Energy Coaching Program
Community Story
In York, Maine, a group of committed volunteers came together to launch a grassroots energy coaching program rooted in community support and climate action. Housed under York Ready for Climate Action—a local nonprofit working to build momentum around climate solutions—the program was created to meet a growing need: homeowners were overwhelmed by the complexity of energy upgrades and didn’t know where to begin.
The York Energy Coach Program offers one-on-one support to residents, connecting them with trained volunteers who help initially assess their homes, guided by the up-front acknowledgement that the initial assessment is not the same as an audit and that the volunteers, while trained, are not experienced contractors and focused on helping the homeowner understand their home and options. The energy coaches also help homeowners navigate each step of the process toward energy efficiency and electrification. The approach centers on relationship-building, trusted guidance, and community empowerment. Volunteers help translate technical details into actionable guidance and ensure that homeowners feel supported, not alone, when making big decisions about their homes.
York worked deliberately and thoroughly to develop a training program for the energy coaches. To launch the energy coaching pilot, the group received some funding from the Community Resilience Partnership. This helped cover early program costs as York demonstrated a model that could be adapted in other towns. Coaches meet every two weeks to build skills and share updates. These regular meetings sometimes feature guest speakers offering practical knowledge that coaches can apply in the field.
Today, the program is growing steadily, driven by relationships, curiosity, and a shared sense of purpose. Coaches learn alongside residents, helping to demystify home energy upgrades and make climate action personal, practical, and achievable.
Project Description
An Energy Coach program is a community-based initiative that connects interested homeowners with knowledgeable volunteers who support homeowners through the process of understanding and navigating home energy improvements like efficiency upgrades and electrification of heating/cooling.
An Energy Coach Program supports residents through every stage of their home energy journey, making the process more accessible, including:
Conducting informal home energy walkthroughs to help build understanding of options, rebates, and the general process of energy improvements;
Helping homeowners clarify their goals, whether reducing bills, improving comfort, or switching off fossil fuels;
Explaining rebate and incentive options;
Connecting residents with vetted contractors, vendors, and service providers;
Providing follow-up support as homeowners implement energy upgrades over time.
While home energy improvements offer significant benefits to homeowners, and while there are often incentives available to cover a large percentage of the cost, the process requires time and understanding. Despite the information available through Efficiency Maine Trust and additional resources, uptake on impactful improvements like insulation and air sealing is very low. The personal support offered by energy coaches helps more people follow through on upgrades, avoid common roadblocks, while building trust in the process—especially in communities with limited access to energy assistance or where residents may not be familiar with new technologies. Receiving support from a coach that clearly does not have a financial investment in the homeowner taking certain steps - as opposed to a contractor - has been demonstrated to make a significant difference in the process.
Each volunteer coach (or pair of coaches - see note below under “People Power”) works with just a few clients at a time, allowing for deep, sustained engagement. Coaches are community members themselves, which helps create trusting, accessible conversations about energy in the home. Coaches receive initial training and meet regularly to learn together, share challenges, and celebrate successes.
Why This Project Matters
Buildings Are a Major Source of Emissions
In many towns, residential buildings account for the largest or second-largest (after transportation) share of local greenhouse gas emissionss. These emissions primarily come from fossil-fuel-based systems used for heating, hot water, and cooking and intensified energy needs due to poor building performance connected to poor insulation and air sealing.
In Maine specifically, the state has one of the oldest building stocks in the country. Many homes are heated by oil and many are inefficient due to poor insulation. Improving building performance through proper insulation and air sealing and electrifying heating and cooling is a very significant climate solution in Maine.
To improve building energy performance, homeowners must make informed, often complex decisions about their own properties. Many homeowners are not aware such solutions are available, or the degree to which these solutions benefit homeowners by reducing energy costs and improving home comfort. If homeowners are aware, they often find the process overwhelming or simply do not have the time to navigate what is often a lot of information to process to understand where to start. Energy Coach Programs help homeowners replace these fossil-fuel systems with modern electric alternatives, reducing each home’s carbon footprint significantly.
Empowers homeowners
For many homeowners, energy upgrades feel intimidating, expensive, or risky and yet these upgrades can often save homeowner significant money over the long-term. nergy coaches listening, supporting, and connecting homeowners with relevant experts helps empower homeowners to understand and take the best next steps for their specific situation. This model centers the homeowner, turning passive awareness into informed, confident action.
Too often, clean energy programs don’t reach the people who could benefit the most, whether due to language barriers, time constraints, trust gaps, or the sheer complexity of the system. Energy Coach Programs can help bridge these gaps by partnering with trusted local groups, offering culturally competent outreach, and creating space for residents to ask questions, express concerns, and move at their own pace.
Key considerations:
Community readiness
Gauge how aware residents are about building decarbonization and their interest level in energy upgrades.It will be important for Energy Coaches to understand the readiness level of the community generally and how to assess the specific readiness level of each homeowner. Understanding the general community readiness level can also help inform outreach plans to share news of the Energy Coaching program and the benefits of energy upgrades with the community during launch and continuously while the program runs.
Assess whether trusted local organizations or leaders can help bridge gaps and build trust, especially in underserved communities. It can be helpful to prepare a brief, one-to-two page info sheet about what you are trying to do and explaining the interest in partnering with local organizations to get the word out to underserved communities that might especially benefit from home energy improvements.
Consider the diversity of the community and the need for culturally competent outreach and multilingual support.
Identify practical barriers such as lack of time, awareness of incentives, or past negative experiences with contractors or other programs.
Resources
*This Energy Coaching plug and play was developed with the support of Rozanna Patane from York for Climate Action.
Cost
The cost of Energy Coaching programs depends greatly on how they are being run. If Energy Coaches are full volunteers and receive no stipend from their time, this greatly reduces the cost but can also result in significant hurdles in attracting and retaining coaches.
The second significant cost factor relates to who is running the program, as Energy Coaching programs do require a program manager of some nature to train and support the coaches and conduct outreach. This role can be filled by a volunteer or small group of volunteers, but it is a role that can take a significant time commitment, particularly up-front. If the coaching program is being run by a paid program manager, this will significantly impact the cost of the program.
A final key consideration related to cost in the cost of training. Thanks to York Ready for Climate Action and the work of many others, a significant number of training materials are already available, however, it is safe to assume some cost related to training, whether for the purchase of specific books or bringing in an expert for part of the training. However, it also is possible to start a coaching program with a training supported entirely by free materials already available.
In short, if you are able to receive funding to support your program, you might want to consider putting that funding towards training materials, outreach, potentially a part-time program manager, and/or stipends for coaches. However, if you cannot access funding support, it could still be possible to implement a coaching program with very low cost if you have a committed group of volunteers prepared to support the program both in terms of development and the consistent work of running the program and in terms of serving as energy coaches.
Time Requirement
Coaches:
Coaches spend 4-5 hours per initial client engagement
Bi-weekly team meetings
Ongoing training and client support
Program Management: Coordinating schedules, tracking progress, and continuous improvement require dedicated time and effort from the program manager or coordinator. The exact amount of time will depend on the number of coaches involved and the number of homes served at one time.
People Power
You can start with 2 or more volunteer coaches and 1 program manager (the program management role could be served by a small group of volunteers).
Leverage relationships with local nonprofits, agencies, and community groups to expand reach and share responsibilities.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Prior coaching programs have placed a strong importance on sending coaches into homes in pairs and never sending a single coach alone. Programs have attempted to send coaches in pairs with female and male identifying coaches.
How to:
Determine initial project size, needs, and accompanying budget
Determine whether you have the capacity to seek and manage funding to support a paid Program Manager, funds for training, and/or funds for coach stipends or if you will be developing a program on a smaller budget. Develop an outline of your initial program needs and accompanying budget and, if seeking funding, identify potential funding resources.
For outreach, estimate a starting budget of a few thousand dollars for printing brochures and handouts, website development and maintenance
Secure funding or grants (e.g., Climate Resilience Partnerships).
Consider shared staff (e.g., AmeriCorps) to help with technical tasks like maintaining websites or creating outreach materials.
Identify or appoint a Program Manager
This is your key leadership role. The program manager keeps the effort organized and moving.
Responsibilities include: volunteer coordination, coordinating volunteer training - both initial and ongoing, client intake tracking, troubleshooting, marketing oversight, and team support.
This person can be a volunteer or a paid hire, depending on your budget.
It is possible that this role could be filled by a very small group of volunteers. In this case, it will be important for the group to determine clearly how they will share the management responsibilities.
Identify/develop training program for coaches
Identify whether you are creating a new training program or utilizing existing materials, such as those developed by York Ready for Climate Action
If using existing materials, review the materials carefully and make any needed adjustments to ensure the materials address your specific community and program.
If developing a new training program, harvest from existing materials and ensure you are rooting your training in soundly researched materials. Please note, developing a new training program can be a time-consuming endeavor and might not be necessary, as existing materials are available.
Be sure to develop very clear training around what energy coaches are and are not qualified to do and advice they are and are not qualified to give. Energy coaches are different from trained auditors and contractors and are meant to support homeowners in understanding the process, options, associated benefits, and incentives available for home energy improvements, not to give specific advice related to specific upgrades. This is a complicated line to walk and requires very specific, and often on-going, clarification.
Develop infrastructure for coaches
Create coach guidelines/guidebook
Design intake questionnaires to assess home needs, eligibility, and interest
Develop liability waivers, especially if coaches will be entering homes
Establish communication protocols: how coaches follow up, log notes, and refer to partners.
Recruit Coaches
You can start with 2–3 volunteer energy coaches, especially if your community is small. You can look for coaches at climate action groups, transition town efforts, local sustainability committees, high school/college environmental clubs or existing volunteers from nonprofits, food banks, or houses of worship. Look for people who are passionate about climate work, good listeners and communicators and willing to learn and follow a coaching process. It can be helpful to acknowledge upfront the specific nature of the energy coaching role and what coaches are and are not allowed to do. While folks with a strong interest in energy will likely be drawn to the program, it is important for them to understand upfront that they won’t be able to give specific advice, but will instead be focused on general, ongoing support.
Coaches with an understanding of home energy efficiency is welcome but not a requirement.
Coaches should have a willingness to learn. Emphasizing client relations over technical expertise is crucial for this role. Their main role is to guide clients to take action, navigate programs, and feel supported.
Training Program
Conduct initial training for coaches
Training should be practical and confidence-building, not overly technical.
Establish ongoing education sessions
Connect with local energy experts and bring them as guest speakers
Create support network for coaches
Launch and Marketing
Develop promotional materials, including printed flyers and postcards (leave-behinds at events, churches, laundromats, libraries), press releases, and content for a simple website
Develop a simple landing page for a website that provides clear information about the program.
You can use a Google Form for intake and link it to the landing page
Develop clear slides/talking points to support information events
Host informational events at places like local libraries, churches and other community spaces
Use multiple communication channels (newspapers, emails, newsletters, etc)
Equity tip: The biggest challenge is often reaching low-income homeowners, seniors, or residents of color. Partner with organizations already serving those groups (e.g., food pantries), provide bilingual materials, offer to meet clients at home or by phone, reduce formality
Intake and Scheduling
Use your website or other intake tools to collect names of interested homeowners
Assign clients to energy coaches based on availability and other considerations that might support best match
Be mindful of coach workload. Too many clients can lead to burnout; too few and interest might fade. It will be important to communicate clearly with homeowners regarding the expected timeline for being matched with a coach in order to best manage expectations. Avoid overpromising; instead, if you have received more interest than you can initially serve, explain to homeowners that they will be matched with an energy coach as soon as one is available, but that it will take some time for the coaches to work their way through the list of interested homeowners. Keep waiting homeowners updated on progress to sustain their interest. Be sure to communicate promptly with homeowners as they enroll, even if they will need to wait to get started with a coach.
Track Client Progress
Use a shared spreadsheet or CRM tool to track: Client intake date, Home visits or energy audits completed, Measures recommended or completed, Outcomes (e.g., energy savings, improvements)
This tool supports weekly coach meetings and program learning.
Continuous Improvement
Regular coach meetings and continued training offerings. Schedule regular team check-ins to: Share challenges and successes, uUpdate tools and messaging, Adjust workload if needed
Track client outcomes
Refine processes
Maintain volunteer motivation with sense of collaboration and acknowledgement, even hosting occasional celebrations of progress
The program manager should monitor: Client flow vs. coach capacity, What’s working and what needs adaptation
Ongoing Best Practices
Start small and grow iteratively.
Be prepared for volunteer fluctuation, always appreciate and support your team.
Make the work meaningful: Most successful volunteers are motivated by climate action and a sense of impact.
Track progress, celebrate wins, and share stories to keep momentum going. Consider developing press releases to update the community periodically, and/or developing a quarterly newsletter for anyone interested.
York Energy Coaching Started guide. Contact yorkreadyforclimateaction@gmail.com for more information.