Renew Financial

Driving Public Affairs Results for a Pace Industry Leader

Approach

We designed a two-track program for Renew Financial: Expose the role of the bankers and their realtor proxies behind the attempted bans, while gathering positive consumer stories and using them to balance the story of PACE lending. The campaign achieved a more accurate picture for policy makers in Florida and California. We briefed three dozen media outlets in the two states. The stories of satisfied homeowners were told by pairing digital ads with op-eds submitted to local newspapers.

Challenge

Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) lending was launched as a great way for homeowners to pay for eco-friendly home improvements by paying the cost as part of their property tax bill over time. But a few unscrupulous contractors left unhappy homeowners in their wake, and their stories were leveraged by the mortgage banking industry – which saw PACE as direct competition – to lobby lawmakers to ban PACE from counties…or entire states. Renew Financial, a leader in advocating ethical PACE lending sales, was facing the loss of entire markets, and asked Tigercomm to help.

Results

• The mortgage bankers drive to ban PACE lending from California, the industry’s anchor market, was stopped.
• Our campaign kept the market open in two big, bellwether Florida counties, fending off efforts to have them ban PACE.