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Business is an unlikely hero: a force for good working to solve society's most pressing challenges, while boosting bottom line. This is social purpose at work. And it's a dynamic journey. Purpose 360 is a masterclass in unlocking the power of social purpose to ignite business and social impact. Host Carol Cone brings decades of social impact expertise and a 360-degree view of integrating social purpose into an organization into unfiltered conversations that illuminate today's big challenges and bigger ideas.
Carol Cone:
I'm Carol Cone and welcome to Purpose 360, the podcast that unlocks the power of purpose to ignite business and social impact. Welcome to Purpose 360, and I'm Carol Cone. And with me today is a wonderful woman who I met at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation Leadership Summit, and it was in Disney World. And we were having this lovely chat, we're walking to dinner and Amy's telling me all about Duke Energy and I said, "Oh my gosh, you're doing such amazing work, especially with disasters. Would you come on the show?" And she said, "Absolutely." So, we are thrilled to have you, Amy. She is president of the Duke Energy Foundation and you said to me, "I love my work." [AH1]
Carol Cone:
So, could you please introduce yourself to our listeners and explain why do you love your work?
Amy Strecker:
Well, first of all, thank you for having me, Carol. It was so good to connect and so fun that just a few weeks later we're here live on your podcast. So, I serve as the president of Duke Energy Foundation, and my background is I grew up in rural small town Texas. I was the daughter of two public school teachers, went to school at the University of Texas at Austin, and then from that experience went and joined a program called Teach for America that landed me out in rural-
Carol Cone:
Great program.
Amy Strecker:
Yeah, rural eastern North Carolina where I taught high school English for several years. And I also ended up meeting my wife there. She was the founding principal of another high school in town. And then I transitioned to graduate school at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and I was going to start a nonprofit and come back and serve Eastern North Carolina. I was thinking of my students of these rural communities that I love. And while I was in graduate school, I landed an internship with one of Duke Energy's predecessor companies called Progress Energy. And I came and started supporting the Progress Energy Foundation and their employee communications and just thought, aha, this is it. This is where I really feel some fit and some purpose and some alignment. And so ended up coming to the company full time in a media relations role, community relations, and I've been on the foundation team about nine years now. And this work is just an absolute privilege. And I think about the honor of serving our communities and customers every day.
Carol Cone:
And you do a lot of grant making and there's a lot to be done. So, I'd love to just kind of dive in and talk a little bit about how the foundation fits in with Duke's purpose.
Amy Strecker:
Well, let me start by telling you a little bit about Duke Energy and the foundation and I'll tie it together for you. So, Duke Energy is an electric and gas utility serving about 10 million customers across seven states. And we do this through the power of the 27,000 strong, who are my Duke Energy colleagues. We've been around for 120 years and we want to be around for the next 120 years. And serving our customers well is absolutely job one of Duke Energy. Now what's cool is Duke Energy Foundation is the charitable foundation of Duke Energy. Instead of being funded on an endowment that came out of a merger or something of the like, we are funded annually by our shareholders. So, every year Duke Energy's top leadership says, "We believe of investing in our communities and we're going to invest in the Duke Energy Foundation." We push these dollars into communities through volunteerism, through matching gifts for our employees competitive grants.
And where the alignment really happens between the company and the foundation is in our strategy. So, several years ago at some of the onset of the energy transition, we said, "We have been giving to so many organizations that are doing great work, but we need to take a really hard look at what our priorities are from a philanthropic lens and align that with the clean energy transition. We're going to have to say no to some really cool projects, some meaningful things to be able to say yes to the things that need to be Duke Energy." When we did that community work, that deep dive, we came up with three pillars around vibrant economies, climate resiliency and opportunity and inclusion. So, we're really thinking about what do our communities need for the energy transition? What does this look like in the natural world and how are we making sure that the energy transition is an inclusive experience for everyone?
Carol Cone:
That's great. And I know when we were talking before the show that you've concentrate on, it's not a year or four years, it's 10 years and it's 20 years and further. So, that's really great. In your materials, you talk a lot about taking a leadership role when you need to. And we talked, when we met, it was on the heels of some bad hurricanes. So, talk about the leadership role with Milton and other hurricanes that you've taken because it's profound.
Amy Strecker:
Well, thank you. And for folks who are less familiar with Duke Energy's footprint, we serve Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky. And so our service territory back in the fall got what I call the triple whammy. We had Debbie, Helene, and Milton on the series of a couple of weeks. And through those storms, every single one of our jurisdictions was impacted. It was just really profound. When I think about Duke Energy, the very first thing we are is we are a company of first responders. The absolute job number one for our company is to get our customers back online with safe, affordable, reliable electricity, and to get those power lines restored. That is priority number one. But then we're also looking at a philanthropic lens. What can we do to be really prompt about getting dollars to places that they need to go? And then we are also the funder who is there long-term.
Some of these storms bring in really helpful outside expertise. They get a national megaphone put on them, and there's awesome fundraising that happens. We are so supportive of all of those things, but six months, 12 months, five years, 10 years after the storm, those folks will have left. But it is still Duke Energy, our customers and our communities who are there navigating what the new future looks like. But I'd love to just say a word about my colleagues when it comes to this storm piece because the determination and the grit of my colleagues who are getting the power back online is just really profound. And here's a story that I'll see if I don't get goosebumps telling you about it right now, but the situation in Asheville was at the Veterans Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina had a pretty long estimated restoration. The devastation was profound, and we had two colleagues, one, an Air Force veteran with a son in the Marines and his apprentice.
He said, "Hey, I think if we go on foot that there could be a path, if we cut a path for ourselves through this mountain, I think I could get to this pole and I think we could run a temporary line and I think we could get the hospital back on in the next day or two." And his leadership said, "Try it." So, these two men literally with the materials strapped to their back, cut themselves a trail went three miles total to climb a pole, to hand pull a temporary line to serve that veteran's hospital. And they did it. This is both the grit, the determination of our employees, but also the empowerment from the leadership team. When you say, I think I see a solution here, we say, let's see if we can do it safely and give it a try to serve our customers really well. But-
Carol Cone:
That's a great story.
Amy Strecker:
That really captures the spirit of our colleagues in this storm restoration work.
Carol Cone:
That's an amazing story. You also have done things, and I know you did this with COVID and I don't know if you're doing this post-Helene and Milton, but you have grants that you give. But there are times where you say to your not-for-profits, which I think is wonderful because you listen, listening is one of your great superpowers as a company as well as yourself. And you say, "Maybe you could just put that to general operating expenses." And many, many, many foundations won't do that. So, how did you get to that flexibility so you really could support your grantees?
Amy Strecker:
Well, Carol, you're talking about a mindset we're really adapting at Duke Energy and it is listen, learn and adjust. So, we're gathering that stakeholder feedback on the start. We get into something, we're learning and then we're going to adjust based on that feedback. And so that mentality of flexibility, learning as you go, I think is what enables our flexibility in our grants. And you are absolutely right. I often say Duke Energy Foundation is often not going to be the largest funder on the project, but can we be the easiest to work with? Can we be the most responsive? Can we be the best business partner?
Can we be the most flexible when it makes sense? We did it both at COVID and then with Milton and Helene were organizations in those regions that had outstanding grants for us. If they wanted to pivot those dollars to be general operating grants to continue the work of their organizations, they could do that. And not every organization makes that choice, but by making that offer, we are meeting them in the moment saying, I might not be able to double these dollars for you right now, but can I free up the dollars you already have to do what you need to get through tomorrow?
Carol Cone:
Yeah. And now you talk about the fact that even a $2,000 grant can make a difference. Can you share a story perhaps either post COVID or post Milton and Helene maybe too recent, where you really looked at your grantees and said, "Yes, we're going to give you this money", and they were so appreciative, I'm sure?
Amy Strecker:
Yeah, yeah, you are right. One of the lines I've also said is $2,500 at the right time can mean more than $25,000 months later. And so some of that responsiveness of getting money in pockets. A couple of years ago when the storm grants we made that had the most wild success on social media was actually $500 that we gave to an animal shelter because they needed gas to evacuate the pets ahead of the storm. That's a very atypical grant for us. We don't support animal causes, but there was a real storm connection and that $500 meant so much to them in that moment than more dollars later. But I love that you raised this point of relationships because in our storm response, this is really what connects for us.
Another story I'll tell you about that actually happened with Helene also this last fall as the water was rising in Asheville, MANNA FoodBank, the major food bank distributor in the region was washed away. Their warehouse was just totally devastated. And so this just stopped the food distribution network in the region. It was a real problem. And so what we were able to do was partner with both MANNA and then in Charlotte a couple hours away, Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, our food bank here.
We said, "Hey, we've got bodies in Charlotte, we've got money. Can we send human volunteers and can we send dollars to Second Harvest Food Bank to package all the emergency relief boxes that we can then drive in same day over to Asheville to reestablish that food supply chain?" So, it's not just knowing what's happening on the ground locally, it's having relationships across the region to call trusted partners to work together to solve a problem. Duke Energy Foundation and our partners are at our absolute best when we are working together to solve a problem for society. That is like the absolute best use of our funds in our time.
Carol Cone:
You have such a culture, and I love this wonderful quote that you said that everyone at Duke Energy has a day job and a storm job. So, during events like Florence, accountants might become call center managers and office workers become travel agents, wrangling hotel rooms for hard-working line workers across the state. So, it sounds like that totally perpetuates through the 27,000 employees and the, is it seven states that you're in?
Amy Strecker:
Yeah, it absolutely does. And then our employees will also work cross-jurisdictionally. So, that's one of the things that my own team does. If the storm's headed to Florida and that team's overwhelmed, my colleagues in Indiana and in South Carolina might be saying, how can we support you? My plate's a little less demanding right now, and I love this idea where you're talking about our culture because that is a huge part of it. And I would love to speak to a story about a piece of culture that really shine through for Duke Energy. And I'll tell you, I have worked here. We're going on 15 years and I have never cried through a phone call at work, but I'm telling you, in the days after Helene, I got a phone call saying, we have a major problem. We're about 48 hours into the storm. Our storm centers are set up, they're feeding our line workers.
The people are responding to the storm, but our Duke Energy families in these remote regions have run out of food and they're showing up at these storm centers asking for food, and we do not have the food for them. Solve it, solve it, team. So, at nine o'clock that night with tears streaming down my face, I was on a call with colleagues across the company figuring out how we were going to triage this. And the tears really came from two reasons. One, it was the profoundness of what was happening on the ground, that these are people who have moved into food insecurity, not because they're facing unemployment, not because they don't have resources, not because they don't have transportation, because the situation is that desperate. And then the other part of my tears was if my family did not have access to food tomorrow that at nine o'clock at night, there would be 25 people from Duke Energy on the phone figuring out how we were going to get fed the next day. It's how we get the job done safely and it's how we care for each other as colleagues.
Carol Cone:
I want to ask you about, you also do career development, and I hear that you're very proud of the line workers education programs. And so again, you take that special sauce of the culture and then you're bringing into helping the next generation. Can you share a little bit about the line workers program?
Amy Strecker:
Absolutely. We love a line worker at Duke Energy, and one of the things that I think is not well known about some of these craft jobs are what an awesome career with great economic mobility. They can really be for families. Line workers with about five years of experience with overtime can be making six-figure salaries. That is-
Carol Cone:
Yeah, who knew that?
Amy Strecker:
... a level of salary that is really life-changing for a family. So, when I think about the work of our company to lift people up, a job at Duke Energy can be a great way to lift someone up. So, here's an example from these line workers. Something I just love. We have been in Charlotte headquartered for over 120 years. In that 120 years, we had never had a Charlotte specific line worker training program. So, we partnered with Central Piedmont Community College through a grant to stand up a line worker training program so that as Charlotte is growing, we are training people here in Charlotte how to be line workers and they'll stay and build their careers here. But that wasn't enough. I talked about bringing in numerous partners, and there's another partnership here with a local organization called She Built This City, isn't that fiery? And what they do is they're bringing women into trades careers.
And so we've also set up a partnership with them to support women participating in the training program at Central Piedmont. And She Built This City is providing those wraparound services. So, during the multi-week training program, there's child care where they're taking care of salary and other things so that it enables women to participate in the program. So, it's this great one-two punch of not just making the training experience but then helping fill the pipeline of folks who can come, who can get careers in the industry and really set themselves and their families up for a wonderful, rewarding career at an excellent salary.
Carol Cone:
So, you are integrated across the company. Did this happen because you are a rock star or did it precede you and you came in and then you added more, I say miracle grow, so you added more miracle grow to it?
Amy Strecker:
I'll say I stand on the shoulders of giants, so nothing excellent is achieved alone. But what I will say is we've just wrapped up celebrating Duke Energy Foundation's 40th anniversary. That is four decades.
Carol Cone:
Congrats. That's great. Yeah.
Amy Strecker:
Four decades. And I also, not to take us down a rabbit hole, but the founder of Duke Energy is a gentleman named James B. Duke. And his story is pretty remarkable too, because back in the late 1800s, he was investing in equal opportunity education for women. That's why we have Duke University today. He said, move to Durham and let women in. We'll be part of that. He was investing at historically Black colleges and universities. He was investing in orphanages at the time, but he was such a leader in his own right about what caring for community looked like and what having resources and the privilege to serve a community, how that obligates you to take care of the people there. And we have been building upon that legacy since the really start of this company with the mantra of citizenship and service.
Carol Cone:
That's truly amazing. I always talk about leadership and I say that the speed of the leader is a speed of the troops not going fast, but that if someone really has this incredible heart and it sounds like he was a servant leader, that it trickles down. You say you do some large grants, but then you're hyperlocal. And so I'm curious about how do you select the large grants and then on the hyperlocal you have hundreds of grants that you're giving out. So, how do you decide?
Amy Strecker:
Yeah. Well, we trust local expertise is what we do. So, our Duke Energy Foundation team, we've got about eight to 10 folks who are working full-time on the foundation, but then we're also partnering with the community relations organization inside our business. And these are the individuals living in community that have usually a three to five county jurisdiction. And they really are our guides for what those local dollars look like to say, here's what's happening in my community, here's where the most impact is, here is where the most meaning is. And we trust that local expertise to make those local grants. When we're thinking about larger grants, they're usually opportunities that are across the enterprise and that are things that are so in lockstep with our foundation that when I speak with our trustees, it is just a resounding yes around the table because it makes such strategic sense for us.
Carol Cone:
And I love that one of your quotes is, "Successful business practice is rooted in relationships, which is the path to success for the company and community to have wins together."
Amy Strecker:
Wins together. I talk a lot with my team about we go farther together. And what that means to me is both Duke Energy and our nonprofit partners, we go farther when we do things together, but it also means internally that if I go to climb a mountain by myself for something I want to accomplish, I'm going to be stumbling the whole way down. But if I gather my colleagues and we talk about why this idea is of value to our communities, why it makes sense for Duke Energy, our foundation, and we go at it together, that team spirit is going to get us further up that mountain and closer to our objective. And the idea of going at it alone just isn't going to get you as far, and it's not going to be as good of a time when you get there, when you have no one to celebrate with too.
Carol Cone:
Oh my God, you're so quotable. You're wonderful, Amy, I'm so glad that I met you. So, if we can kind of bring it back, because we've had the discussion go in many wonderful directions. So, regarding a company, all companies have to respond to disaster, but they can do it really well or they can do it very haphazard. Do you have a few recommendations for companies who they're not at your level, we're going to have more disasters because of everything that's happening with climate change and everything else, what's your recommendation to them to get their act together, be more effective?
Amy Strecker:
I would say come join us. Some of the things that I think about in this disaster scenario is your good intention putting more burden on the organization than not. One of the things that we have done previously is that we just automatically generate same day grants to organizations that we want to be in relationship with. The regular check payment process just doesn't always work in some of these disaster conditions. And we want to make the lift as light as possible on our grantees. So, I'll have colleagues who are on the phone with an executive director saying, if you have five minutes of time to help me fill out these fields, I'm going to type in the information for you and we're going to make this happen for you. So, making sure that your good intention is not creating more burden on the organization. So, it's that idea, first do no harm.
The second is to be in relationship and to listen to what is happening locally. I think oftentimes in some of these disaster scenarios, there's a lot of really great funds that get stood up. I'm generally the champion of the most localized fund that is ready to move to action. And it's really for the organization to think about, do we want to do a relief opportunity that's short term, are we going to be a longer term recovery funder? But I would say step out. There's not a lot of wrong decisions to be made when you're trying to help a community in crisis. So, be listening, be aware of the burden you're creating, be flexible, be kind. People are responding to a traumatic event, so make sure that you're not adding to that trauma.
Carol Cone:
All wonderful, wonderful advice. Now, how about rural? Because you love rural communities and they're seemingly bypassed, and what recommendations might you have for companies to, hey, you should check this out, especially if you're providing services locally?
Amy Strecker:
Yeah, rural communities are just fascinating. The majority of Duke energy service territory is rural. So, our rural communities are top of mind and what opportunity means for them is top of mind. Now, what is also true is that there can be a deficit of nonprofit organizations in some of these more rural communities. So, even organizations that can accept funds, one of the things we do is that we also do partner with governmental entities, particularly when we think about storm preparedness and emergency response grants.
It's often the emergency management function in city or county government that is in the place to actually manage those funds and to do something about them. And then we will also, if we need to look for a regional or statewide partner that has the capacity to go into the region and be helpful, but we have a real bias towards funding locally. We believe the people closest to the issues often best know how to solve them. And I think when we think about rural communities, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. You have to know the nuances of that community to be able to do what's right by that community.
Carol Cone:
Oh, that's great. And as we are winding this down, I always like to give the microphone to my guest. What haven't we asked or what might you want to emphasize in another way?
Amy Strecker:
I think what I would want folks to know is that we at Duke Energy just feel it's an absolute privilege to be able to serve our customers. And that is a right that we earn again and again day after day by doing the job right, by serving our communities well, by taking care of our people. And then the other thing I would say is how much we value one another as colleagues at Duke Energy, we've talked a lot about teamwork and about culture. 74% of our Duke Energy employees participate in one of our foundation programs through volunteerism or giving of their own money.
Our employees from their own paychecks donate more than $6 million to nonprofits across our regions each year. We then double that through the Duke Energy Foundation. So, our employees are driving more than $12 million of Philanthropic impact in our communities each year. And these are not a few elite employees making huge donations. This is Joe and Jane saying, you know what? You can have $20 a paycheck that's going to go to the PTA that serves my school or the cause that they care about. So, the embeddedness of our communities into how we think about our work and how we think about caring for one another is deep at Duke Energy, and it is a joy and privilege to be part of this team.
Carol Cone:
Well, we can tell that you love your work and that you are not like the foundation that's on the side. That's what's so wonderful. It is embedded deeply in the culture and in the business, and in even preparing or responding.
Amy Strecker:
I really appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation. It's just I've got the coolest gig of all time.
Carol Cone:
You certainly do.
Amy Strecker:
And so I love being able to tell the story.
Carol Cone:
So, unrelated, but I'm just curious about the younger generations. How do you feel they are looking into the future regarding community engagement and social responsibility? What are you hearing from them?
Amy Strecker:
Yeah, I think there's more awareness and a higher bar of expectation than ever before. I personally welcome that, that they're more aware of social issues. I think they're more willing to talk about nuance, and I think for brands and for companies, the amount of communication that they are going to want to know about the business that you are doing and the charitable work that you are doing in their communities is just going to be a higher bar. So, I think that will continue to evolve. I never spend time with young people and don't walk away feeling like the kids are all right. There's trends that come and go, but there's just a smart generation of good-hearted people coming up behind us, and so I feel a real obligation to leave things the best way that we can for them and set them up well for their own journeys.
Carol Cone:
Super. Well, I really appreciate that insight. So, thank you, Amy Strecker. You are an amazing leader and president of a very large foundation, and you've got just, I think, even more wonderful things. Stay in touch, because I want to hear about the next thing that you're going to do in terms of at Duke, because I know that all of your local work especially is so profound. So, thank you so much for joining us on Purpose 360.
Amy Strecker:
Thank you for having me. It's been a delightful conversation. I'm so glad our paths crossed, and I'll look forward to speaking with you again.
Carol Cone:
Let's hope we have less hurricanes this coming season.
Amy Strecker:
I'm right there with you, Carol. Thank you.
Carol Cone:
Thank you. This podcast was brought to you by some amazing people, and I'd love to thank them. Anne Hundertmark and Kristin Kenney at Carol Cone ON PURPOSE, Pete Wright and Andy Nelson, our crack production team at TruStory FM. And you, our listener, please rate and rank us because we really want to be as high as possible as one of the top business podcasts available so that we can continue exploring together the importance and the activation of authentic purpose. Thanks so much for listening.
[AH1]Andy, I�ve reached out to Carol about recording a new introduction.
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