JENNIFER SOMERS

As Executive Director of the Equitable Building Electrification Fund, Jennifer works in partnership with community practitioners and philanthropic partners to foster shared learning to create new models for addressing climate, health, and energy challenges and resource frontline communities to lead the way on decarbonization strategies.

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Jennifer has over twenty-five years of experience supporting and co-creating strategies at the intersection of energy, climate, equity and justice. Jennifer has been an organizer and project manager for community-based organizations focused on economic, affordable housing, and environmental justice issues in Houston’s Fifth Ward, Barrio Logan in San Diego, and in the City of Richmond, California.  In one of her most visible roles, she served as a Senior Policy Advisor for the U.S. Department of Energy during the Obama Administration, leading the budgeting, management and implementation of federal stimulus dollars that helped to facilitate the weatherization and energy efficiency upgrades of one million homes for limited-wealth families in three years.

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Jennifer holds a bachelor's degree in Economics and Spanish from Fairfield University and a master’s from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.  Jennifer has served as the co-chair of the GREEN working group for The Funder’s Network where she sparked the development of the Systems Transformation Learning Series: Catalyzing and Advancing Change through Systems Tools & Network Collaboration for philanthropy.  She has also served on the board of directors for Build It Green and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC).