RSF Donor Honors Servant Leader in Renewable Energy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30, 2006
RSF DONOR HONORS SERVANT LEADER IN RENEWABLE ENERGY
RSF’s Virginia Rogers Donor Advised Fund honors Michael Eckhart,
president of ACORE, with the 2006 Good Deal for All Award.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Each year, the Virginia Rogers Fund, a donor advised fund at RSF and established by Capital Missions Company (CMC), honors an individual in a particular industry who exemplifies the servant leadership model by giving the Good Deal for All Award and by recommending a grant to a charitable organization chosen by the recipient.
“We established a fund at RSF because they are completely aligned with our social finance values,” says Susan Davis, president of CMC.
Servant leadership has been defined by Robert K. Greenleaf in his book The Servant as Leader: “It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead…The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant, first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.” Some of the key elements of what it means to be a servant-leader include listening, empathy, and community building.
Past winners of the award have been (2001) Anna Lloyd, executive director of Committee of 200; (2002) Alisa Gravitz, executive director of Co-op America; (2003) Christopher Mann, founder of Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, and (2005) Hazel Henderson, founder of Ethical Marketplace.
This year’s award will go Michael Eckhart, a leader in the field of renewable energy. Mr. Eckhart is the president of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), non-profit organization that works to promote the use of renewable energy in the United States. In that capacity, he is a co-chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), a member of the Steering Committee of the REN 21 global policy network, and head of the North American Secretariat of the Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency partnership (REEEP). He also works through a consultancy called Solar International Management, Inc., which is dedicated to the advancement of financing solutions for solar energy and sustainable development. Two key projects are the SolarBank program, a proposed global fund for the financing of solar energy installations, and Global Development Bonds, a proposed asset class in fixed income securities, bridging US institutional investors and the developing countries.
“Mike has been instrumental in creating the space for leaders in the renewable energy industry to join together and collaborate,” says Davis. “Although he has championed the development of many initiatives, Mike is exemplary in giving all the credit to others.
The Good Deal for All Award was also created to honor an extraordinary woman, Virginia “Ginny” Rogers of Chicago, who coined the phrase “a deal is a good deal when it is good for all concerned.” Rogers was a mentor of Davis. They met when Davis served as Founding Organizer for the Committee of 200, a professional organization of leading women business owners, to which Rogers became a founding member. An early proponent of corporate social responsibility, Ginny took a small paging company and built it into the first privately-owned cell phone company by practicing the highest forms of servant leadership. “This Award honors Ginny for the inspiration she was to the first generation of women business owners to practice her mantra – a good deal for all,” said Davis.
The Award will be given at the Association for Solar Energy Society’s 2006 conference on July 13 th . For more information about past recipients, please visit www.capitalmissions.org. To learn more about Mr. Eckhart’s contribution to the renewable energy industry, please visit www.acore.org.
About RSF
RSF, a pioneer in social finance, is a group of non-profit organizations dedicated to providing innovative financial vehicles for investors, philanthropists, and borrowers to create a better future. RSF achieves its mission by attracting and developing a community of philanthropists and socially responsible investors; by putting donor and investor intentions to work through grants, loans, and investments in organizations that foster economic, environmental, and social sustainability; and by developing the capacity of individuals and organizations to explore the social implications of financial practices.
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Photo of Michael Eckhart courtesy of ACORE.
Friday, June 30th, 2006