LGSEC is at an inflection point in its organizational growth with new opportunities and challenges influencing its future. Local governments, along with RENs and CCAs, are increasingly important players in the energy sector. However, jurisdictions are still looking for the right balance of serving constituents, meeting regulatory mandates, and fighting climate change. The new federal focus and funding on clean energy, the drive for electrification, more intense climate action planning, and more aggressive carbon neutrality goals are all important activities that make LGSEC’s work essential. At the same time, LGSEC does not have as high of a profile as it could, with limited brand awareness, and is not yet a standard membership organization for jurisdictions. This 2-year strategic plan is a concise, action-oriented tool to assist the Board of Directors, staff, and members to effectively manage and optimize the benefits of these changes.
2021-2023 Strategic Plan
The plan focuses on five main themes to move the organization decisively forward:
Enhance its regulatory capabilities and effectiveness.
Solidify the organization’s capacity and ability to manage change.
Build the membership to be more inclusive and comprehensive.
Foster partnerships to expand its reach.
Build stronger funding to support the organization’s mission.
Integrating Equity
In addition, LGSEC is dedicated to embracing and integrating equity into all of its work. In 2020, LGSEC adopted an equity statement and this Strategic Plan provides a means to clearly identify actions to move the equity commitment forward. As part of this process, LGSEC has defined what equity means for its work as reflected below.
Equity Definition
For LGSEC, ‘Equity’ means intentionally and proactively supporting policy and local governments who are underserved and underrepresented, based on access and availability to energy information and resources, and regulatory engagement.
Published July 28, 2020
LGSEC acknowledges the collective action taken against systemic racism due to white supremacy that has been occurring for centuries. LGC’s mission is to build livable communities including implementing equitable solutions for Black, Indigenous, and Brown lives. LGSEC, being housed under LGC, stands in support with the Black Lives Matters movement and those fighting for justice.
While not explicit in our mission, LGSEC advocates for low-income and environmental justice communities by advocating for all local governments and their respective communities. We enhance equity outcomes by increasing local government access, influence and control in State and investor-owned utilities (IOU) funding and policies. This has been exemplified in the Regional Energy Network (REN) programs for low-income and hard-to-reach customers.
We aim to run LGSEC from an equity lens, and furthermore, we recognize that regular evaluations are necessary to continually identify hidden biases. LGSEC staff and board members are always working to create an equitable space, and have determined the following solutions to address identified equity barriers:
- Revising our Mission and Vision to incorporate explicit language to advocate for low-income and environmental justice communities
- Allocating sponsorship funds to cover member dues for local governments that cannot afford membership fees, including low-income and hard-to-reach communities, and Tribal Governments
- Creating a Tribal Governments membership category to include Indigenous voices in our regulatory filings. This category would be priced at a significantly lower level to build trust and encourage participation.
We welcome your thoughts and discussion throughout this process, and will keep you informed as we make these updates to our program. Please email contact@lgsec.org with any questions or comments.