The National Lighting Bureau (NLB) has established a new sponsorship category targeted at for-profit organizations with annual receipts of less than $10 million. The sponsorship fee is $500 per year.

“Prior to this, the minimum fee was $1,000 during the first year of sponsorship, followed by $2,400 in year two and $3,600 annually thereafter,” Bureau Executive Director John Bachner explained. “The new $500-per-year rate stays at $500 indefinitely, unless the organization’s annual receipts increase beyond $10 million. Nongovernment not-for-profit groups also start at $1,000 a year and reach $2,400 annually after three years. Government groups start and stay at $500 per year.”

NLB Chair Howard Lewis (Lighting Alternatives, Inc.) commented that “several organizations have voiced their support of the Bureau, but they’ve said that they just could not justify the sponsorship fee. Now they can, and we hope they take advantage of the opportunity, for themselves and for the lighting community at large.”

“The Bureau’s mission is to create a rising tide that lifts all boats,” Bachner said. “We promote greater awareness of what we call High-Benefit Lighting©; high-efficiency lighting that minimizes energy waste while providing the lighting conditions needed to optimize worker productivity, improve safety indoors and outdoors, enhance security, boost retail sales, and so on. Each of these factors is important of itself, but most have a robust subset of additional benefits that the Bureau also points out. For example, better illumination in shopping-center parking lots not only makes the lots safer at night, it also makes the enhanced safety obvious; people can see it. That results in more after-dark shoppers and more sales. Of course, it also results in fewer vehicle-object, vehicle-vehicle, and vehicle-pedestrian accidents, as well as fewer incidents of vandalism and break-ins, as well as fewer assaults. All of these improvements lead to bottom-line improvements, in the form of less negative press, less paperwork, fewer claims, lower insurance rates, and increased building value.  Calling these issues to the attention of those who own, manage, and rely on indoor and outdoor lighting systems, often through the use of case histories, has helped us make a substantial impact over the past three-and-a-half decades, in part by creating more demand for high-quality lighting systems that do more for all of us.”

Bachner commented that only Bureau sponsors may use the Bureau’s logo on their publications, packaging, and electronic media. He added that unrestricted use of Bureau materials – like magazine article reprints – likewise is available only to Bureau sponsors. “To the extent that sponsorship provides a commercial or other benefit, only sponsors receive it. Nonetheless, the people who make the Bureau what it is do it for all persons involved in the ownership, management, or use of lighting systems, and for the lighting community at large,” Bachner said.

Each Bureau sponsor assigns an individual to represent it on the Bureau’s board of directors. “How active they are is up to them, of course,” said Mr. Lewis, who serves as the representative of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES). “I’ve been actively involved in a volunteer capacity for about ten years now, and I have come to learn what so many others know from their own experience: The more effort you put into the group, the more you get out of it.”

Established in 1976, the National Lighting Bureau is an independent, not-for-profit, lighting information source sponsored by professional societies, trade associations, manufacturers, and agencies of the U.S. government, including, among others:

• enLIGHTen America;
• GE Lighting Industrial Technology, Inc.;
• Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES);
• interNational Association of Lighting Management Companies (NALMCO);
• Lutron Electronics Company, Inc.;
• Magnaray;
• National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA);
• National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA);
• OSRAM SYLVANIA; and
• U.S. General Services Administration.

To learn how to become a sponsor of the National Lighting Bureau, or for more information about what it does, High-Benefit Lighting, and related topics, visit the NLB website (www.nlb.org) or contact NLB staff by telephone (301/587-9572) or e-mail ([email protected]).