Community Relations

Commitment

Eversource Community Relations serves as the primary point of contact and the face of our company for state and local government officials as well as business leaders. We are committed to initiating and fostering long-standing, professional relationships with community leaders. We partner on community priorities and leverage the full benefit of Eversource’s operational, safety and advocacy experience to support the needs of town leaders, constituents and communities.

Guidelines

Community Relations' strong and positive relationships help maintain important two-way communications with the municipalities we serve and position us as a go-to resource for distributing key company information. Our Executive Vice President of Customer and Corporate Relations, who reports to the CEO, has direct oversight of Community Relations and Economic Development.

What does this entail?

Community Relations Specialists:

• Respond to inquiries from community officials and actively engage our in-house experts to resolve municipal concerns
• Provide public and community relations advice, counsel and services relating to local government and community policies
• Connect internal departments with external partners
• Serve as conduit between Eversource and municipalities for various low-income and efficiency programs
• Provide information and regular updates on energy-related projects occurring in our communities to state, local and business officials
• Share external relationships with community leaders to accomplish key business objectives and enhance relationships with those leaders and their communities

Emergency Response

Eversource activates its robust Liaison Organization during declared emergency events as part of the Community Relations commitment. Each community within the impacted area is assigned a dedicated Community Liaison to address specific community needs who falls under the oversight of the executive vice president.

This includes:

• Conducting proactive outreach so that communication channels are open and available to each municipality
• Advocating for their assigned municipality, contacting them in advance of, during and at the demobilization of an emergency event and helping to escalate community priorities
• Providing ongoing communications including timely updates for large customer outages, crew locations, daily work plans and updates concerning impacts to critical facilities

Learn more about how to prepare your home or business in the event of a storm with our Storm Preparedness information.

Community Grants

Community Relations provides Community Grants to non-profit organizations within Eversource’s service territory. These awards have benefitted thousands of citizens in the communities we serve, addressing critical issues like hunger and homelessness, education, STEM programming, the environment, public safety and more. Community Relations typically awards about $500,000 through approximately 250 community grants each year.

Charitable grants range from $500 - $2,500 and are provided to community organizations that support one or more of Eversource’s focus areas of giving:

• Community Wellness and Basic Human Needs
• Education
• Clean Energy and Environmental Stewardship
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Community, Economic and Workforce Development 

Economic Development