Investing in the energy and infrastructure that lets community organizations keep more of what they raise.
Community based organizations are often doing some of the most important work in our communities while operating with limited resources and rising costs.
Many own or operate facilities that serve their communities every day, but lack the capital needed to invest in energy, infrastructure, and resilience improvements.
Sunfish Foundation helps bridge that gap.
We work to bring investment, technical expertise, and partnerships to community serving facilities so organizations can lower operating costs, strengthen resilience, and put more of their resources where they belong: into their mission and their community.
For many community based organizations, the challenge is not a lack of vision or impact. It is capacity.
A nonprofit may own a community center, cultural facility, food distribution site, educational space, or other property that serves hundreds or thousands of people, while spending significant portions of its operating budget on electricity, utilities, repairs, and aging infrastructure.
The organization may know that solar, battery storage, energy efficiency, water systems, communications, or other improvements could lower those costs and strengthen its facility, but it may not have the capital or technical capacity to make those investments. That is where Sunfish Foundation seeks to help.
By investing in infrastructure that reduces long term operating costs, we can help community organizations redirect more of their existing resources toward programs, staff, services, and the people they serve. The return continues year after year.
Connect with us
Build Community Return
Infrastructure that serves every day and is ready when the community
needs it most.
Our goal goes beyond lowering an
organization’s utility bill.
Where appropriate, Sunfish Foundation seeks to help community serving facilities become more resilient and better prepared to support the surrounding community during emergencies.
Investments may include:
A facility strengthened in this way can continue serving its mission every day while also becoming a trusted place the community can turn to during power outages, disasters, severe weather, and other disruptions. A community center can become a resilience hub. A nonprofit facility can become a source of reliable power. An organization already trusted by its neighbors can be better equipped to serve when its community needs it most. We are not creating a community network. It already exists. We are investing in the infrastructure that helps make it stronger.
Why This Matters
Energy and infrastructure costs can consume resources that community based organizations could otherwise use for programs, staffing, food, education, cultural work, environmental stewardship, housing support, youth services, and other community priorities.
Sunfish Foundation sees infrastructure investment differently.
A solar and battery system is not only an energy project. It can lower operating expenses, increase organizational stability, provide power during an outage, strengthen disaster preparedness, allow more organizational resources to remain focused on mission, and create a more resilient place for the surrounding community.
That is the kind of Community Return we seek.
Our Focus
Our work is centered on strengthening community serving organizations and the places from which they serve.
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Community Return
Sunfish Foundation believes the value of an infrastructure investment should be measured by more than the equipment installed or dollars spent.
We look at what that investment makes possible.
Who We Seek To Partner With
Sunfish Foundation seeks to work alongside community based organizations that have deep relationships with the people and places they serve, but may lack access to the capital required for major energy and infrastructure investments.
We believe one of the most effective ways to strengthen a community is to strengthen the organizations already showing up for it.
Partner with SunfishRooted in Hawaiʻi
I ulu nō ka lālā
i ke kumu.
Hawaiʻi’s community organizations operate in an environment shaped by some of the highest energy costs in the country, geographic isolation, aging infrastructure, natural disaster risk, and a high cost of doing business.
At the same time, these organizations are often the places communities turn to first.
These organizations are often the places communities turn to first.
Sunfish Foundation begins in Hawaiʻi by investing in the organizations and facilities already rooted in community.
Strengthen the roots so the entire community can grow.
Who We Are
Our team brings together cultural practice, nonprofit strategy, and energy expertise in service of a more resilient Hawaiʻi.
Meet the teamOccasional notes on the organizations we partner with and what the investment made possible.
Every gift goes toward the energy and infrastructure investments that let community organizations keep more of their resources where they belong.
Donate to Sunfish