Our Foundation

One way the Coop­er­a­tive serves the com­mu­ni­ty is through the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion.

The Foundation’s mis­sion is to assist with the food, health, safe­ty, edu­ca­tion, and shel­ter needs of cit­i­zens in coun­ties served by Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive.

The Foundation’s main fund­ing is from Oper­a­tion Round Up, the vol­un­teer pro­gram in which mem­bers allow their month­ly elec­tric bills to be round­ed up to the next whole dol­lar and invest­ed back into the com­mu­ni­ty. Mem­bers who par­tic­i­pate make an aver­age con­tri­bu­tion of $6 per year.

Con­tri­bu­tions are appre­ci­at­ed and may be tax-deductible.

Since its cre­ation in 1993, the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion has been assist­ing with the com­mu­ni­ty’s food, health, safe­ty, edu­ca­tion, and shel­ter needs. To date, the Foun­da­tion has award­ed grants in excess of $1.8 mil­lion to numer­ous char­i­ties, orga­ni­za­tions, and indi­vid­u­als.

The Foun­da­tion helps local edu­ca­tors through Bright Ideas, which awards grants of up to $2,000 each, to bring teach­ers’ inno­v­a­tive class­room projects to real­i­ty. In 2022, thanks to the gen­eros­i­ty of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­bers, local teach­ers received $40,000 in Bright Ideas grants, and the Foun­da­tion donat­ed $24,000 to school prin­ci­pals to help meet stu­dents’ and teach­ers’ needs through­out the year.

The Foun­da­tion awards schol­ar­ships to stu­dents who need finan­cial assis­tance to attend col­lege and tech­ni­cal schools – $104,916 in 2021 alone.