Insights from Our Summer Staff Retreat: Reflections and Renewed Commitment
As the fall season begins, our team has been reflecting on the insights gained from our annual Summer Staff Retreat and actively incorporating them into our work. Taking place in Orlando, FL, our virtual team gathered in-person to strengthen our knowledge and connections that fuel our mission. Over three days, we gathered for inspiring sessions, team-building activities, and thoughtful discussions that reenergized our commitment to advancing the clean energy economy.
Here’s a glimpse into what made this summer retreat unforgettable and how it’s shaping our next steps forward!
Leveraging Our Individual Strengths to Enhance Teamwork and Collaboration for Success.
Through interactive exercises, our team learned how our diverse strengths and skill sets can come together to overcome challenges and succeed as an organization. Led by Lakeside Leadership Services, this workshop emphasized the importance of recognizing and leveraging the complementary nature of our individual strengths to foster deeper collaboration. The session offered tools for building support systems to address gaps, helping us see that by leaning into each other’s strengths, we are better equipped to achieve success as a cohesive team. As we move forward, this renewed understanding is shaping the way we tackle projects and bolstering our ability to collaborate.
Understanding Our Collective Journey and Navigating the Path Ahead for Inclusive Utility Investments
During our retreat, we had deeply insightful sessions that shaped our understanding of past achievements and future goals. Led by Margarita Parra, our Director of Transportation Decarbonization, the team completed a powerful exercise where we co-created a visual timeline, mapping out our organizational history, coalitional efforts, and key milestones in the field. This collaborative storytelling helped us reflect on both triumphs and setbacks, allowing us to appreciate the long road we’ve traveled together.
Building on this, Tamara Jones, our Co-Executive Director, challenged us to look ahead to the next six to eighteen months of our work. We broke into teams to identify the most significant headwinds and tailwinds that will impact our efforts to scale inclusive utility investments. Each group tackled critical areas—from policy adoption to utility program design and post-deployment challenges—using our strategic impact dashboard as a guide.
We walked away with a clear understanding of both the obstacles we face and the opportunities we can leverage to drive real progress in the months ahead. These sessions not only deepened our collective insight but also set the stage for action as we work toward our shared vision.
Our Success is Your Success: Reaffirming and Reflecting on Our Commitment to Equity, Cultivating Community Champions
We gathered our inaugural Fellowship cohort for an engaging discussion on their personal reflections and strategic insights on advancing inclusive utility investments. From recounting how they first connected with Clean Energy Works to discussing their most meaningful milestones and toughest setbacks, our team gained insights on what it would take to replicate and scale successful adoption of inclusive utility investments in ten more states. Persistence and collaboration were key themes, as Fellowship members highlighted the importance of coalition building and cultivating community champions in driving progress.
We also discussed sector-wide strategies, such as identifying early momentum in states and aligning inclusive utility investments with broader climate and energy policy goals. Fellowship members emphasized the need to better integrate energy efficiency into Virtual Power Plant (VPP) frameworks and leverage opportunities from federal funding programs like GGRF and IRA. Equity remained a central theme throughout the conversation, with Carol Davey, Director of Just Energy Transition, leading a thoughtful exploration of how we can more fully incorporate the five dimensions of equity into our work—both within our teams and across the regulatory landscape.
With clear strategies and a deepened commitment to equity, the conversations illuminated both the challenges and opportunities ahead, leaving us energized to continue the work of making clean energy accessible to all.
