At CORENA, we often talk about our revolving energy fund — how every donation keeps giving, how we’ve worked with 60 community projects to cut emissions, and how your support makes it all happen.
But what really keeps CORENA moving forward? It’s our Operations Fund — the unsung hero that powers everything behind the scenes. Here are five surprising (and important!) things it covers:
1. Free Technical Support for Nonprofits
This is the big one. Most nonprofits don’t have sustainability experts on staff. They’re already stretched thin delivering vital services — so researching solar systems or energy upgrades often gets pushed aside.
That’s where we step in. CORENA provides free, one-on-one technical support to help nonprofits:
- Understand their energy use
- Compare quotes
- Build business cases
And navigate the entire project journey, it can take up to a year (and sometimes more!) to develop a project to the point where it’s ready for fundraising
This tailored support is what makes our projects actually happen — and it’s entirely funded by our Operations Fund.
2. Helping Projects Get “Loan Ready”
Not all of the expressions of interest (EOIs) we receive end up becoming loan projects. Sometimes non-profits discover a project is not a good fit for their circumstances. We want our projects to deliver carbon and cost savings for our non profits and if as we develop the project it becomes apparent that won’t happen, it doesn’t progress to the loan stage. This takes resources but is important too!
3. The Day-to-Day Essentials That Keep Us Running
Just like any other organisation, CORENA needs the basics to function:
- Website hosting and maintenance
- Digital tools and business systems
- Insurance and legal compliance
- Marketing to reach new supporters
These costs aren’t glamorous, but they’re absolutely critical.
4. Finding New Projects
There was a time — back in 2021 and 2022 — when our revolving fund had started growing, but we didn’t have the staff capacity to find enough new projects to keep up with the fund. This always surprises people, surely finding projects is the easy part, it’s really not! We have spent a lot of time reaching out to peak industry bodies, running online information sessions for potential loan recipients, writing guides and resources and optimising the ability of our website to be found by search engines. All of this has worked and we now have a pipeline of projects waiting for funding but we learned the hard way that without strong operations support, even the best funding model can stall. Now, with your help, we can keep building the pipeline of projects — and keep the fund growing.
5. Expanding CORENA’s Impact Beyond Our Own Loans
Sometimes, our support helps a nonprofit realise just how financially smart a climate project is — so they go ahead and self-fund. Or they get a grant. Even though they don’t take out a loan with us, our support still leads to carbon reductions. That means the ripple effects of the Operations Fund stretch beyond our own projects.
In Short? Your Operations Fund Donation Multiplies Impact
CORENA has a plan to self fund our operations by using 20% of our loan repayments for our operations fund. To do this we need to grow our project loans to $550,000 every year to cover our current operating costs. In the meantime we need your help to top up the operations fund.
Donating to CORENA’s Operations Fund might not feel as exciting as funding solar panels directly — but without it, those panels might never get installed. This fund is what powers everything we do.
Want to help us keep the wheels turning?
Donate to the Operations Fund today and have your donation doubled! (The below link will take you to our fundraising Raisely page)