Overview
This guide helps company leadership and project teams engage with community partners to drive community benefits. The Elemental approach centers community input in every project and requires a local community engagement and benefit plan. This guide includes tools and frameworks – such as our Square Partnerships Model and resources for community engagement, compensation, and workforce development – that we have developed and tested over a decade of deploying projects.
Square Partnerships Model
Elemental’s Square Partnerships Model is built upon the conviction that innovation succeeds best when it engages the community early and often. Through deploying 100+ climate technology projects, we have seen how community is a critical piece of any project deployment. Today, 95% of our portfolio companies engage with community partners and of those, 65% say that these partnerships were key to their successful business outcomes.
- Companies provide the technology or innovation addressing an urgent challenge.
- Project funders typically hold the companies and project developers accountable for commercial and impact-driven success metrics.
- Customers can be businesses, consumers, or governments that purchase and adopt a companyʻs technology, service, or workforce opportunities.
- Community-based leaders know and advocate for their communities and understand the urgent challenges in their communities. They can help align the projectʻs design with a communityʻs priorities and needs.
