Contributing to a Society That Is Healthy, Educated
and Productive
ntergy believes it has a moral responsibility to enhance and improve the communities in which it operates. We strive to contribute to a healthy, educated and productive society by providing comprehensive assistance to our low-income customers, supporting our communities through our corporate giving and developing a diverse, engaged work force.
In 2009, our corporate social responsibility efforts earned the following recognition:
- Corporate Responsibility Officer magazine named Entergy one of its Top 10 Corporate Citizens.
- Chartwell Inc., an independent information-services provider to the utility and energy industry, honored Entergy with its Best Practices Award for Serving Low-Income Customers.
- Storebrand, a Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) financial services company, named Entergy as Best in Class for environmental and social performance. Entergy was one of only 14 companies chosen as Best in Class and one of only two U.S.-based companies.
In this section of our sustainability report, we present a detailed review of our Low-Income Initiative, corporate giving and work force initiatives.
Assisting Our Low-Income Customers
We believe we have a moral responsibility to help the approximately 25 percent of our 2.7 million utility customers who are living near or below the poverty level. Through our Low-Income Initiative, we strive to improve the flow of assistance funds to those in need, help customers better manage their energy use and break the cycle of poverty through education, job training and programs that enable individuals and families to move toward self-sufficiency.
High unemployment in 2009 resulted in even greater numbers of customers seeking assistance. We doubled the number of customers contacted through outreach efforts to generate awareness and utilization of programs and services for low-income customers. Using predictive dialing technology, calls were placed to 94,300 customers and more than 10,700 letters and brochures were distributed to faith-based partner organizations. Programs highlighted in these outreach efforts include bill payment assistance, Earned Income Tax Credits and economic stimulus refunds.
Improving the Flow of Funds
Entergy continued to advocate for increased funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program in 2009. Even with a record appropriation of $5.1 billion for fiscal year 2009, LIHEAP is estimated to reach only one out of every five eligible American households.
In 2009, more than 25 Entergy employees and community advocates met with members of U.S. Congressional delegations from each of the four states served by Entergy utilities to emphasize the need to fund LIHEAP. For the second straight year, a LIHEAP recipient from an Entergy state was the featured speaker at the annual LIHEAP Action Day press conference on Capitol Hill, putting a human face to the need for more equitable distribution of funds to Entergy states. As a result of these and many other efforts, $5.1 billion in LIHEAP funding was appropriated again for fiscal year 2010.
We took additional steps in 2009 in Arkansas to assist customers with the LIHEAP application process. Entergy Arkansas staff participated on site in two LIHEAP events sponsored by the Central Arkansas Development Council and the Arkansas Association of Community Action Agencies, providing real-time billing information.
In 2009, financial assistance bill payments for Entergy’s low-income customers were more than $51 million, an 87 percent increase in dollars and a 75 percent increase in the number of transactions over 2008. Entergy continued its customer assistance fundraising efforts under its systemwide The Power to Care program. In 2009, The Power to Care fund provided bill payment assistance to 12,000 customers.
Overall 2009 donations to The Power to Care fund were down 1 percent compared to 2008, due to the economic recession. Customer donations were down 2.6 percent, but were offset by a 5 percent increase in Entergy employee donations. Managing donations to this level during the worst recession since the Great Depression represents a tremendous effort. In 2009, for the first time, donations were accepted online by credit card or debit card. A Power to Care golf tournament was held for vendors for the first time in Texas, modeled after a very successful Arkansas tournament. Creative new fundraising efforts such as these helped meet the needs of many new at-risk customers in 2009.
In 2009, we also expanded the GrantStation.com pilot program systemwide, resulting in grants totaling more than $3.3 million awarded to our communities. Another $2.4 million in grant requests were pending at year-end 2009. GrantStation is designed to increase the capacity of our low-income partners to leverage Entergy’s investments to raise funds from other sources. As a result of this program, our communities received more than 220 times the initial Entergy investment.
Managing Energy Use
Energy bills can represent a disproportionately large portion of a low-income customer’s discretionary spending. Entergy has long supported efficiency efforts to help low-income customers reduce their energy consumption.
In 2009, we helped support the weatherization of 5,400 homes across our utility service territories, which lowers utility bills for our customers and reduces damaging CO2 emissions. We also distributed 17,600 compact fluorescent light bulbs to low-income customers. Entergy fulfilled nearly 158,000 requests for energy efficiency educational materials.
Through our “Beat the Heat” program, Entergy distributed fans or air conditioning units to almost 3,000 elderly or disabled customers, ensuring these at-risk customers stay safe and secure during the hot summer months.
Also in 2009, Entergy New Orleans was also selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to receive a matching stimulus grant of approximately $5 million for a pilot project aimed at helping low-income customers better manage their electric bills through the use of smart meters. The project was one of only 100 approved projects out of 400 applications and the only approved project designed specifically for low-income customers. The pilot program involves placing smart meters in approximately 11,500 residences of low-income customers.
Moving Toward Self-Sufficiency
Entergy aspires to break the cycle of poverty by helping low-income customers move toward self-sufficiency. Our efforts in this area range from supporting research on the importance of early childhood education to partnering with the Foundation for the Mid South to help customers accumulate assets in individual development accounts.
In 2009, the Entergy Charitable Foundation awarded a $200,000 grant to United Way of Greater New Orleans for an individual development account program designed specifically to help participants purchase a home or vehicle, start or expand a child-care business or pursue post-secondary education. The program has 103 enrolled participants. Of those enrolled, 88 participants have completed financial-literacy training, 86 have completed homebuyer training, five have completed vehicle-purchasing training and two have completed training on operating a child-care business. As of year-end 2009, 30 participants had achieved their savings goal – 25 to purchase a home and five to purchase a vehicle.
We also partner with the Internal Revenue Service to educate low-income customers about the Earned Income Tax Credit. In 2009, we reached out to more than 36,000 customers using predictive dialing technology and notified approximately 2.3 million residential customers via bill inserts about the EITC.
More detail on the programs included in our Low-Income Initiative can be found in our annual Low-Income Customer Assistance Initiative Progress Report.
Supporting Our Communities
Entergy Charitable Foundation, a private and nonprofit foundation wholly funded by Entergy Corporation, supports initiatives that create and sustain thriving communities. In particular, the foundation focuses on low-income initiatives, educational and literacy programs and efforts to protect the environment. In 2009, approximately $3.7 million in grants were awarded to nonprofit groups in states served by an Entergy operation. In addition to the Entergy Charitable Foundation, Entergy Corporation awarded grants totaling more than $12 million to community nonprofits and organizations focused on enhancing the quality of life in the communities we serve.
As the only Fortune 500 company based in New Orleans, Entergy feels a special responsibility to facilitate the city’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Highlights of grants awarded in 2009 that target the New Orleans area include:
- A $350,000 grant to Teach for America in south Louisiana and New Orleans. Teach for America is pursuing an unprecedented effort to change the face of public education in New Orleans by bringing in 600 corps members and proven techniques to all public schools in the New Orleans region. With this latest grant, Entergy has committed to $1 million in funding for Teach for America over a 10-year period.
- A $200,000 grant to Volunteers of America’s Coming Back Home Initiative, a collaborative effort with private and government partners to create 1,050 housing units for families in response to the 304,000 housing units that were lost or damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Entergy’s grant has enabled Volunteers of America to leverage $45 million in government and private funding.
- A $150,000 grant to the Louisiana Institute for Public Health to make New Orleans a cleaner, greener and more livable city by incorporating bike paths into planned infrastructure improvements. The grant enables the Louisiana Institute for Public Health to leverage $36 million in federal and state funds. By the end of 2010, the total miles of bike trails and pathways will increase to 44, nearly nine times the amount prior to Hurricane Katrina.
- A $100,000 grant to the Greater New Orleans Foundation for the Community Redevelopment Fund. The fund has awarded $13 million in grants to build 6,000 affordable and sustainable new or rehabilitated housing units.
In addition to support of the New Orleans area, significant grants supporting education were awarded in Mississippi. We made a $300,000 commitment to fund a pilot demonstration project for high-quality, early childhood education in Mississippi, which is the only state in our service area that does not provide state funding for pre-K education. We also awarded $250,000 in grants to three universities in Mississippi to support education programs.
We greatly increased our giving to environmental initiatives in 2009. Highlights of our environmental giving include funding along with Nike Corporation of the New Orleans Solar Schools Initiative, a $1.5 million solar demonstration project targeting New Orleans public schools. In 2009, a 28-kW array of solar panels was installed on the first school’s roof – Warren Easton Senior High School, which will provide hands-on learning opportunities about renewable energy and conservation. We also provided funding for the Make an Impact program, a new partnership with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. It supports a website at FindYourCO2.com that helps visitors take action to save money and reduce their carbon footprint. Through funding, we also support energy efficiency efforts, an electric car road tour and Earth Day volunteer activities.
Each year Entergy employees give generously of both their time and money. In 2009, employees logged nearly 76,300 volunteer hours, valued at more than $1.5 million. Our Community Connectors program enables employees to earn a $250 grant for the nonprofit organization of their choice by completing 20 hours of service. Employees can earn three grants per calendar year. In 2009, we awarded nearly $230,000 in Community Connectors grants.
For the first time in 2009 we held a systemwide volunteer week of service called We’ve Got the Power to Care Week. More than 140 Entergy employees, family members and community members participated in 14 communities in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, weatherizing 32 homes and distributing 5,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs. In total, 2,248 volunteer hours, valued at nearly $44,000, were logged.
Also in 2009, we launched a pilot System Volunteer Council in Mississippi. The council will meet regularly and coordinate a minimum of four high visibility, high impact group volunteer activities per year. We plan to take the lessons we learn from the pilot council in Mississippi and incorporate them in System Volunteer Councils for each Entergy state.
Developing a Diverse, Engaged Workforce
At Entergy, we believe cultivating a diverse, engaged work force is vital to our long-term, sustainable success. We strive to create a winning culture that fosters creativity, productivity and mutual respect of all people.
As an organization, Entergy values and respects its employees and implements work force policies that reflect that trust and respect. For example, Entergy offers competitive compensation and benefits packages and pays for performance through incentive plans and merit pay increases. We also help employees prepare for the future through retirement and savings plans and student scholarships. We invest in employee development through programs that encourage employees to create career plans that include continuing education, specialized training, cross-training opportunities and special projects. In addition, we sponsor employee volunteer opportunities and offer fitness facilities at most of our office locations.
Entergy also recognizes diversity as a business imperative that helps the company achieve business results. We embrace diversity as a strategic competitive advantage and actively promote an inclusive work force environment. We have more than 20 diversity and inclusion councils and employee-initiated affinity groups. Entergy works with INROADS, an organization that helps identify opportunities for high-potential, ethnically diverse students, to hire interns. We are also a strong supporter of historically black colleges and universities, contributing more than $1.1 million over the past five years.
Our work force efforts achieved special recognition in 2009. Entergy was ranked number 35 on BusinessWeek’s “2009 Best Places to Launch a Career,” an annual list that identifies companies with certain characteristics that all great employers share: great pay and benefits, top-notch training programs, and opportunities for rapid advancement. Entergy was recognized for one of the best retention rates in the 2009 ranking – 80 percent of workers are still employed at Entergy after three years and 75 percent are still employed after five years.
In addition, Minority Engineer magazine named Entergy one of the nation’s Top 50 Employers. The company placed No. 29 in the ranking on the publication’s 18th annual list and was one of only two utilities recognized.
Our commitment to diversity extends beyond our work force and to our suppliers as well. Since 1987 when Entergy entered into the Declaration of Fair Share Principles with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, supplier diversity has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts and purchase orders to diverse suppliers. In addition, we have developed a Web-based, third-party managed portal for suppliers to do business with Entergy and for prime suppliers to record second-tier spend. Supplier diversity has also established goals aimed at moving Entergy toward 30 percent of annual spending on diverse suppliers.
