SCI provides Project Support Services to colleges, universities, and K-12 schools, enabling them to maximize the benefits -- and minimize the barriers -- to implementation of solar PV. SCI serves as a vetted, nonprofit partner, helping to educate an institution's leadership and constituents about the benefits of solar, and aiding the institution in navigating the complexities of solar PV implementation. SCI engages the principal stakeholders: institution officers; students and alumni; renewable energy financiers and implementers; local, state and federal policy makers – to minimize the barriers and simplify the process of implementing Solar PV:
SCI serves to represent the best interests of an institution throughout the complex process of implementing solar PV. SCI with its parent organization, Earth Island Institute, serves as a nationally-recognized, non-profit partner -- first helping to educate an institution's constituents about the benefits and feasibility of solar, then helping to select a team of project development professionals.
Once a Project Development Team is established, SCI serves as a liaison between the institution and the Team that will finance, develop, permit, and implement the project -- helping to bridge typical organizational and functional gaps;
The major component of SCI's involvement is to work closely with institution's faculty and students, and the Project Development Team, to develop and administer a comprehensive program whereby students and faculty observe and participate in all phases of the project lifecycle, maximizing the tremendous research, educational, and vocational opportunities such a project provides -- satisfying the mission of the Solar Campus Initiative, creating/enhancing 'solar momentum' on campus;
As a nonprofit organization, SCI requests only a nominal donation from its client institutions to cover basic administive costs. An institution will often elect to seek alumni gifts or grants to recoup this nominal expense.
