ICLEI-Local Governments For Sustainability
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"Up" is the number of experts who agree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in the
field. "Down" is the number of experts who disagree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in field.
Headquarters Location: Oakland, CA
Founded: 1990
Mission: ICLEI is an international membership association of local governments dedicated to climate protection and sustainable development.
Tags:
bay area, climate change, advocacy, sustainable development, consulting, training, information services
Summary
Stories
Expert Reviews
Leadership
From the Nonprofit
Leadership
Martin Chavez.
Martin J. Chavez, three-term former mayor of Albuquerque, is Executive Director of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA. Chavez is based in ICLEI USA's Washington D.C. Executive Office. Chavez leads the growing national movement of U.S. cities, towns, and counties that are taking action to combat climate change, save energy, create green jobs, and make their communities better places to live.…
See full bio.
Financial Data
Overhead Ratio:
n/a
Total Revenue:
$5,061,283
From the Nonprofit
The nonprofit has not added any comments yet. If you are a representative of this nonprofit and would like to leave a comment, please email us at
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Contact Info
Address:
436 14th Street, Suite 1520
Oakland, CA 94612, USA
Twitter:
Story:
Here’s a little bit more about ICLEI and its founding story:
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability is an international association of local governments as well as national and regional local government organizations who have made a commitment to sustainable development.
ICLEI provides technical consulting, training, and information services to build capacity, share knowledge, and support local government in the implementation of sustainable development at the local level. Their basic premise is that locally designed initiatives can provide an effective and cost-efficient way to achieve local, national, and global sustainability objectives.
ICLEI was founded in 1990 as the 'International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives'. The Council was established when more than 200 local governments from 43 countries convened at our inaugural conference, the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, at the United Nations in New York. (Source: http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=about)
Expert Reviews of ICLEI-Local Governments For Sustainability
Evidence of Impact Summary:
ICLEI has had the most impact in assisting local governments with addressing climate change. They have recruited more than 160 cities in California to commit to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) through climate action plans. They provide high quality technical expertise and comprehensive tools necessary to track greenhouse gas emissions, set emissions reduction targets, and create climate action plans.See expert comments.
Organization Strengths Summary:
ICLEI has become so successful because it has built a local, national, and global network of local governments bringing tools and resources to these cities so they can take action to reduce the effects of climate change.See expert comments.
Areas for Improvement Summary:
Experts think ICLEI need to continue developing their technology to support local communities and do more to engage with nonprofits in their communities. Some experts believe their local government focus is too narrow and they need to expand to the state and national level if they are to really be effective. Further, they have had major setbacks because of the frequent staff turnover.See expert comments.
Expert Comments: Evidence of Impact
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Impact |
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ICLEI gets many cities and counties to do greenhouse gas assessments and identifies follow-up actions. | ||
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ICLEI has played a major role in serving as a technical assistance provider to the local governments of the Bay Area. Because of ICLEI, many communities now have climate action plans. | ||
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ICLEI owns the methodology by which local governments plan to reduce emissions and helps them do the actual planning. Almost all local governments use ICLEI's tools to plan for, and increasingly, to adapt to climate change. | ||
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ICLEI has been at the forefront in assisting cities and counties in addressing climate change. | ||
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ICLEI has recruited more than 160 cities in California to commit to reducing greenhouse gas through climate action plans. | ||
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ICLEI has a huge impact on local governments by helping to provide the tools necessary to track greenhouse gas emissions, set emissions reduction targets, and write climate action plans. | ||
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ICLEI's Cities for Climate Protection is the most powerful program to implement the "think globally-act locally" concept in the realm of climate protection. | ||
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ICLEI offers the best most comprehensive program for local governments. Although they are an international organization, they have a strong Bay Area presence and have helped move the agenda here forward. | ||
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ICLEI has a strong impact in their programs like Cities for Climate Protection. | ||
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On a regional and national level ICLEI has had a tremendous impact with local governments. They provide high quality information, a clear framework for identifying the greenhouse gas sources, setting targets, and creating action plans. They have done an excellent job of focusing their attention on the local level and finding champions to train and empower. | ||
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ICLEI has built an impressive coalition of local governments who have demonstrated leadership around the world on climate change issues. After 20 years working with local governments on this issue, they have made the "Climate Action Plan" and its milestone process mainstream. | ||
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ICLEI brings the cities' voices on the priority of addressing climate change to the federal level. | ||
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I have known about ICLEI's work for the past 6 years and most recently have gotten to learn more about their services and tools for members. They are an information resource that has been valuable to local entities in Sonoma County. | ||
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ICLEI has had a long history of working with local governments to measure and reduce greenhouse gas. ICLEI was one of the first organizations in the country to work with local governments on the climate issue. ICLEI has always been on the forefront of protocol and tool development for quantifying local GHG emissions. | ||
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ICLEI, a national non-profit association of local governments working primarily on climate change issues, has played a huge role in getting local governments throughout the Bay Area started on comprehensive efforts to measure and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. ICLEI, which is no longer headquartered in Oakland but maintains its California regional office has been an entry point providing cities and counties with specific guidance on how to measure GHG emissions, set targets, develop action plans, etc.. It has provided software tools to help with these efforts, and has served as a network hub able to spread lessons learned from other cities. It also helps to train staff in each city to understand climate issues and how to approach a GHG reduction effort. Because ICLEI has been able to provide these tools and standards as the national organization for cities doing this work, it has had sufficient legitimacy so that local governments have been willing to plug in to the network, have picked up and used its tools, and most of the local governments in the Bay Area now have GHG emissions inventories done through ICLEI software and have been forming sub-regional networks to help each other continue to move forward. Similar to the Build It Green example, this organization has been effective because it reached a level of commonly-perceived legitimacy and expertise that cities have been able to trust it and willing to invest in following its guidance. It hasn't been as effective at helping leadership cities push the envelope with brand new policy ideas, because it doesn't have sufficient technical depth to offer much there, but by getting all the local governments going on these topics, it's priming the pump for lots of new policies all over the Bay Area, as well as new regional coordination planning that will be necessary to reduce vehicle travel and the largest source of GHG emissions in the region. | ||
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ICLEI provides excellent advice to local governments around the region regarding climate change. | ||
Expert Comments: Organization Strengths
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Leaders in their Field |
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ICLEI's Cities for Climate Protection is the most powerful, practical program that actually implements "think globally, act locally." | ||
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This is the leading group working across urban areas. They market their approach that can be copied in more smaller cites and towns. | ||
Strong Reputation |
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One of ICLEI's strengths is their breadth of resources supplied by ICLEI's central office. They also have a strong reputation. | ||
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ICLEI has lots of credibility within local government, therefore making collaboration between community groups and municipal governments much more effective. | ||
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They have a national reach, name recognition ,and are trusted as a source of quality information. They also provide political clout to this issue with elected officials. | ||
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They have an unquestioned reputation. They have an excellent focus on providing tools to local governments. | ||
Provide Excellent Tools/Resources to Communities |
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They have a strong executive leadership, a well established "product" for helping local governments, and have an established methodology that allows ICLEI to achieve economies of scale in their impact. | ||
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They have technical expertise in organizing climate plans and doing greenhouse gas inventories. They provide resources for local cities and counties to learn from each other. | ||
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Their staff is incredibly knowledgeable and hands-on. They really go out of their way to make sure local government staff have the resources they need. | ||
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They have experienced staff and excellent tools for local governments. | ||
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In all my public talks I highlight the website of ICLEI because of the crucial work they do uniting local governments and sharing best environmental practices across national boundaries. | ||
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They produce tools that are very useful - like software and model climate action plans. | ||
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They've developed a lot a technical and marketing resources that have been quite effective in helping cities embrace climate change planning and communicate about climate change. | ||
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They have a highly talented and qualified staff, are a good networked organization regionally, nationally and internationally, and provide good products/tools for member agencies to utilize. | ||
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ICLEI has been an invaluable resource to cities and counties in the Bay Area and across the nation. If it wasn't for their technical skills and knowledge and software tools, I don't believe work on Climate Change in the public sector would have moved as far and as fast as it has. | ||
Well Connected and Networked |
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They have global partnerships and a strong history. | ||
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ICLEI is part of a statewide collaborative to assist cities and counties statewide in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving energy. | ||
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They have created a worldwide network of local governments and inspire action globally. Their credibility and track record for local climate action is unsurpassed. | ||
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This is another group that is well connected to the national and international efforts, particularly around implementation, which is the next big challenge, especially in buildings and efficiency efforts. They have a great reputation for working well with both the civic institutions and other local nonprofits. | ||
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ICLEI's strength is in its many city constituents. They connect best practices to new comers interested in starting down the road of climate action and they connect geographically isolated leaders across the country. | ||
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They have an extremely knowledgeable staff and as a local government membership organization, their membership network is quite valuable. | ||
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ICLEI's biggest strengths are its legacy of cities all over the country following the path ICLEI lays out, which promotes confidence in new entrants, and the knowledge and experience of the 500+ cities in its national network, which can be harnessed and transferred to other cities. | ||
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They have a huge local government network of cities and counties actively working on climate issues. They also provide summaries of research done by cities around the country that are considered solid enough for other cities to base new policy decisions on. | ||
Strong Leadership |
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ICLEI is coming off a very difficult period. I would not have recommended funding this organization last year. However, with a change in executive leadership, I believe that there is an opportunity to help re-focus the organization and bring it back to its role of leader in technical assistance to help local government measure and reduce greenhouse gas. ICLEI was the organization that started the entire local government movement, and almost all the activity we see today is due to its historic work. | ||
Expert Comments: Areas for Improvement
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Other (consultants, journalists, policy makers) (O)
Partner More with Nonprofits |
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Rather than being generous, as described in "Forces for Good," ICLEI has a tendency toward protectiveness, and eschews partnerships with entities that aren't local governments. Also, they should reassess "local action moves the world," because there are serious limits to what can be done at the local level to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ICLEI is very well positioned to help local governments join together to advocate for needed policy changes at the regional, state, and national level, but their local focus seems to constrain them from doing so. | ||
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They should consider expanding their scope to let other nonprofit partners participate in their work and use their methodologies and tools, particularly at a time that local governments have fewer internal resources to plan for climate change. | ||
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Their national leadership has been wobbly for many years. They do not partner well with entities that are not governments. They are overwhelmed. | ||
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They should collaborate better with local nonprofits. | ||
Frequent Staff Turnover |
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They are spread too thin to fully engage all their cities and they have relatively frequent staff turnover. | ||
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They have a relatively narrow focus with regard to how positive climate impacts can be achieved -- for example ICLEI's model has not traditionally concentrated on how to reduce impacts from the land use sector. Second tier staff tend to work at ICLEI for a few years and then move to cities that they service. This is good in the respect that they are a pipeline of talent, but it also means that ICLEI has to constantly be cultivating new staff. | ||
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Over the past 5 years, ICLEI has suffered from weak leadership, resulting in excessive staff turnover. The organization is now under new leadership and poised to resume its place as one of the pre-eminent climate organizations in the country. | ||
Inefficient Operations and Limited Funding |
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They have been good at fundraising from foundations and working with local governments, but could work to diversify their funding. | ||
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I think that they may be spread too thin and have could make their operations more efficient. | ||
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They cut back their climate program a while ago, apparently due to funding constraints. | ||
Improve Technology and Tools for Local Communities |
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They could produce a model climate action plan that is even easier for small cities to use with a top ten list of most commonly chosen greenhouse gas reduction measures. | ||
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Their response time is sometimes slow. They either need more staff or develop a better system. Some staff get back to us quickly, others take days. Their tools also need to improve to be able to do more project planning and tracking to enable local governments to determine which projects are the highest priority and which ones have the greatest return on investment (greenhouse gas reduced, community quality enhanced, energy saved). | ||
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Their software is extremely flawed and in the long run has mucked up many cities greenhouse gas inventories. Further software development and the customer support system to truly handle widespread use of the software is critical. | ||
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ICLEI has had major organizational leadership challenges over the last couple of years, and has just recently cleaned part of the house and brought in a new executive director. They need to hire up a lot of new high-level capacity to continue the strong role they've played. They also need to get a lot better at promoting information sharing amongst the ICLEI network. New tools that allow users to plug in info about what they're doing in a way that rewards input and makes info immediately accessible to others in the network is important. In the past, too much of this operation focused on the interaction of cities in the network with ICLEI, rather than promoting knowledge sharing directly between cities. | ||
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They need to be pushed to provide better web-based tools that help share the knowledge of that giant network better. | ||
Expand Scope to State, National, International Level |
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They could put more emphasis on developing statewide standards and they could work with regional governments, not just cities and counties. | ||
Leadership
Martin Chavez
Executive Director
Executive Director
From the Nonprofit
The nonprofit has not added any comments yet. If you are a representative of this nonprofit and would like to leave a comment, please email us at
feedback@myphilanthropedia.org
with your request.