By Jasmine Graham

Two years ago today, I stepped into the role of Executive Director of Mid-Hudson Energy Transition (MHET) — not because the path was clear, but because the work was urgent, and the vision was worth fighting for.

We weren’t quite a start-up, but we weren’t fully real yet either. One staff member, a few months in. No active programs. No track record. Just a bold vision — and a belief that climate work should center the people most impacted. That equity isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s the whole point. We need solutions you can feel — in your bills, your building, your body. We need justice that shows up where people actually live.

I was 27. Black, queer, and femme. Stepping into leadership in a space that rarely hands the reins to people like me. A couple years earlier, around 25, I’d joined MHET’s board because I believed in what might be possible. But even then, I couldn’t have imagined how much we would build, and how fast.

I didn’t come in with a playbook. I didn’t inherit a system. I had some policy chops, yes — but my leadership was shaped by community. By movement spaces. By watching people I love figure out how to get things done when the systems didn’t show up for them. I come from folks who improvise, who adapt, who make a way out of no way. That’s the spirit I brought to MHET — not just strategic thinking, but trust, accountability, and the insistence that our work serve something bigger than any one institution.

What we’ve built — together

In just two years, we’ve:

• Built a team of 12 full-time staff, with livable wages, unlimited paid time off, and a work culture grounded in compassion, collaboration, joy, equity, and excellence.
• Completed dozens of home upgrades and electrification projects — bringing real, material relief to people often excluded from the energy transition.
• Distributed tens of thousands in grants to make energy upgrades possible for low-income households — because everyone deserves a home that’s safe, efficient, and climate-resilient.
• Established a Community Council made up of residents from marginalized communities, who keep us honest, help guide our work, and ensure we stay rooted in on-the-ground realities.
• Secured multi-year operating funding from aligned foundations and mission-driven investors — creating the breathing room to stay focused, independent, and bold.
• Pushed into energy innovation — from agrivoltaics to thermal energy networks — and are learning, still, how to ensure those technologies are shaped by the people they’re meant to serve.
• Launched a green community investment fund — one of the only in the country — where everyday people (non-accredited investors) can invest alongside philanthropy to fund retrofits in low-income homes.
• And in June, we’ll launch our Home Energy Loan Program, offering 2% interest loans to low- and moderate-income households — made possible by a $100,000 interest rate buy-down from philanthropy and a $500,000 loan loss reserve from NYSERDA.

None of this happened by accident. It happened because we showed up. Because we listened. Because we made mistakes and learned fast. Because we prioritized community, not ego. And because we knew that the systems we inherited weren’t going to deliver the future we deserve.

What I’ve learned

It’s easy to say “community-led.” It’s way harder to live it. It means slowing down when funders want speed. It means being transparent when it would be easier not to be. It means letting go of control — and building real relationships in its place.

It means understanding that the solutions we need already exist. Our job is to invest in them — and to return power to communities who should have had it all along.

I’ve learned that when Black women and working-class communities have real resources and real power, things move. Maybe not at the pace some expect, but in the direction that matters — in the direction of dignity. Of healing. Of sustainability.

We’re not just reducing emissions. We’re repairing trust. We’re redirecting capital. We’re building wealth. We’re making homes safer. And we’re giving people back some control in a world that too often denies them any agency.

And we’re just getting started.

The next two years at MHET will be about scaling what’s working, being even more intentional about what’s not, and continuing to model a just transition that’s not theoretical — it’s real, it’s local, and it’s already underway.

What we’re building in Kingston, NY is a proof of concept. But it’s also a call to action.

Because this kind of work — the deep, relational, infrastructure-building, trust-rooted kind — isn’t flashy. It doesn’t make headlines. But it changes everything.

So to anyone out there who’s trying to build something that hasn’t existed before — especially those of us who’ve never been handed power or resources easily — I see you.

Keep going.

Keep building.

Because it’s working.