2025 End of Year Letter

Dear Community Power friends, allies:

We won’t tell you that 2025 has been a doozy. We will say that despite the headwinds and rising authoritarianism at the federal level, Community Power continues to intervene for energy justice and democracy here at home in Minneapolis. We continue to go deep with city and state level policy advocacy, knowing that tangible benefits to people’s lives can come from smart, effective government action with and on behalf of their constituents. – A special shout out to all our partners for their hard work and leadership throughout. 

For those readers who are newer to Community Power, over the past dozen years we have worked towards building a clean, local, equitable, affordable, and resilient energy future…through local action. This looks like policy and advocacy, but also like building power with community members through clear, tangible outcomes. Continuing that tradition, in 2025, we can share a few examples of our Energy Democracy work this year:

• Launched the Good Energy Connections pilot program as part of the continued collaboration with the Twin Cities Energy Efficiency Cohort. The pilot program provides free support to Twin Cities residents to navigate through real-life energy efficiency projects that lower living costs, mitigate climate change, and deepen democracy in their community. Our two Neighborhood Energy Navigators have been working with 50 households to date, and plan to support many more in 2026.Thanks to our partners at CUB, CEED, CERTs, CSP, CMEJ and community advisors, artists, funders who stuck with us through the federal grant clawbacks to make this happen. 
• Co-hosted 6 public Minneapolis candidate forums, in five city council races and the mayor’s race, in addition to compiling 20 responses to our 2025 Minneapolis Energy Questionnaire to create a voter guide. This work was preceded by having meetings with 30 different candidates for Mayor and City Council to provide educational resources on the history of Energy Democracy in Minneapolis. 
• Continued the work supporting the implementation of the 2023 Minneapolis Climate Equity Plan and successfully advocating to the city council to approve more funding for it. We also worked with city leaders to ensure the new franchise agreements with Xcel and Centerpoint enshrined the city's clear authority to create funding mechanisms to resource climate action. 
• Successfully fought parts of the 2025 MN Senate Energy Omnibus Bill that would have ended our state’s nation-leading and newly improved Community Solar Program, alongside organizations in the CLEAR Energy coalition.

This year we have also experienced a significant federal funding clawback of $375,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency. And possibly permanent stalling of nearly committed prize funding from the Department of Energy, $200k in this phase, and potentially more going forward, up to $1 million. But we remain in the fight, seeking redress for this arbitrary action with other grantees nationwide experiencing similar circumstances with the help of pro bono attorneys. It’s tough; the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem Solving Grant was the first federal grant we went out for. Then we began implementing it in 2024, only to have it frozen in February of this year, then terminated in May by the new administration's EPA. The DOE prize, while not formally terminated, continues in administrative limbo, so we’ll update more about that when we can.

We know this year has been hard for many people for many different reasons, and our economic hit does not equate with the pain suffered by so many suffering unjust immigration enforcement, lack of due process or missile strikes. We’re here, we’re good, and we want to give thanks for that, especially to kind supporters like you and our wonderful Twin Cities family of partners.

Before we sign off, we are excited to announce our new Board President. On December 4th our Board unanimously elected Board President, Zam Zam Musse. She brings a wealth of technical and regulatory expertise as an electrical engineer who has worked in both community focused projects and organizations in the Midwest and in California, utilities, and the CA Public Utility Commission. Our heartfelt thanks to exiting Board President, John Farrell, passing the baton for his years of thoughtful, strategic leadership, building up our organization. Also, we are excited for his continued engagement in a new role as our Board Secretary during this important time.

With our small and dynamic team, we put people rather than utilities, government agencies, and monopolies at the core of Minnesota's Clean, Local, Equitable, Affordable, & Resilient, CLEAR, energy future.  

Best wishes for this holiday season and renewed strength to build a better 2026! 

The Community Power Team, 

Leticia, Brian, Lee, Kyle, Alice, Freddy, and Kyla