The IAF Northwest and it’s affiliated Alliances – Spokane Alliance, Sound Alliance (greater Seattle-Tacoma), Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good (greater Portland), Greater Edmonton Alliance (Alberta) and Sydney Alliance (Australia) – have effectively demonstrated the powerful synergy that arises from combining environmental initiatives with job creation strategies.  Highlights of these efforts – which have collectively engaged over 150 churches, unions, synagogues, education associations and immigrant / community organizations as members of the Alliances - include:

• Negotiating agreements with Spokane Public Schools in 2004 to adopt Green Building and apprentice utilization standards on its construction projects, including direct entry agreements securing up to 40 apprenticeships for at risk students;
• Leveraging the Spokane agreements (coming from the conservative eastern side of the state) into successful a series of statewide legislative campaigns tying green building  and apprentice utilization standards for government buildings in 2005, public schools in 2007 and finally state funded higher education in 2009.
• Creating SustainableWorks in 2006 to establish an energy efficiency retrofit market in the underserved small commercial & non-profit sectors and demonstrate that deep retrofits (maximizing environmental benefits) can be done cost-effectively while providing full benefits and paying prevailing wages.
• Negotiating additional direct entry agreements between trade unions and school districts in 2006 and with SustainableWorks directly in 2009 securing over 120 apprenticeship slots for at-risk students and disadvantaged constituencies.
• Expanding the SustainableWorks model in 2008 to include residential retrofits, based on the development of an organizing and customer recruitment strategy capable of overcoming high customer transactional barriers and securing retrofit agreements from 100’s of low-moderate income homeowners in 8 -10 square block neighborhoods (targeting a 20% participation rate), using economies of scale to reduce costs and allow deeper retrofits and achieving a scale that finally produces significant number of jobs and major carbon reduction benefits.
• Securing commitments from the Governor, Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House - at an Assembly of 1,200 Alliance members in June 2008 - to support large scale expansion of SustainableWorks and the extension of its principles to other state initiatives.
• Incorporating SustainableWorks Canada, securing partnership commitments for the City of Edmonton, local utilities and the province’s largest credit union, and securing retrofit pledges from 350 Edmonton homeowners in 2009.
• Securing commitments of county, utility and City of Portland officials at an Assembly of 300 Alliance members in December 2009 to include the equity, opportunity and wage standards shown viable in SustainableWorks in its 500 unit retrofit pilot project. 
• Working with legislative leaders to write sections of SB 5649 using the SustainableWorks model to tie together a well defined jobs pipeline from disadvantaged constituencies with living wage standards and significant environmental benefits through the retrofit of 1,000’s of homes and small business.
• Leading the statewide campaign in 2009 to secure passage of 5649 – meeting with 45 key legislators in their home districts before the session and engaging over 200 community members in an intense four-month lobbying effort at the state Capitol. 

In October 2009, the IAF Northwest spun SustainableWorks off into a separate but closely held non-profit economic development enterprise performing the business functions related to the delivery of 1,000’s of residential and small commercial retrofits.  The enterprise works very closely with the Alliances, contracting with them to organize neighborhoods, recruit retrofit customers and deliver candidates into the jobs pipeline.  (Independently, the Alliances also reengage community members after they’ve received a retrofit to participate in other organizing campaigns.)  The joint efforts of SustainableWorks and the Alliances in the past 4 months have resulted in:

• Securing a $4 million grant (from the $14.5 million allocated in SB 5649 for Community Energy Efficiency Pilot projects) to retrofit 1,800 homes in seven high-need neighborhoods across Washington state and another $960,000 grant from the SB 5649 created Credit Enhancement Program that will leverage $10 million in retrofit loans for lower income and credit challenged homeowners.
• Signing jurisdictional agreements between 6 crafts delineating their responsibilities on residential retrofits
• Graduating over 100 workers from  SustainableWorks’ 44 hour Energy Systems  training program, with 45 of those receiving an additional 40 hours of specialized auditor training (able to prepare bid ready audits necessary for the pooling of 100’s residential retrofits)
• Recruiting and training 90 volunteer Block Organizers in two targeted low-moderate income neighborhoods in Seattle & Spokane since October 2009 who have secured 390 audit / retrofit sign-ups (17% saturation rate) in those neighborhoods.  The first pool of 100 retrofits is scheduled to begin in February.

By spring, each SustainableWorks team (2 currently in place and consisting of a project manager, 2 energy specialists and an Alliance organizer) is expected annually to: recruit & train 200 volunteer Block organizers; engage 6,000 families on the way to signing-up 1,200 retrofit customers; employ 48 full-time workers in retrofitting those homes; and reduce each building’s annual carbon emissions by an average of 30 – 50%.  The model is scalable and replicable.