Program Expansion
The opportunities to make your green living program (GLP) efforts count twice are endless!
- Expanding Your Relevance
- Keeping Records
- Using the Web
- Building a Reputation
- Dealing with Staff and Student Turnover
- Expanding Your Alumni Network
- Thinking Ahead for Funding, Space and Talent
As your program develops, you will probably discover even more ways to make the most of the time you put into your campaigns and projects.
This section also includes some ideas for how to share what you and your GLP reps learn with people Outside the Campus Community.
Expanding Your Relevance
One of the best ways to keep your program thriving is to continually explore how it can expand its sphere of relevance. Be on the lookout for new projects that might interest new funders and also be on the lookout for helping existing program funders in new ways.
The Harvard Green Campus Initiative (HGCI), for example, recently expanded the scope of its GLP to include working on reducing the loss of cutlery and crockery in the trash. By expanding into this area, the GLP has attracted a new funding partner, Harvard University Dining Services, who now contributes a good share of the annual program costs.
Keeping Records
One of the best ways to grow your program is to get the most out of what you put into it. If you run a public awareness campaign, save your outreach materials so you can revise and use them if you decide to run the program again next year. Take notes on the effectiveness of your approach. They will help you improve future efforts. If your reps are out there making contacts, make sure they record them before leaving the program. Because the program's strength is in its student employees, it is important to record their knowledge and experiences, something that can be done through final reports, exit interviews or as part of an end-of-the-season party.
Using the Web
In addition to acting as a storage center for campaign materials and other program details, your website can be an effective outreach and promotional tool. Upload documents, posters, photos and other materials that you developed during the GLP year. Present these materials in a simple, straightforward fashion so that members of your community can see what your program has accomplished. In addition to providing yourself with a storage bank that you can draw on year after year and building a great outreach tool, you will be offering inspiration and providing useful resources to environmental advocates on other campuses.
Building a Reputation
The combination of successful campaigns and projects, positive interactions with community members, and a good website to store and share your ever-growing knowledge will go a long way toward growing your program's reputation. As your reputation grows, so will the doors that become open to your organization. Be ready to investigate new opportunities. Do not immediately shy away from new responsibilities.
Dealing with Staff and Student Turnover
Structuring your program so that outgoing reps can inform incoming reps is wise. This can be achieved in a number of ways. At the HGCI, a revolving captain structure was used for a couple of years. Another option would be to have the GLP cycle run from January to December, so that outgoing reps will still be on campus to serve as resources for incoming reps who are getting oriented in their jobs.
Of course, it is always helpful to have your student employees invested in the program either before or after their GLP tenure. Hire a former, current or incoming rep to work during the summer months or try to recruit a former captain as the GLP coordinator.
Expanding Your Alumni Network
Support exiting reps in their job search by writing letters of recommendation or serving as a reference, and be sure to maintain contact with reps after they leave the program. This will help build a strong alumni network, which you can draw on to help inspire and serve as a resource for current reps. Alumni may even become a source of revenue as they become established in their professions and begin looking for charitable-giving opportunities.
Thinking Ahead for Funding, Space and Talent
Always be thinking six to 12 months in advance about funding the program, securing space and locating future talent to recruit into program positions. If you start exploratory conversations before your need becomes dire, you are in the best position to respond flexibly to new opportunities. You will also avoid creating a stressful atmosphere within your program by allowing enough time to work things out.
Outside the Campus Community
Anyone who tries to transform long-established practices, such as those involved in operating a college or university, is doing something innovative and challenging. Campus sustainability advocates need all the support they can get in their efforts. By sharing what you have learned while breaking ground at your institution, you can provide the knowledge and inspiration that may help other advocates be more successful on their campuses.
GLP educational campaigns send graduating students out into the world with a greater awareness of their ecological footprint. Some, especially those who worked for the GLP, may choose professions that support the environment. Other students may simply take the lessons they learned through the GLP into their personal life or they may adapt them to a career of their choice.
GLP staff can participate in conferences and become involved in intercollegiate initiatives. By participating in the broader environmental network, a GLP exercises influence outside of its campus community. By sharing what they have learned, GLP coordinators and student employees can help other campuses develop similar programs.
The students that a GLP educates on campus inevitably go home, travel abroad, work off campus and participate in a myriad of activities off university grounds. Because they have been educated about how to use resources efficiently, they can share this information with the people they meet, either outright or just by setting an example.