A very helpful marketing consultant by the name of Peter Klein (peter@pkassoc.com) suggested that I consider the concept of Diplomats to help spread the word about The NRF. The NRF is a 501c3 organization operating as a public charity. It is currently a development stage company looking for ways to help finance public climate resilience projects.

We are looking to increase our exposure both in terms of social media and speaking engagements to spread the word about how municipalities can finance infrastructure that makes their city, government, large buildings or town more resilient and sustainable.

I have taken his advice to heart and propose the following for interested volunteers:

Consider spending up to five hours per week helping The NRF get the word out that we have to start now to make our municipalities and infrastructure more resilient and sustainable in light of future weather events. Initially, these will be non-paid internships but individuals can receive credit, if their learning institution approves, for hours put in for either college credit or at the very least as a resume builder.

There is an enormous amount of capital that has to be expended in the coming years (estimated at about $90 trillion from now until the year 2050) through creative financing such as climate bonds, catastrophe bonds, investment tax credits, union pension funds, impact investors, public-private partnerships, grant subsidies, plain vanilla municipal bonds and federal, state or local funding for transportation projects.

In the coming years, we are sure that new financing vehicles will be invented and adopted to help fund the massive amounts of capital that will be required to protect our species and our infrastructure that allows us to live on the planet.

As an individual you can start reducing your carbon footprint and making our society more resilient through simple measures like:

1) Turning the thermostat up (during hot months) or down (during cold months). Even one degree, either way, will help reduce energy consumption.  Think of it like a diet; if you cut out fats, certain carbohydrates, sugary drinks and sweets you will lose weight, especially if you exercise. We like to look at the losing weight as sustainability or mitigation measures and exercise as resilience or adaptation measures.

2) Recycle as much as possible and use recyclable materials where ever possible.

3) Compost as much as possible.

4) Try not eating animal protein for one or two days a week if you consume the typical 9 ounces of animal protein that the average U.S. citizen consumes daily. Eating non-animal protein is a lot more sustainable for our land cultivation and can feed many more people than an animal protein diet.

5) Share things like automobiles and housing, use mass transit where possible and think twice before getting into your car.

6) Contribute to and comment on our blog: natresilience.blogspot.com. Help expand the blog’s reach through social media. You younger people know a lot more about social media and website development than we do…

7) Help get us speaking engagements and consulting assignments at colleges, universities, businesses, schools, municipalities and any where there are relatively large audiences (ideally 100+ people). Here is a link to the speaking engagement terms:   http://bit.ly/1WUdwCX

Diplomats can make money by successfully referring speaking and consulting engagements to The NRF.

8) People who know how to write grants can apply to foundations, endowments, municipalities, other not-for-profits and NGOs for grant money for The NRF to expand our efforts. The funds raised will allow Diplomats to become paid members of The NRF and help make communities more sustainable and resilient. Successful grant writers will receive fair compensation for their efforts.

We are thinking about crowdfunding again and had an Indiegogo site that was actually done back in 2013. It was a little early on but the basic concept may be revived with the right team to spearhead a new crowdfunding effort. Here is the original campaign: http://natresilience.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-natural-resilience-fund-indiegogo.html

We are currently seeking $1 million in grant funding to help expand our financing efforts of these essential projects that are often structured as public-private partnerships (PPPs). Interested Diplomats can request a copy of our business plan.

The title Natural Resilience Fund is somewhat of a misnomer in that, until we receive actual funding for things like our climate resilience investment tax credit (CRITC) and Climate Resilience Grant Investment Subsidy (CRIS), we are really The Natural Resilience Network; we need to spread the word and get input from as many “right thinking people” as possible.

The goal is not to convince “wrong thinking people” to believe in the need for climate resilience; we just need to connect the “right thinking people” of all ages, worldwide, together and, once these connections are made, we are confident that good things will happen…