Realigning Utility Spending to Match Your Mission

What You’ll Learn

After the pandemic made a virtual business meeting possible, one utility transformed its annual member meeting into the Bright Futures Fund Run, a way for community members to support Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library childhood literacy campaign.

Guest Speaker

Kyle Allwine

Show Notes

Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Intro: A production of Pioneer Utility Resources. StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers.

Megan McKoy-Noe: How can you realign utility spending to match your mission? That’s what we’ll be talking about on this episode of The StoryConnect Podcast. Hi, I’m Megan McKoy-Noe, one of the storytellers at Pioneer Utility Resources and your host today. I am joined by Kyle Allwine, manager of public relations at Northern Neck Electric Cooperative in Virginia. Kyle, thank you so much for being here.

Kyle Allwine: Thank you so much for having me, Megan. I really appreciate it.

Megan McKoy-Noe: This is exciting. Now, we were talking about the shift between your annual meeting and something really exciting that you’re doing this year. Now, can you talk to me about what your annual meeting at Northern Neck Electric has typically been, let’s say, pre-pandemic?

Kyle Allwine: Yes. So what I’ll do is I’ll walk you through the three steps. So what our annual meeting used to be, what the pandemic-impacted annual meeting looked like, and what it will look like in the future.

Megan McKoy-Noe: Are you saying don’t have to ask you questions throughout?

Kyle Allwine: That’s right.

Megan McKoy-Noe: That’s very exciting, Kyle.

Kyle Allwine: That way it’s also easier for my brain to outline it, like ChatGPT. I could just, you know, one, two, three.

Megan McKoy-Noe: There you go.

Kyle Allwine: So in the past, pre-pandemic, we would typically rent out a high school, and we would have all types of tables and community groups and things like that. And of course, we would feed our members. Now, what would typically happen, though, is we would have that at a high school in one extreme or the other in the geographic location of our region. So inevitably for some of our members, it would take them three hours, round trip, to get to the annual meeting.

Megan McKoy-Noe: Okay. And just to set the stage for us, you are in Virginia. How many members does your cooperative have?

Kyle Allwine: So we are at over 17,400 members, 20,000 connections. And we are in six counties in the Eastern Peninsula region of Virginia. So that would be Stafford County and King George County in the Fredericksburg region and east into the Northern Neck region through Westmoreland County, Richmond County, Northumberland and Lancaster.

Megan McKoy-Noe: Okay. So that’s a big area that you’re covering. Folks kind of spread out, and you would either be, what, the east or west side of your coverage area trying to reach people.

Kyle Allwine: East side. Northumberland High school. Yep. And so if someone wanted to come from Stafford, it would be three or more hours round trip for them to come to an annual meeting. So we typically didn’t have many from –

Megan McKoy-Noe: I was going to say what was your attendance like?

Kyle Allwine: The attendance was good. We usually had about 400 voting members, 800 people total. Out of, you know, the 17,000. So not too bad. We always made quorum, which was always great. But it just kind of felt like something was missing. Then when the pandemic hit, our first priority was keeping our community, our members and our employees safe. So we started doing a virtual annual meeting. And that’s when we started to be like, well, wait a second. Not only is this kind of great because it’s recorded, and it’s on our website for anyone to always access. But our members can feel like they can be a part of it. Whether they’re a single mom, and they can’t leave the house because this is the only time they get with their kids. Or maybe they’re an elderly member that just doesn’t leave the house anymore because they don’t feel safe driving at night. I mean, you have all those different cases that now they can still feel like they can be a part of our annual meeting, which is important. And it’s also nice because like I said before, it’s kind of held for posterity. We always have those videos now, and we used to not have those. So it’s kind of cool to have that. And as we work through that, we then started opening it up a little bit and saying like, if you want to come, you can. But you know, nobody came.

Kyle Allwine: So then we were like, Well, hold on. Like, so why aren’t they coming? What’s the meal? You know, we weren’t offering a meal anymore. And so how do you still engage your members, give them a place to speak to your board, to your executive team, your managers, to ask questions about vegetation management or right of ways or call center response times or whatever, and then also engage those members in a way that allows them to feel like they’re part of a community as opposed to just paying an electric bill. Let’s face it, most people, their only interaction with their electric company is usually their bill. So how are you showcasing who you are as a co-op and why you’re different, that cooperative difference if all you’re doing is connecting with them with a bill. So this year what we’re very excited to be doing is two events that are public engagement events. And our first one is right after our business meeting that will be virtual this year again. And it will be what we’re calling “The Brighter Futures Fund Run.” 100% of the proceeds go to Dolly Parton Imagination Library in our community. And the great thing about it is that that’s, even on the fund run – pun – fund run website, the registration is even like $8 to buy books for another kid in the community for half a year. Or $15 for a full year. Or $30 for two years.

Megan McKoy-Noe: So –

Kyle Allwine: Go ahead.

Megan McKoy-Noe: Sorry Kyle. For folks that are not familiar because we reach a lot of people across the nation that might not have heard about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Can you just explain what this is?

Kyle Allwine: Yes. So I will try to without fanboying too much about Dolly Parton. But she’s just an incredible woman. And what she has done is created a nonprofit that sources books from publishers at heavily reduced rates. And you will have an affiliate, a non-profit in your community. And if you don’t have one, you can start your own, which is cool as well. That will help get students in your neighborhood, your community, registered. And every month, Dolly Parton Imagination Library will send them a book from age zero till they turn the age five. Every month they get a book. And it’s usually like $25  a year for a kid to be involved in this. So because of Dolly Parton’s connections and her influence and the funds that she’s raised and put in herself, it’s heavily reduced and allows communities to do that. Here in Virginia, another added benefit is that the state is covering half the cost. So we’re able to double the impact of those dollars basically to reach even more students. So right now we have about 400 that are getting books, which is incredible.

Megan McKoy-Noe: And is that the statewide association for Virginia, Maryland and Delaware Electric Cooperatives? Or the state like the state of Virginia.

Kyle Allwine: The Commonwealth of Virginia Government is funding half of it.

Megan McKoy-Noe: Wow.

Kyle Allwine: So some states, it’s covered 100%. Some states don’t do it at all. Some counties are covering it. Like you said, some statewide associations are offering to put in some cash as well, as well as G&Ts. So it’s a great opportunity. For us this now makes perfect sense because we get to do everything that we love to do with our members. We chose a high school right smack dab in the middle of our community, and so you can get to it from either end in less than an hour. It’s at a brand new high school with a track and beautiful trails all around it. And we’re doing a kids fund run that’s a quarter mile, half mile or one mile fund run. Not only are we going to have that, we’ve got bounce houses. We’ve got touch a trucks. We’re going to have fire trucks there, police cars. Virginia Department of Forestry is coming. All those types of people. Our trucks are going to be there. Our track machine. And then we’ve also got our community fair, just like we used to do at our annual meeting. So the Boys and Girls Club will be there, the YMCA, all these other groups. So it’ll end up being a one-stop shop. And we chose a Friday night in the summer right after school lets out because let’s face it, it’s kind of hard to find family friendly activities on a weekday night in the summer. And you’re like, I got to get these kids out of my house and get them moving so they can sleep tonight. So we’re good. We have a vision of eventually turning this maybe even into a 5k. We have a vision of maybe even with community help doing it as a glow run. But our top three points about this are (1) it allows our members to get engaged. (2) It gets kids active, not only in the community, but with healthy lifestyle and healthy choices. (3) And it gets our members engaged in a greater community, and they can see themselves as part of a greater fabric of the community as opposed to just paying a bill.

Megan McKoy-Noe: Oh, I love that, because a lot of utilities will encourage their members to raise money through, you know, Operation Roundup is a big one in the electric co-op world. And then there’s the Foundation for Rural Service with a lot of telcos. So there are a lot of ways that we try to raise money, but it’s all for a fund, not for a very specific need. And I love the idea of taking the funds that you would have been spending on your annual meeting and all the activities around your annual meeting and transitioning into a big community fundraiser for one of your big community outreach efforts because you’re getting your members like they’re involved, and they’re helping you reach your goals. Which I don’t know that a lot of folks have done that, so it’s exciting. What are you most excited to see out of this?

Kyle Allwine: What I’m most excited to see is it’s, I think, the old adage of when is the best time to plant a tree? And the best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today. So the benefits of this program, we’re not going to see today. We’re going to see it in 18 years when these kids are college bound or going to a technical school, and they otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to do that. Because someone invested in them at an early age, and they had books in the home when they otherwise wouldn’t have. This will be the the mom that gets encouraged to read books to her kid every night and eventually decides to go back to school and get her GED and is able to get her family back on track. This is an entrepreneur that reads a book about going to space, and now all of a sudden she’s building her own robot to send to space with Elon Musk or something like that. Like these are things that are now going to be possible for our community that may not have been previously, and we’re not going to see those impacts now. But as a co-op, we’ve been doing that since 1937 where we have invested in the future, whether or not we see those those benefits today. So this is just the next greatest step in that mission.

Megan McKoy-Noe: I love that. And you said that Northern Neck Electric has currently funded books for 400 children a year. Is that correct?

Kyle Allwine: Yes. Right now, it’s 400 books are being funded. We’re funding 400 students. And so it’s about 2,000 books so far this year that have been given.

Megan McKoy-Noe: Which is amazing. What is your goal with the fund run? Do you have a goal that you’ve set up because the fund run is going to be this summer?

Kyle Allwine: Yes. So the fund run will be June 9th, 2023, and our goal is to raise $5,000, which is ambitious. But what that can mean is, is we really want to get to the point where any kid in the Northern Neck that wants to do Dolly Parton Imagination Library, we want it to be not even a choice. Not even a question of whether or not they can do it. Whether they’re a co-op member or not; it doesn’t matter. We are making a statement that this region matters to us. This is our home. These are our neighbors. These are our families, and we’re going to invest in them. So we want to eventually erase any any opportunity for people to not have access to childhood literacy. And we’re going to start making that progress on June 9th.

Megan McKoy-Noe: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with utility pioneers. He is Kyle Allwine from Northern Neck Electric Cooperative. And I’m your host, Megan McKoy-Noe, at Pioneer Utility Resources. And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro: StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a communications cooperative that is built to share your story. StoryConnect is engineered by Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studio.