Result of 1st vote: Democratic Budget 2024-25

We are excited to announce the results of the first vote.  We had 97 customer members participate in the ballot with 98% voting in favour of adopting the democratic budget strategy!

As such our 2024-25 budget strategy is adopted and will include the following:

$42,500 on Impact Campaigns.  

We will ask for project proposal that respond to CoPower mission to build people-power for a just and equitable transition to the climate crisis. Customer members will vote to determine which projects get funded.

$21,000 on Member Benefits.

We will focus on supporting customer members to reduce energy use, make their homes more comfortable, get off gas and save money. Earthworker Energy Cooperatives and the CoPower Energy Efficiency action group will make proposals to improve our service. Customer members will vote to determine which member benefits get funded.

$33,600 on Movement Building.

We will formalise two customer member action groups for Energy Efficiency and Digital Impact. These action groups will drive our strategy, contribute to campaigns and activities, and provide peer-to-peer support to build momentum across our cooperative.

$137,700 on Operations.

We will increase our staff capacity to assist us to move beyond a start-up phase and better resource our operations. Our marketing budget will continue to support community initiatives and the independent arts, such as sponsoring Overland Journal. Our overheads include contributing to the indigenous Pay the Rent scheme and providing a hardship fund to help customer in-need.

The total budgeted spend for 2024-25 is $234,800. We estimate our revenue will be $211,000.  We will contribute the remaining 23,800 from our reserves to invest in staffing.

Our democratic budget timeline

Here is the timeline of activities leading up to our final vote which determines the allocation of funds to impact campaigns and member benefits. We’ll email out links to the online workshops and the voting portal closer to each date.

• Applications for impact campaigns and member benefits will open Monday 17 May and close on Monday 10 June.
• Wednesday 22 May the CoPower Energy efficiency Action group meets to consider member benefit proposals. All customer members are welcome, and this is an opportunity to discuss proposals to assist customer members make their homes more comfortable, get-off gas, reduce energy use and save money.
• Our second workshop is on Thursday 20 June from 7:00pm to 8:30pm and we will hear from impact campaign applicants, member benefits proposals and have a discussion.
• Our second — and final — vote will be from Saturday 29 June to Saturday 13 July and will ask you to rank the impact campaigns and member benefits to determine the allocation of funds.