"What is the ratio between the highest-paid and lowest-paid employees in food co-ops?" When evaluating the compensation of their general managers, boards of food co-ops often ask this question. And behind that lies another, sometimes unspoken, question: "What should that ratio be?"
Intercultural Facilitator and Columinate consultant Darin Short is taking what he's learned working with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) teams to facilitate “Why Some Diverse Teams Perform at a High Level While Others Do Not” at the Thought Leadership Conference in South Bend, Ind. on May 19.
Cooperation among cooperatives is more than just a golden principle that all strive to achieve, it’s actually an organizational imperative that makes good use of collective time and resources. Columinate’s Cooperative Board Leadership Development program (CBLD) is built precisely to offer co-op boards the tools to make informed decisions and gain efficiency.
After seeing how the co-op world has shifted away from in-person events during the pandemic, Columinate consultant and leadership strategist Art Sherwood wants to leverage the lessons he learned over the last two years to help co-op general managers be more strategic about multi-year planning. Sherwood has recently launched the Cooperative Strategic Leadership (CSL) program, an annual subscription course that utilizes different modalities to help co-op leaders build practical plans that are meant to be put into action every day.
Raising capital is especially important for cooperatives, which don’t have a typical ownership structure that banks or lenders are used to. Mobilizing the co-op’s membership to raise funds through an owner capital campaign can be an excellent strategy.
