The Community Foundation’s newest board member, Jesse Hicks, thinks a lot about how to create prosperity and resilience in Nevada County. Three years ago, after living in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, he returned to Nevada County, where he grew up. Jesse plans to live here for the rest of his life, and he wants to help make this community as strong and prosperous as it can be.
He has already started. By day, Jesse oversees campaigns and handles creative direction for a national advertising agency. But in his spare time, he is starting a new business. The business, ROTN (Return Organics to Nature), aims to process Nevada County’s organic waste into compost locally instead of sending it out of the county. Much of Nevada County has a mandatory organic waste collection policy, but all of that waste is currently shipped to out-of-county facilities, incurring significant processing and transportation fees.
“Nonprofit work is not the only way to do good”
Jesse was inspired by Nevada County’s long history of innovation. He believes Nevada County is well positioned to lead the way to economic prosperity through innovative, climate positive businesses. “Nonprofit work is not the only way to do good,” he said. “Businesses that are for profit can also be climate positive and have community benefits. Climate is too big for nonprofits alone to tackle. Our for-profit economy has to shift to include community costs and benefits in the ledger. ROTN does this on a small scale and also models it for a larger scale.”
ROTN brings multiple benefits to the community:
- economic benefit (local jobs and reduced transportation and processing fees)
- increased wildfire safety (fuel load reduction)
- support for local agricultural businesses (compost as a resource)
- climate benefit (not trucking waste miles away and reduction of methane that would be released from storing green waste in a landfill).
“Making seemingly impossible projects come to life”
There are challenges with this type of business, but Jesse is undeterred. He joined the Community Foundation board partly because the Foundation’s mission is aligned so well with what he is trying to accomplish. Community foundations excel at bringing together different organizations to solve multiple problems at once.
“Some of the best things come through complicated public/private partnerships,” said Jesse. “The Foundation can be the entity that bridges that gap, sees what the community needs and makes seemingly impossible projects come to life.” Jesse also sees the Community Foundation as a potential future partner for small businesses like his, providing financial expertise and capital for catalytic grants or loans.
“I grew up here. I love this place and want to protect it for future generations,” he said. “That means creating both the environmental and economic stability that allow future generations to live here and enjoy it like previous generations have.”