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How to Tell Your Co-op's Founding Story So Members Feel Part of It

How an electric co-op can gather, shape and share its founding story so today's members see themselves in it, not just read about it.

By Explainer Music Videos · October 17, 2026 · 4 min read

Most members know their co-op as the name on the bill and the trucks out after a storm. Many don't know how it started, and that's a shame, because the founding story is the one thing that makes a co-op different from any other utility: it was built by people like them.

If you're a co-op manager or communications person, telling that story well can change how members see what they own. The trick is telling it so they feel part of it, not like they're reading a plaque.

Why the founding story matters

A co-op belongs to its members, but that can feel abstract. A story makes it real. When members hear that neighbors went door to door, signed up and waited for the lines to come down their road, "member-owned" stops being a phrase on the website.

The national story is the backdrop. The federal regulations record that the Rural Electrification Administration was established by Executive Order No. 7037 on May 11, 1935, with statutory authority from the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. But your members don't need a history lecture. They need your story: your county, your roads, your first members.

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Gather it before you tell it

Before you write anything, collect what you have. Set aside a few weeks.

• Board minutes and charter papers. The dates, the first board, the first meetings.
• Membership records. Who signed up first, where, and when the lines reached them, if your records say.
• The local paper's archive. The library or historical society may have clippings about the day service started.
• Photos. Line crews, the first office, early annual meetings. Write down what you know about each one.
• People. Longtime members, retired employees and descendants of founders. Ask if they'd be willing to share what they remember or what their parents told them, and ask permission before using their names or words.

Keep everything in one place. Even a shared folder and a notebook will do.

Shape it like a story, not a timeline

A list of dates is easy to write and hard to remember. A story has a shape: a problem, people who did something about it, and what changed. Try this outline:

1. Before. What life was like without power out here. Lamps, hand pumps, the work it took. Use real details from your own records or members' memories where you have them.
2. The decision. Neighbors deciding to do it themselves. Who led it, if you know. What it took to sign people up.
3. The day. When the lights came on. If anyone wrote it down or remembers it, use their words.
4. Since then. Storms, rebuilding, new members, the kids and grandkids who still get their power from the same co-op.
5. You. End with today's members. "This is yours now, the same way it was theirs."

That last step is what makes members feel part of it. Every version of your story should end with the person hearing it.

Then write three lengths:

• One sentence for the newsletter masthead or a sign: "Built by neighbors in [year], still owned by the people it serves."
• One minute for the start of the annual meeting or a radio spot.
• The long version for your website, a printed booklet or an anniversary program.

Share it where members already are

Once you have it, tell it often and in many places:

• The co-op magazine, as a series with one chapter per issue.
• Facebook, one archive photo a week with a few lines of story.
• The annual meeting, with the one-minute version read aloud or played before the business begins.
• Schools, with a lineman, old photos and the story told for kids.
• Your lobby, with a wall of framed photos and short captions.

Invite members to add to it. "Is that your grandpa in this photo?" is a good way to get people talking, and every reply makes the story more theirs.

Where a song fits

A founding story is exactly what a song is good at. It has a before and after, a little hardship and a happy ending, and a song can carry it in a few minutes in a way people remember and want to hear again. Played at the annual meeting or an anniversary, it gives members something to share together.

A few example lines, written fresh for a hypothetical co-op:

• Grandpa signed the paper on a kitchen table in the fall,
• A signature and a handshake, and a promise to us all,
• The poles came down the gravel road in the spring of '39,
• And the whole county gathered when the light began to shine.

Our Milestone package ($3,900, paid once) includes a 4-minute song about how your co-op started and grew, three 15-second ads for the big day, a 2-minute story song with a widescreen video and a 30-second jingle. You okay every word before the video is made, so every fact is yours to check, and you don't pay until you've seen the result. You can watch We Turned the Lights On Ourselves, a sample we made for an example electric co-op's 90th anniversary, and read more on our page for co-ops.

Start by gathering. The story is already out there, in your files and in your members' memories.