I’m often asked why we call those who purchase electricity from Cumberland Electric Membership Corporation “members” and not “customers.” The answer is simple.

Some of my friends are members of Rotary and Kiwanis clubs. My son is a member of the football team at his high school. And you’re a member of CEMC.

Service clubs have a common mission—together the club accomplishes more than an individual could. The same holds true for high school clubs; they pool resources and work together to help each member succeed.

Membership at CEMC offers many of the same benefits as clubs do, but with a big extra. You and the rest of our 89,000 members own the co-op! That means we answer to you, not investors who’ve never walked our streets or spent time in our schools. This structure harkens back to our origins.

CEMC was organized by farmers and rural residents from this area in 1938, with support from the federal  Rural Electrification Administration (REA). At that time, investor-owned utilities said there wasn’t enough profit to be made to warrant the expense of building power lines into the countryside.

REA offered low-cost loans for bringing electricity to unserved homes and farms. So folks began forming electric cooperatives to meet the need. A fee of $5 was collected from each family—making them co-op members and owners—to generate capital for borrowing. The rest is history.

You should be proud of what your co-op has accomplished. We are an economic driver in the communities we serve. A 2009 study funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found electric co-ops across the U.S. employ 130,000 Americans, both directly and indirectly, with revenues topping out at $45 billion. Best of all, every co-op operates on a not-for-profit basis.

Electric co-op membership remains as important today as it was in the late 1930s. And all of the nation’s 900-plus electric co-ops in 47 states share a common mission: to keep energy safe, affordable, and reliable.

Working together through efforts like the Our Energy, Our Future™ grassroots awareness campaign, we’re keeping our needs at the top of Congress’s agenda. We’re part of something special—a nationwide network owned and controlled by people like you and me.

As we observe Cooperative Month in October, it’s a good time to remember the advantages of cooperative membership, which are summed up in “The Seven Cooperative Principles:”

• Voluntary and open membership;

• Democratic member control;

• Members’ economic participation;

• Autonomy and independence;

• Education, training and information;

• Cooperation among cooperatives; and,

• Concern for community.

That’s why membership matters.