Verde Social Enterprise
Verde Social Enterprise is a nonprofit organization serving communities by building environmental wealth through social enterprise, outreach, and advocacy. Verde seeks to bring environmental investments into low-income neighborhoods, working directly with residents in the design of these investments. Additionally, they want to ensure that these improvements economically empower low-income people and create broad, neighborhood-based economic opportunities.
Since 2005, Verde has brought new environmental investments to Portland’s neighborhoods, involved community members in the planning and building of these projects, and ensured that low-income people and people of color directly benefited from them. These projects include creating greenspaces, energy efficiency and renewable energy, green streets, stormwater management facilities, environmental education, green jobs, and green businesses.
Verde is also a licensed contractor, working on a number of projects through its subsidiaries, Verde Builds and Verde Landscape. Its projects focus on implementing green infrastructure, improving low-income housing, and employing low-income residents. Verde Landscape offers landscape labor to general contractors and landscape subcontractors, with a focus on contractors subject to the City of Portland’s Workforce Training & Hiring Program. Verde aims to recruit workers from residents of the nearby Hacienda Community Development Corporation's affordable housing units, the Cully neighborhood, and other low-income communities around Portland. Verde has partnered with a myriad of community groups, including low-income housing communities, the City of Portland, contracting companies, Portland Public Schools, and environmental conservation organizations.