Practical strategies and solutions for...
rosemarieklee@columinate.coop
512-736-6510
2025 Enrollment Now Open! Our Cooperative Board Leadership Development (CBLD) team is looking ahead to another great year of supporting your organization’s success through our award-winning CBLD program. Now in its 21st year, CBLD provides an annual program of board support that includes monthly consulting, facilitated board retreats, a wealth of online webinars and other board trainings, and a [...]
Many cooperatives, social justice organizations, and businesses have begun to directly confront their own role in the social systems that perpetuate racism and inequity. Boards of directors who use Policy Governance® should feel empowered to use their policy document to clarify their expectations around the work of dismantling systems of racism and oppression.
Presented by Art Sherwood & Todd Wallace CBLD Board Consultants Panelists Amy Holt - Board President Lexington Co-op Market Buffalo, NY Rose Marie Klee - Board President Wheatsville Food Co-op Austin, TX George Huntington - GM Bloomingfoods Bloomington, IN Lori Burge - Development Mgr. People's Food Co-op Portland, OR
This multi-session series will examine various aspects of governance, including both practical skill-building as well as exploration of broader governance concepts and issues that inform the Policy Governance approach.
At the Moscow Food Co-op, all C policies (Board Process) and D policies (Board-Management Relationship) are currently monitored using categorical surveys sent out to each board member with either a “How much do you agree with the following statement?” scale or, “With this sub-policy, is the board in compliance or not in compliance?” For each global policy and sub-policy, there is a comment option where a board member can express their thoughts and can explain why they answered as they did.
Board perpetuation is a perennial topic for boards. Turnover happens year to year as a cyclical part of board service. So, finding ways to maintain consistently strong governance needs to be a priority and continual task. Things can never stay exactly they as they are (or used to be), so how do boards keep positive momentum going? How do they individually and collectively share [...]
Accountable Empowerment It is always important for a co-op board of directors to have good systems of accountability in place to provide proper and strategic oversight of the general manager. With strongly increasing demand for natural and organic products resulting in more pressure from competitors, cooperatives need to strengthen operations, and at the same time effectively communicate the value the cooperative brings to its [...]
Ever had someone ask that simple question: What is the board's job anyway? and wondered where to start? The CDS Consulting Co-op model for cooperative governance, the Four Pillars of Cooperative Governance can help! We identify four pillars built on a foundation of Cooperative Identity that lead to the success of the cooperative. Each piece helps tell the story of the board's job. At the top is Success of [...]
What would happen if everyone in a whole community understood their role in achieving a common purpose? It’s not hard to imagine that lots of really positive things could be accomplished, some of them beyond our wildest dreams. That’s why it is critical to the success of a cooperative that everyone has a role in determining the co-op’s future. One of the fundamental differences [...]
