Last fall, our directors and leadership sat down to review Kankakee Valley REMC’s strategic plan and develop a new one. We do that roughly every three years, and it’s one of our most important responsibilities.

Nobody knows exactly what’s ahead for our communities and our cooperative, but there are several things that we know for sure. As the demand for electricity keeps growing faster than the supply, there’s more pressure on the nation’s electric power grid. We saw the effects of that during January’s cold snap, and it’s a safe bet that weather extremes will continue to challenge America’s power supply. Another example is the continued advances in technology, especially with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence.

Kankakee Valley REMC’s leadership cannot control external factors like those, but we can take steps to reduce the business risks they create. Our new plan focuses on four primary goals: maintaining financial stewardship, strengthening member engagement and education, improving employee engagement and development, and expanding processes while increasing efficiencies. We identified long lists of strategies to help us pursue those goals.

Take financial stewardship. In simple terms, we want to make sure the co-op continues to be financially strong. Improving our financial health involves every aspect of our business; everything from making sure we’re using the right contractors and paying them what we should, to how we buy supplies, to even finding ways to ensure the benefits we need to find and keep good employees remain affordable.

Improving member engagement is important because this is your cooperative. You’re not just a member; you’re also an owner. We want you to know what we’re doing and how it affects your daily life. A key priority is finding meaningful ways to explain how the energy world is changing. We think it is important that you understand how the wholesale electricity market works and how it affects what you pay each month.

Like most co-ops, we operate with a small staff, so accomplishing everything that needs to get done takes people who are willing to go the extra mile. We want those employees to find their jobs rewarding, so they keep delivering the service members like you expect. We also want them to get better at what they do by supporting their skill development.

Finally, expanding processes and improving efficiencies or in other words, “do more for less.” We never lose sight of the fact that we’re spending your money. The more efficient every aspect of our work becomes, the less you’ll have to spend. That involves everything from looking at the steps involved in a service call to determining how using AI might allow us to streamline our tasks, all focused on making sure we’re doing our best for you on all four goals!