About Renewables.org

Renewables.org seeks to launch a ‘Kiva for solar’ – where you can finance high-impact solar projects across the Global South & get repaid over 5 years.

The Problem

80% of CO2 growth will take place in the Global South. To effectively mitigate climate change, we should accelerate clean energy where a) grids are dirtiest and b) costs are lowest. Countries across Africa and India are in this sweet spot.

Our Solution

Renewables.org is an online solar investing non-profit that allows anyone to finance solar panels across the Global South and get repaid over five years. By building the world’s highest carbon-impact solar projects, Renewables.org amplifies the carbon avoidance of its users as much as 19 times compared to a comparable U.S. located solar investment.

Renewables.org is a non-profit with a philanthropic mission to make it easy for every day people to do something very high impact to combat climate change.

Our Team (so far)

Renewables.org’s co-founders are leaders in crowdfunding & Global South solar.

Co-founder & Chair Premal Shah, previously started & led Kiva.org. Kiva pioneered crowdfunding and has raised over $1 billion in 0% interest capital to expand microfinance across 75 countries.

Co-founder & C.E.O. Lassor Feasley is a product designer with expertise in marketing who is well connected in the solar finance space. He previously started Legends.solar (aimed at solar finance in the USA which is already well served and therefore hard to scale) which led to him focusing on underserved markets in the Global South with renewables.org.

Co-founder & Board Member Ruchir Punjabiis C.E.O. of Distributed Energy, a leading solar finance organisation operating across India and Africa.

The Plan

1-6 months | MVP & fundraise

Renewables.org currently has an MVP version of its product which it is testing with beta users. The product allows users to purchase ‘panels°’ for $25 dollars each and view a visualisation of their investment and the impact they create as they get paid back over five years.

Within the next two months, we plan to soft-launch this product to a broader audience so we can generate some user growth and market testing metrics before entering a philanthropic grant fundraise of an amount sufficient to hire a small term.

This role will be uncompensated until the fundraise is complete – however, because the nature of the role through this phase will primarily consist of maintaining our existing software, it may be possible for the applicant to participate part time until the fundraise is complete.

6-12 months | Marketing, user growth, and org building

Once the fundraise is complete, Renewables.org will begin marketing its product in earnest - including via press, paid social, events, and other methods. Our aspiration is to match Kiva.org’s millions of active users.

Concurrently, we will architect an improved product that includes rewards, social features, and real-time monitoring of users' investments. This will be essential in keeping the community of users engaged and ensuring they continue to grow their ‘rooftop’ portfolio.

13+ months | Advanced product and sustainable operations

Renewables.org will deploy its interactive product improvements and build an organisation that can continuously improve the offering experience. In addition, it will build a finance team capable of sourcing additional investment opportunities.

Once Renewables.org has attained significant AUM, it will be able to sustain operations without additional philanthropic support. Renewables.org will earn a yield of ~2-6% of funds under management annually - at scale this can support a large marketing budget and cutting edge finance, engineering, marketing, and product design teams.

About the role

Renewables.org is seeking a technical cofounder to bring our online solar investing concept to life. You will work side-by-side with Renewables.org’s C.E.O. and Renewables.org’s global team of leading fintech/finance operators. You will help guide product direction as you architect and deploy backend payments and frontend product infrastructure.

In the short term: Renewables.org currently runs a rudimentary WordPress/PayPal transactions system that manages purchases and repayments for its users. This must be maintained, improved, and automated.

In the long term:Renewables.org will create an interactive solar investing platform that will allow users to see the real-time impact and productivity of the solar panels. The system will manage millions of users and billions of dollars in transactions. Candidates for this role should be capable of anticipating the challenges of scaling a successful fintech product.

Nice to have

• NYC metropolitan area
• Experience building fintech software
• Passion for front-end design and/or performance marketing
• Interest in climate change activism

Compensation

Renewables.org has not yet fundraised and cannot currently compensate its cofounders (including its existing team). Because it is a non-profit, Renewables.org cannot offer equity compensation. We plan on fundraising seed capital sufficient to compensate a small team in 3-6 months (see ‘The Plan’ above for details). Renewables.org plans to offer a highly competitive salary and benefits once it is able.