Catholic Climate Covenant
At a Glance
Industry
Religious Organization
Project Types
Clean and Renewable Energy, Commercial Energy Efficiency, Financial Evaluation and Planning
Year
2021
Location
Washington, DC
Summary
Colin Schimmelfing developed tools and resources to procure and implement financing for Mission Energy’s new approach to project finance.
Goals
Mission Energy brings solar power and energy efficiency to relatively underserved faith-based institutions. The organization recently realized that a different financing approach could benefit even more faith-based institutions. This new approach directly connects to individual investors, instead of utilizing standard lenders with higher interest rates and slower processes.
However, implementing this new approach required entirely new resources. Mission Energy tapped Colin Schimmelfing to develop the tools and resources necessary to unlock this new approach.
Solutions
Schimmelfing developed a set of consistent resources and tools to demonstrate impact provided to investors from new solar project portfolios. He also created internal tools and processes necessary for Mission Energy to efficiently operate this new approach.
The resources included:
- A tunable financial model demonstrating portfolio returns and cash flow for various classes of investors
- Detailed due diligence and project management processes for Mission Energy to properly vet projects and execute the new approach
- Financial offering materials for potential investors, such as a 1-page investment summary and a pitch deck
- Website counters automatically counting impact generated at any given time by existing projects
Potential Impact
Using these tools, Mission Energy will reduce project interest rate costs by 2-3% as part of the new approach. These resources are necessary to demonstrate the impact and returns to prospective investors, a pre-requisite for any investment.
Meanwhile, the new due-diligence processes developed by Schimmelfing will help reduce the time needed to start work on any given solar project by 3-5 weeks. This enables Mission Energy to complete even more projects for faith-based organizations with the environmental benefits that such projects bring.