The feeling of safety and belonging are also common needs and aspirations. It is why solidarity is a core cooperative value.

A cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and/or cultural needs and/or aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.

—International Cooperative Alliance Statement of the Cooperative Identity

The above statement accurately describes our modern cooperatives. It can be applied to American food co-ops, Mongolian agricultural co-ops, and Mondragon Cooperatives in Spain. It does not, however, capture the spirit, the feeling, or the sense of being part of something meaningful with other people who are also sensing the same thing: the feeling of safety and belonging in a harsh and bewildering world. These are also common needs and aspirations. It is why solidarity is a core cooperative value.

Historical examples

The Consumer Cooperative Trading Society in Gary, Indiana, was active for only a short time, from 1932 to 1938. But in those years it became the largest black-owned grocery business in the US. It had a women’s auxiliary, and ice cream and candy stores run by children, so they would learn about business and cooperation. It had a meat market and an automobile service center and a credit union. It met many of the regular household and business needs for the black population of Gary. And it did so while offering its patrons dignity, respect, and safety, which were not often found in the white-owned establishments that the people of the black community otherwise had to do business with.

Before Ben Franklin and other early firefighters established The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, Franklin had observed that poorer people everywhere suffered much more when their homes were damaged or lost by fire. The wealthier often had other homes, landed relatives, farms, or other assets that could be used to recover from a fire. The poor had none of that. Instead, they were left homeless and destitute. Franklin was also familiar with the cooperative relationships that tribes in the Eastern U.S. practiced at the time Europeans arrived. And as a writer, printer, and publisher, he understood the power of the printed word. The mutual insurance company he founded still exists as The Contributionship.

The many and varied black-owned cooperatives in the southern U.S. served the black population there, along with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union that served both black and white farmers. Warm greetings, conversations with friends, fair trading, and mutual care were found there. Black people didn’t experience that in many white-owned businesses, and the poor were often exploited and looked down on by the greedy and wealthy. A small co-op store on John’s Island off the coast of South Carolina started citizenship and voter education programs that trained black teachers and led to the registration of almost two million black voters in the south.

Even the original Rochdale Cooperators recognized that as the industrial revolution moved goods being produced in craft and guild settings into factory and mill production, people suffered and were exploited. Instead of the earlier practice of people selling and trading goods and services directly with others in the community, some factories and mills set up their own stores and paid their workers in chits only good in those stores. These stores could provide lower quality goods at higher prices to maximize their own profits and keep the workers indentured. The Rochdale Cooperators offered fair trade and also included space and materials for education, understanding that the ability to read and gain knowledge about the politics of the time would benefit people directly and make them more influential and powerful in England.

All of these cooperative examples show care for others in times and environments where that care was otherwise scarce. They demonstrated solidarity that was both class-based and race-based. Their self-improvement efforts included educational components: training on how people can work fairly together, how cooperative economics can work, and even how to read—knowledge that made people’s lives better.

Some of our modern cooperatives can appear more like big businesses. But in addition to their democratic ownership, which is foundational, Land’O’Lakes, Organic Valley, Ace Hardware, PCC Markets, and other giant cooperatives all still have, in the kernel that keeps them cooperatives, a sense that looking out for each other is the right thing to do. Importantly, that makes the many owners and other care-holders feel like their work and their lives have more meaning.

In our work, how can we continue this tradition of radical care while also remaining financially viable in the hyper-competitive business environment in which our co-ops exist?

First, we need to believe that there are a lot of folks in our communities, and from a wide range of backgrounds holding many different perspectives, that care about each other. It is easy to despair that we’re all letting our self-driving electric cars launch us off the cliff. This is not the case. Instead, capitalism is changing, some say nearing its end, fueled by climate disruption, a resurgence in the power of labor, Black Lives Matter, and other pressures. Our co-ops can and should use their heritage and power as educational and social change organizations to their competitive advantage, and because it helps people.

Then we need to get creative, and we need to bake the radical care into our organizations like cheese in a lasagna. We need to get better at clearly and proudly stating how and why we are people-centered organizations operating in a ruthless and greedy profit-centered environment.

Before the COVID pandemic, some co-ops were experimenting with fixed-price meals served in a communal manner. Some are partnering with food banks and other anti-hunger organizations. Partnering is great: does your community already have people working on ending hunger, teaching literacy, righting historic wrongs, and healing the natural world? Those people and many others need places to gather and be nourished, and co-ops may be able to help.

Make sure all the decisions made in our co-ops are imbued with care for everyone we can imagine. Relatively small steps add up, and can turn into bigger steps. Can people with physical challenges navigate our doors and our aisles? Can we encourage existing staff to learn sign language and other languages? Can we have signage in other languages? Are our parking lots easy and safe to navigate for walkers and bicyclists and not just cars? Do we have ways to make it possible for those who are visually or hearing impaired to do their shopping? Are we actively working to make our staff more diverse and understanding, so women in hijabs and men in pinstripe suits are all welcome?

And are we telling our stories, talking about our care for each other, and helping people feel healthier and more alive? I love hearing the front-end staff at my local co-op ask, “Are you an owner here?” Perhaps they could add, “Would you like to help make our community kinder, healthier, and more just by being an owner of our co-op?”

Perhaps care, respect, kindness, equity, and justice are needs and aspirations that are not being met elsewhere in our lives and communities.

Like the defining International Cooperative Alliance Statement at the beginning of this article, “united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and/or cultural needs and/or aspirations,” our co-ops don’t always help people see the great good they can do. Everyone wants to be safe and respected and not hungry, and most people crave some kind of meaningful connection with others. Cooperatives have been and continue to be world-changing organizations that exist to meet people’s needs. Let’s make sure we bring this to the forefront in every way we can.