Capital Credits

About Capital Credits

As a member of the DRN cooperative, you are the recipient of patronage capital credits on your DRN account. The questions and answers below will help you understand your cooperative, how it differs from an investor-owned utility, and what capital credits mean to you.

A cooperative is a unique type of business that is owned by the members it serves. An investor-owned utility is owned by investors which may be located anywhere and are not necessarily the customers it serves. A cooperative is organized for the purpose of providing quality services to its members at a reasonable cost. DRN is a cooperative owned by its members. Profits are allocated to our members in the form of capital credits.

Capital credits are the amount allocated to each member from the cooperative’s profits. The amount of your capital credit allocation is determined by the amount of business you do with DRN each year and DRN’s profit for that year.

No. Capital Credit allocations are not cashed until the Board of Directors chooses to retire them. Once a decision is made to retire capital credits, checks or credits are issued and distributed to all members who had service with the co-op in the year or years being retired.  

Capital credits are allocated annually. At the discretion of the Board of Directors, allocated capital credits may be retired. At that time, the allocated capital credit balance that the Board has elected to retire becomes available to the member or former member in the form of a phone bill credit up to $200 or cash. Until the Board of Directors chooses to retire the credits, they are not available to the member as cash. One exception to this is the death of the primary member listed on the account.

Under the Articles of Incorporation, no interest shall be paid on capital provided by the patron.

In an effort to get all of our capital credit checks to our members, we are publishing the following list of unclaimed capital credit checks. Individuals identified on this list, or their lawful heirs, may claim their checks by contacting DRN at 344-5000 or 877-559-4692.

If you move, it is important to keep DRN informed of your current mailing address for any future capital credit mailings.