News & Insights

The 2022 Member Engagement Summit Brings Cooperatives Together in Raleigh

September’s 2022 Member Engagement Summit in Raleigh, hosted by Cooperative Insights, brought upwards of 100 attendees from nearly 40 cooperatives. Agenda topics ranged from the Intersection of Industry Change & Member Engagement, Data Analytics, Engaging with Members in a Rising Costs Environment, Changing Demographics of Co-op Communities, Words of Wisdom from Top-Scoring Cooperatives, and the Expectations of Gen Z for Prospective Employers.

During a panel discussion from top-scoring cooperatives, Wanda Jones of Jones-Onslow EMC, Greg Sager of Four County EMC and Michael Trent of Randolph EMC shared tips for how they cut through the clutter of information overload to connect with members and keep satisfaction scores high.

Jones emphasized that authenticity is critical for making connections and shared explained further with a video depicting lineman leaving their homes and families in the middle of the night to respond to an outage crisis on Christmas Eve. The 2.5-minute video had a visible impact on attendees, demonstrating the power of personal, relatable messaging to members.  

In an open discussion among attendees, it was agreed that members appreciate transparency, and top-performing cooperatives maintain honesty by alerting members of rate increases, outage updates and reliability statistics across social media platforms. The more information available to members, the higher satisfaction with their cooperative.

Join us for next year’s 2023 Member Engagement Summit on Wednesday, Sept. 27 through Thursday, Sept. 28 at the Renaissance Raleigh North Hills Hotel in Raleigh, N.C.