Keep Electricity Affordable
Challenge:
Affordable, reliable electricity is essential across the West. It helps irrigate farmers’ crops, it energizes learning in schools, and it powers hospitals’ lifesaving machines. So when unreasonable mandates threaten to drive up the cost of electricity, consumers need a way to make their voices heard.
Strategy:
Enter Keep Electricity Affordable, supported by not-for-profit rural electric cooperatives across Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming.
SE2 helped promote and maintain this powerful coalition, which educates consumers on electricity issues and helps them have a say in critical policy debates.
Through digital and in-person grassroots outreach, Keep Electricity Affordable recruited supporters across the intermountain West. It has successfully activated this network to respond to legislative and regulatory challenges, giving advocates the information and tools to effectively engage with policymakers and at the ballot.
SE2 stoked Keep Electricity Affordable’s online presence year-round with relevant multimedia content, including infographics, videos, and timely news updates. When specific threats are identified, Keep Electricity Affordable springs into action with consumer-friendly analysis and guidance on how people can take action.
The result is a potent policy powerhouse that empowers consumers to be vigilant when it comes to protecting this vital resource.
Results:
Keep Electricity Affordable recruited more than 115,000 supporters online and at events. More than 10,000 followers connected through Facebook. Even after a half dozen years, most supporters remain connected to the campaign’s grassroots network, with significant spikes in activity by advocates at key policy junctures.
“With Twitter, Facebook and other online channels playing an increasingly prominent role in public relations strategies, lines of communication between utilities and customers are more open than ever before,” according to an Electric Energy magazine cover story. “The Keep Electricity Affordable campaign offers one example of effective grassroots outreach through a strategic combination of digital communications and face-to-face interaction with electricity consumers.”
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