What is capital patronage?
Capital patronage is the assignment, to Wasco Electric Cooperative members, of each account’s portion of the margins [profit] for a year. Since Wasco Electric Cooperative is a non-profit organization, all profit or margins are assigned to you, the member-owners.
An example of this is as follows:
Revenue: $1,000,000 + Expenses: $900,000 = Profit/Margins: $100,000
For the sake of keeping it simple, imagine that you paid $100,000 for energy that year or 10% of the total revenue came from you. At the end of the year 10% of the margins [$1,000] would be assigned to you.
This assignment comes to you in a letter each year. Many people confuse it with a power bill or credit. It cannot be used as a credit on your next bill.
