Healthy Communities Coalition creates economic, ecological and social benefits for low-income people and people of color through coalition building of environmental, equity, faith and labor organizations to secure community benefits agreements for good jobs, affordable housing, environmental benefits and wealth building opportunities. The program is on the cusp of securing the state’s largest ever community benefits agreement for the Broadway Corridor development in Portland, the largest remaining publicly owned property in downtown Portland. The agreement will require living wages for construction and operating jobs in the 14-acre district, hundreds of units of affordable housing and innovative environmental investments, all designed to benefit low-income people and people of color. We also fiscally sponsor Suma, an emerging organization developing solutions to addressing the digital divide. Recent Accomplishments COVID-19 Relief. Verde packs and delivers weekly food boxes containing culturally specific foods and multilingual COVID-19 facts/resource flyers to over 200 low-income, BIPoC families. Verde and partners launched the LivingCully Renters Relief Fund, which prioritized BIPOC renters and families who don’t receive relief payments due to immigration status. Broadway Corridor Community Benefits Agreement. Advocated for change in the City of Portland in the public-private partnership model of redeveloping the 34-acre Broadway Corridor to generate good jobs, affordable housing and environmental benefits for low-income people and people of color. Co-led Portland Clean Energy Fund which generates $54-$71 million annually to be invested in BIPOC communities in Portland, built by minority, women-owned businesses and in partnership with other nonprofits. Cully Park. Transformed a 25-acre landfill into a public park. Engaged thousands of residents in the design and build, and achieved 70% minority- and woman-owned business participation. Las Adelitas. Verde eliminated a blighted property--known for criminal activity, including drug dealing and human trafficking--in the low-income, people-of-color Cully neighborhood. Hacienda CDC has since taken over the project, and is now building community space and 141 affordable homes. Energy Democracy. We are creating an energy future where communities control their energy supply and generate wealth from it through the state’s first-ever Energy Justice Leadership Institute, a way to build capacity and power among low-income people, people of color, and tribal residents across the state.