Sustainable energy is now more than ever an important topic, with climate change and energy security presenting themselves as some of the most pressing challenges of our time. The need to build a sustainable energy future has moved front and center in the public eye as the relevance of these issues becomes more and more clear. “The era of fossil fuels will soon be over and it's up to us to provide our children with a secure future, powered by clean, renewable energy,” says BC Sustainable Energy Association board member, Bronwyn Maxwell.
That’s why we are proud to announce our recent launch of the BC Sustainable Energy Association’s new website. An influential organization in the province and beyond, the BCSEA is dedicated to building a sustainable energy future for British Columbia.
When BCSEA board member Chris Mott approached us almost a year ago with a vision to create an online hub for BC’s sustainable energy community, we were excited to engage with the organization. Our goal was to help the organization redefine itself from the inside out, driven by a vision of an organization that communicates with and engages its members in a whole new way and a website that tells the story of the vibrancy and activity of its dedicated membership.
The first step was to dive into creating a strategy for the BCSEA’s new web presence. The result is a website that changes the way the BCSEA interacts with its members, supporters, and the sustainable energy community — bringing more transparency to the workings of the organization and providing avenues for the organization to listen to its constituents. Alive with dynamic content, it highlights the activities of its members, and provides an information-rich resource to learn about sustainable energy.
The BCSEA is unique in how diverse and decentralized it is. With eight active chapters across the province and growing, over 700 members are engaging from virtually every corner of the province. A member-driven organization, it is fueled by dedicated and passionate members like Nitya Harris who founded the SolarBC program, which provides incentives for installing solar hot water in British Columbia. Other member-driven initiatives include Clean Energy Classrooms and the Climate Change Showdown, which both provide tools for educating about sustainable energy.
The new website is architected to provide a central hub for members to connect with each other, have discussions about sustainable energy topics, as well as manage their relationship with the organization. The system that we’ve put together, combining Drupal and CiviCRM (and some custom mojo), streamlines the process of managing memberships, makes it easy to sign up to become a member, and allows for integration of the membership database with the front-end website. The site also makes fundraising through the web easy and intuitive, empowering the organization to be more effective. From the organization’s point of view, the integrated system makes it easier for members to stay engaged and streamlines the workload for BCSEA staff so they can focus more of their energy on the things that matter the most.
Special thanks to BCSEA board members Chris Mott and Bronwyn Maxwell, who have passionately dedicated themselves to the process of creating this website and to conceiving and actualizing a new way of interacting with the world for the organization. Without their visionary ideas and hard work this project would not have been possible.
Check out the website at www.bcsea.org today! Find out about what they do and how to get involved, become a member, find information about jobs, events, news, and sustainable energy solutions, and help build a sustainable energy future for British Columbia.