Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Opportunities like Climate Careers are crucial. Not all youth can afford to work unpaid internships, a reality that leaves many without the depth of resume or soft skills that employers desire and results in repercussions throughout their careers. By hiring youth for green jobs that allow them to both grow professionally and make a positive impact, Rising Sun equips them to achieve their full potential while improving local climate resilience. Especially in the Bay Area, improving equal access to careers that offer family-sustaining wages is pivotal; one in five families lack the resources needed to meet basic needs. Opportunity Build provides a path to high road careers in the union construction industry, where entry-level wages range from $21-$40 per hour and jobs provide excellent healthcare and retirement benefits, worker protections, and career advancement potential. Improving access to good jobs helps break cycles of poverty and enable the accrual of intergenerational wealth.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Climate Careers
Since 2000, Climate Careers has operated as a social enterprise, offering leaders ages 15-24 the opportunity to gain hands-on work experience while promoting environmental awareness. Youth from low-income households are hired and trained to provide Green House Calls—energy efficiency and water conservation services and education—at no cost to their communities, improving local climate resilience and saving residents money.
Climate Careers is often a first job, and we are committed to making that a transformative experience. Professional development workshops and coaching round out the summer, transitioning into more robust career exploration during paid, fall-term externships with partnered hosts, helping youth develop meaningful pathways into green opportunities and positioning them for future success.
To date, Climate Careers has trained over 1,800 youth while helping nearly 60,000 households reduce their carbon footprint.
Opportunity Build
As a state-certified Apprenticeship Readiness Program for careers in the union construction trades, Opportunity Build opens a pathway to good jobs through hands-on training and wraparound services. Through job training, case management, and job placement support, graduates gain the technical and soft skills they need to begin jobs with family-sustaining wages, stability, and benefits.
Opportunity Build training is held for 10 weeks and offers industry-recognized certifications including First Aid/CPR, OSHA 10, and MC3 (Multi-Craft Core Curriculum), preparing graduates to enter any of 14 building trades.
Opportunity Build includes one of the few all-women pre-apprenticeship programs in the nation, Women Building the Bay. Especially in the Bay Area, improving equal access to careers that offer family-sustaining wages is pivotal—and Rising Sun is committed to recruiting participants from demographic groups that are traditionally underrepresented in the building and construction trades.
Where we work
External reviews

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Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of people trained
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Rising Sun trained 3,171 youth and adults for great careers in the green economy and beyond between 2000-2022.
Number of households served to date
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Climate Careers
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Rising Sun served 57,552 households with our no-cost climate-smart energy and water efficiency services from 2000-2022.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Our vision is to create a just and sustainable future for all people and our planet.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Our workforce development programs specialize in preparing youth, women, and individuals in reentry for high-road careers and green pathways that offer family-sustaining wages.
Climate Careers is designed to simultaneously address the serious challenges of climate change and climate resilience while providing meaningful employment opportunities for youth to both grow professionally and contribute to their financial goals, setting them up for future success. Youth offer climate change solutions as Energy Specialists, paid ambassadors who promote local environmental responsibility. Green House Calls quantifiably reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the installation of LED light bulbs and other conservation measures—and youth make an exponential impact through their enthusiasm and advice, motivating residents to adopt new habits. Since 2020 we have offered both remote and in-person services, removing another barrier to participation and broadening our environmental impact. Furthermore, in 2021, Climate Careers expanded to include a post-summer externship program aimed at building genuine opportunities for youth to forge sustainable futures for themselves and our planet—pathways into green economy careers that we hope to grow this year and in the future.
Since 2016, Opportunity Build has focused on increasing our recruitment of women, including establishing an all-female program cohort, Women Building the Bay. Although 9-10% of the construction industry is typically composed of women, only 3-4% of those women work high-paying field jobs; women in the U.S. earn on average 83 cents for each male dollar. This gender pay gap does not exist in the trades where pay rates are fixed by experience level, regardless of race or gender. Furthermore, the building trades are one of a limited number of industries that will readily hire justice system-impacted adults and pay well without requiring a college degree.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Climate Careers has over a 20-year track record of employing local youth in green jobs and training them to enact environmental solutions. The program includes dedicated year-round staff, allowing it to serve ten counties with summer youth employment and conservation services while continuously innovating. At the same time, Climate Careers has a highly refined schedule for recruitment, outreach, and roll-out developed over years of experience.
Rising Sun's dedicated Opportunity Build staff, with the support of several specialized contract instructors in topics including construction and mathematics, have operated the program since 2009, serving more than 900 adults. Importantly, Opportunity Build maintains strong relationships and partnerships with key stakeholders to enhance the program and provide better outcomes for participants. Partners include construction employers, trade unions, and organizations such as the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County, Tradeswomen, Inc., and the West Oakland Job Resource Center. We have priority placement agreements with several local unions and work directly with construction employers and building developers.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Rising Sun has a history of success in helping communities save energy and water; in providing meaningful employment, support, and professional development to youth; and in helping adults secure and succeed in careers paying family-sustaining wages. To date we have trained over 3,000 youth and adults, made nearly 60,000 homes more efficient, and offset over 120,000 metric tons of CO2.
While Rising Sun has accomplished much, we are focused on continual improvement and acknowledge the need to do more. Rising Sun aspires to inspire systems change, impacting more than the individuals reached through our programs to create positive change in broader communities. We intend to achieve this through a concerted policy and advocacy agenda, and have made important strides towards creating our first policy platform and working in coalition to advocate for improved green job opportunities for entry-level and traditionally underrepresented workers and climate mitigation for the communities most affected by environmental contamination and climate change.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve
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What significant change resulted from feedback?
In response to self-reported need, we recently began offering mental health and substance abuse counseling to our Opportunity Build participants.
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
RISING SUN CENTER FOR OPPORTUNITY
Board of directorsas of 02/03/2023
Phil Miller
California Water Environment Association
Term: 2021 -
Paul Carp
EVgo
Kathy de Jong
Bay Area SMACNA
Zach Franklin
GRID Alternatives
Phil Miller
California Water Environment Association
Mel Parker, MD
Kaiser Permanente
Jane Fischberg
Consultant
Phel Meyer
Salesforce
David Siddiqui
Oracle
Delrisha White
Equity Erudition
Fahim Reese
Motivated 2 Help Others; 1Hundred Years Enterprise
Sharla Sullivan
Webcor
Victor Washington
Berkeley Mental Health; Kaiser Permanente
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? No -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 08/04/2021GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.