With the 1 July 2000 arrival of Dale
Levy as RMI’s Development Director,
fundraising at RMI would never be the
same. RMI was fortunate to have him
at the helm of its Development
Department until he retired at the end
of December 2007.
During his tenure, Dale challenged
RMI to explore new ways of building
relationships with our supporters and
offering our donors new ways and opportunities
for giving.
During Dale’s tenure, RMI’s contributed
income grew from $2 million in
FY2000 (total FY2000 operating revenues
and support was $4.9 million) to
$4.7 million in contributed income for
FY2006 (total FY06 operating revenues
and support was $9.6 million).
Dale was particularly instrumental in
cultivating RMI’s relationship with the
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,
whose giving rose from $500,000 over
three years in 1998 to a $750,000 threeyear
grant. He also took the lead in the
Sandler Family Foundation’s matching
grants campaign. Th rough the generosity
of the Sandler Family, RMI was able
to considerably leverage those grants.
Some of the important work that RMI
was able to fund as a result of Dale and
the Development Team’s work include:
-
Winning the Oil Endgame (WTOE):
Published in 2004, WTOE clearly represents
one of the most important and
ambitious pieces of work ever undertaken
by RMI. This independent, peerreviewed
detailed roadmap for getting
the United States completely off oil by
the 2040s drew on the skills and time of
everyone at the Institute.
-
National Energy Policy Initiative
(NEP Initiative): In February 2002,
RMI and the Consensus Building
Institute convened a bipartisan group of
the nation’s best energy thinkers to craft
a stakeholder-based national energy
policy that meets security, economic,
and environmental needs simultaneously
and without compromise. The result
integrated creative win-win opportunities
in transport and mobility, electrical
services, energy security, and climate.
Endorsed by 33 leading private- and
public-sector energy leaders, the NEP
Initiative received wide praise and was
presented to Congressional leaders of
both parties and houses in the hope of
reshaping how legislators responded to
the nation’s unresolved energy policy
issues.
-
Small is Profitable: The Hidden
Economic Benefits of Making
Electrical Resources the Right Size:
Th is definitive work describes 207 ways
in which optimizing the size of “electrical
resources”—devices that make, save,
or store electricity—increases their economic
value. SIP showed that “distributed”
(decentralized) electrical resources
are typically worth about tenfold more
than previously assumed. Although
directed at the electricity sector, over the
years Small is Profitable has proved to
have a much broader audience.
-
Sustainable Settlements: RMI joined
forces with Dr. Eric Rasmussen and an
array of relief organizations to rethink
refugee and displaced persons settlements
from scratch. The study yielded
fascinating results, some of which immediately
influenced aid and humanitarian
work.
Other important work funded under
Dale’s leadership includes: teaching
National Capitalism at the University of
Peking, RMI’s Design Recommendations
for High-Performance Data Centers, The
New Business Climate: A Guide to Lower
Carbon Emission and Better Business
Performance, the Community Energy
Opportunity Finder, the Greening of
Greater Boston’s Health Care Systems
and Facilities, RMI’s Energy Resource
Investment Strategy, and the Biomimicry
Database.
Dale and his wife, Linda, plan on
having fun during this next phase of
their lives. They have relocated to Oklahoma
to be closer to their families.
All of us RMI wish them the very best,
and are grateful to Dale for his invaluable
leadership role at RMI. There is no
question that Dale’s contributions to
RMI will have an effect long after his
departure.
