The Skoll Foundation just gave away a whole heck of a lot of grant money to all sorts of social entrepreneurs and organizations, and one of those organizations happens to be ACORE(American Council On Renewable Energy). To be specific, it’s a $1 million grant, over three years. That’s a pretty good chunk of change.

From the Skoll Foundation’s site…

American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) – Michael Eckhart first understood the promise of renewable energy in the 1970s when he did pioneering energy studies under funding by the Carter White House. In 2001, Michael and others founded the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) to establish an “all renewable” organization for the U.S. ACORE seeks to bring together all renewable energy industries to create a new power base that speaks with one voice and has the strength, influence and research needed to match the power of organizations representing traditional carbon-based industries. ACORE’s goal is to have 25 percent of U.S. electricity and fuels come from renewable sources by 2025. By 2011, it plans to increase membership from 500 to 1,000 organizations. ACORE is headquartered in Washington D.C.

I’m sure it will help them get more notice to their activities, but more importantly (to me), it’s a great sign that organizations like that are having such an affect on investors, venture capitalists, and of course businesses which like giving away big bags of grant money. I’ve been hearing more and more about the influx of cash a lot of alternative energy related companies are getting these days, and it’s just plain excellent.

Hopefully this grant will allow ACORE to expand some of their ongoing events(like their Global Venture Challenge). A cool million could go a long way helping startup companies. And it can’t hurt their larger events either, like the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC 2008) which was last week. They also put on a monthly seminar/teleconference that I was previously unaware of. I’ll have to mark the next one on my calendar and check it out.

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