Local Leverage: Building Nonprofit Partnerships to Reach Underserved Communities

Dating back to its founding under the New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has had a long history of working to improve life in the communities it serves. That tradition continues, nine decades later, with the Home Uplift Program.

Home Uplift is a community-based program that provides income-qualified residents with no-cost home energy upgrades. It involves an innovative partnership-based funding model between TVA, participating local power companies, local and state governments, and other community partners. While the program has met with tremendous success in delivering energy and non-energy impacts, TVA has begun to focus on partnerships with local community groups to support customer and contractor outreach and relationship building in the harder-to-reach non-English speaking communities.

By partnering with organizations that are deeply rooted in underserved communities, TVA aims to make Home Uplift more diverse and equitable. Centro Hispano is an example of this type of partnership in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. By taking a closer look at processes from a client perspective, they were able to find opportunities for improvement and are creating a playbook that can apply to other programs serving disadvantaged communities.