Solar Power Industry Workers Devastated

I'm Austin Anderson, the President of Homesourced, and majority owner of PV Project Services and Homesourced. I'm also a partner of Appointments 1st, previously known as Measureless Marketing. My call center (Appointments 1st) is set to end this year at 36,000 appointments. Homesourced and PV Project Services is an outsourcing company. It's hard to explain what we do at the outsourcing companies but just to give an idea of how we participate in the market here are a few of our production numbers and company statistics: We do 35,000 system designs/proposals monthly, 4,000 auto-CAD plan sets a month, employee 17 different jobs in solar operations, we also do a little bit of media management as well for a reputable marketing company, and currently between the two organizations we employee 383 people all just supporting solar. Our outsourcing company currently has 52 contractors or EPC's that we work for. The call center has about 80 clients. Donations to this campaign will go directly to our employees.

All of this growth has came out of three years in business. It's been absolutely insane getting us to the point where we are, many people have had to sacrifice a lot to make it work and be scalable. It's not just us, but our clients too. Anyone that has started a business knows how difficult it could be and how it can often teeter on the edge of collapse and gigantic success.

If you have not heard yet, the Philippines got rocked hard by a Super Typhoon on Thursday of last week. The emergency response was good, 300,000 people were evacuated, and so far there are roughly 375 casualties. Again, emergency response really curbed the worse case scenario. Damages were extensive though; the island next to were we operate out of had 75% of there homes damaged. Cebu, the actual city we operate from, has not had power for 6 days now. Some scary numbers that have kept our team on edge and unable to sleep; roughly 15% of our employees have homes that are not occupiable. It's beyond extremely ugly. All of our account managers, CTO, COO, three business partners, HR department, and Training department is only doing aid and emergency relief. Everything outside of regular operations for growth and business development is strictly on hold for a month and as long as 2.

Honestly, I don't think we are on the brink of collapse though. If this happened anywhere in the US I feel like it would be game over. Fortunately, the culture in the country (The Philippines, more so even the province and city of Cebu) that we are based out of breeds cooperation, support, and almost to a cost to the citizens. Last year we spent almost (coincidentally on the amount of damages we have seen) $380,000 on office infrastructure to guarantee operations in any condition, and it is still going; we even had power and internet through the whole storm. Having the office environment to go to has already immensely made many families feel safe and everyone is grateful for work. I have had to send agents homes at the door because they did not have food, water, propane, and rice to sustain themselves and families through the next two weeks as a minimum solely because they are worried about what clients will do if they can't get to work.

We may have not worked with you yet. However, I plan on being in the industry in a way that we are not going to be going anywhere for a long time. Managing operations is really about eliciting a drive to help everyone and drive solar adoption. A huge part of our program is reinforcing the fact that we are here to support and make everyone's experience better. Often the missing ingredient in operations is one that we have to over build in sales, that's believing in your product. What sets all our agents apart is the genuine belief that solar is making a difference. Every single one of our employees is excited to come in and do there best to drive solar adoption any way possible. This is an awesome chance to prove to them you appreciate the work they do. Even if they are not your EPC's agents or yours they need help. At the most basic level, all of us need your help.

More than anything I want to reach out to the solar community and prove to everyone what the industry is really capable of. I know everyone is trying to make a difference, a good chunk of you solar pros are making great money. I'm fortunate enough to work in an environment were everyone is about winning, having a gratitude mindset, and emphasizes lifting others up to there level.

Outsourcing is going to have a significant place in Solar, a lot of you have already seen that it has. Our goal is to raise $388,000.00. This was our estimated damages to our agents 3 days ago, it will keep going up. Clients are really stepping up in a big way, smaller clients with 1 to 5 agent teams are getting money over quickly covering full amounts of damages. Larger clients with 20 or more agents are taking a little more time to confidently determine total damage, these types of donations will take a little more time and consideration when you have investors, multiple partners, and many stake holders positions to consider. We have received $45,000.00 in donations and commitments so far and are making great head way. The problem with these transactions and commitments is that they will take time to fulfill. Additionally, when these decisions are spread between so many decision makers we inevitably won't get the support that we need. Of course we are throwing everything we have at our own disposal, but it won't be enough.

We have a proven track record of three years in business. I have held off on agreeing to any other forms of fundraising till we had the chance to reach out to clients personally and to ensure fundraisers were coming straight from the company to get transactions and distributions to happen quickly. We have created a system where all donations will be matched to a specific damage and to the degree of it's coverage. You will be getting a brief thank you video and a confirmation from our account management team along with the agent the donation was given to for 100% transparency. We are now prioritizing water over shelter, then we will transition to repairs. Distributions will start with those most affected and work to the least affected. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions you would have to on how these donations will be handled.

Please take a second to donate any amount to our agents, we will be making thank you videos for each transaction. I know everyone says this but every bit will help. $25.00 can be as much as a 1/5 of a someone's roof, practically everyone has spotty damage. Cost of water has already increased by 300%, gasoline has rose by 50% in 6 days. The quicker we can show support and let these solar support agents know they will be taken care of the easier it will be for them to spend money where it needs to go. We have already taken the necessary steps to protect operations and continue to support many of you, I know it's going to get worse though. Please take a second to donate anything your able to.

Here are a few pictures and videos of damages of our agents communities and homes: