About
It started as an audit of one parish.
How Lightkeeper began, told by the person who runs it, and the pledge it runs on.
Lightkeeper began at The Church of St. Thomas More, the parish I belong to. I put together an environmental audit for it: a structured look at its energy, water, waste, and green space, to find the waste, environmental and financial, and cut it. The Parish Council approved it. Carrying it out is still in progress, and I've started reaching out to other parishes nearby.
What stood out to me was that no one knew about the help already out there. New York utilities run free energy audits for nonprofits, NYSERDA shares the cost of engineering studies, and state law gives houses of worship a lower electric rate. A full audit is also a big job for a high school student, and established programs already do it well, often for free. The missing piece wasn't another audit. It was someone to connect a parish to those programs, do the math in terms a finance committee trusts, and follow up until the savings are real.
How it came to be
- 01Built an environmental audit for my parish
- 02Presented it to the Parish Council, which approved it
- 03Found that free help for parishes already existed, unused
- 04Built Lightkeeper to connect parishes to that help
Lightkeeper is my attempt at that missing piece. It's a small service that matches New York parishes and nonprofits with the energy audits, rebates, and programs they qualify for, and turns the audit I wrote for my parish into a Payback Plan: which fixes cut costs, and how fast they pay for themselves.
I'm Gabriele Troiano, a high school student in New York. I run Lightkeeper myself, so I'm the one who answers every inquiry and prepares every plan.
The details are on how it works.
- 01
Free for mission buildings
Houses of worship and community nonprofits do not pay for a Payback Plan. Not an introductory rate, not a freemium hook: the paid business tier and sponsorships exist so this tier doesn't have to charge.
- 02
Expenses first, everything else to charity
The $99 business fee and any sponsorships pay Lightkeeper's expenses, such as keeping this website running. Everything left over is pledged to New York Interfaith Power & Light, an interfaith nonprofit working with New York congregations on energy and climate. NYIPL is also in our program directory; it pays us nothing.
- 03
No commissions, from anyone
We take no referral fees from installers, contractors, or vendors. If a plan recommends a heat pump, it's because the math says so.
- 04
Your bills stay private
Utility bills contain account numbers and addresses. They are stored in a private Google Drive folder accessible only to Lightkeeper's operator, used solely to produce your plan, never shared or sold, and deleted after 12 months or on request. The inquiry form asks for no bills at all, and inquiries are deleted after 12 months.