Ithaca, N.Y. — How do you find money for sustainability efforts at a college that has little or no money to spare?

Yes, there are government grants. But a panel at a community-college conference at Cornell University told people how to think more broadly about raising money for sustainability on campuses.

Most community colleges depend on local or state governments for money, and so those colleges should inform local officials about what they are doing in sustainability. And if a college gets a lawmaker on board and gets money for a sustainability project, organizers of the conference said, the college should be sure to bring the lawmaker to the photo op to share any glory.

But colleges have to think beyond support from local governments. “You have to think about being entrepreneurial,” said Peter Bardaglio, a former provost at Ithaca College who is now a senior fellow at Second Nature, a group promoting sustainability in higher education.

As an example of out-of-the-box thinking, Mr. Bardaglio said, he had gotten an idea while watching the TV show The Closer, a police procedural drama. A recent plot turn has the characters going to the Department of Homeland Security for money.

Energy efficiency, safe food from local agriculture, stopping climate change — “these are all homeland-security issues,” he said. “I just wonder how much people have made the case there. ... I think this stuff is going to get increasingly framed around security issues.”

John Cusack, executive director of the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability, said that some businesses that one would not think of as being involved in sustainability are now getting into the game. For example, he said, banks and financial institutions like Bank of America, Citigroup, and Chase are trying to outdo each other, putting millions, even billions, into projects that could be tied to sustainability.

“They are interested in giving to communities, and they are doing a lot with education,” he said. He suggested starting with the local branch and making contacts up the corporate ladder from there.

Debra Rowe, president of the U.S. Partnership for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, said colleges should look to talent on their own campuses, harness that, and look for free opportunities to get involved. For example, a number of research organizations, such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, have internships for students. That can be used as a learning opportunity, she said.

“We have been amazed at what you can do with volunteers. You have a lot of people on and around campus who are very smart — people who are retired,” she said. Get them involved.

She also said that foundations need to be brought into the sustainability movement. They will support individual projects, but they are not as involved in sustainability education. However, Mr. Cusack said, a number of new-money entrepreneurs — particularly in Silicon Valley — have been interested in supporting sustainability projects.

“We have got to get some of that money to flow to the East Coast,” he said.

Colleges should also try to throw their weight around. Michelle McKay, another senior fellow at Second Nature, said colleges can both stretch their dollars and exert leverage on manufacturers by banding together in consortia. She said the Los Angeles Community College District had used its purchasing power to influence vendors to provide sustainable furniture and carpeting, and invited institutions to join in on future purchases.

Mr. Cusack also advised the crowd not to hobble sustainability efforts through value engineering, or upfront cost cutting. He told a story about an unnamed institution in New Jersey (“the only one with a good football team”) that cut out energy meters for individual buildings, believing that they were a waste of money. The college later went back and added those meters, at greater cost, because they found that they could keep closer track of energy use if the buildings were accurately monitored.

Rabi Kieber, from the Environmental Protection Agency, pointed to a number of ways that colleges could get money for sustainability projects. The first, of course, is to apply for money from the EPA. But keep in mind that people in and out of government are watching the EPA closely — the agency has to be accountable for its money.

“We want to hear figures, we want to hear outcomes, and we want to hear what you have done,” Ms. Kieber said. “Once you get the money, make sure that you keep good records. If you can’t do it, let us know why you couldn’t do it.”

Another way is through a “supplemental environmental project.” When the EPA fines a company, the company can perform a supplemental environmental project related to the violation to lower the fine. Colleges can piggyback onto that work, and maybe even get money from the companies to help them with the projects. And companies are not the only institutions that get fines — colleges get them, too. The New Jersey Institute of Technology was fined recently and is working on a supplemental project, Mr. Cusack said.

Finally, look to the students. Many of them have been willing to raise their student fees to support sustainability efforts. “Students might also be a source of inspiration and ideas for funding,” Mr. Bardaglio said.

“Some people say, We can’t afford to do this,” he said. “My reply is, We can’t afford not to do this.”