By Holly Fearing 185 July-Aug 2016 Picture this: A person stands on the platform of a train station, and as a train passes through the station she flashes a bright message, hoping everyone on the train will see it. On a second train, as it passes to the next station there’s also a person inside each of the train cars giving the people in [...]
Key Insights The major takeaways from interviews with three co-ops on their initiatives to improve diversity in hiring and increase cultural awareness on their staff teams are make staff diversity and cultural awareness a priority to your team (and budget) create goals and make the measurables visible to your team aim to be reflective of your community use community engagement as a hiring tool [...]
Key Insights Round up is an extremely successful, simple way of collecting donations for partner organizations. Making the ask mandatory is the best way to ensure cashier compliance and consistency. Incentivizing cashiers and making goal achievement fun and rewarding can make a difference in buy-in and outcomes. Co-ops may want to try every other month or quarterly round ups to test shopper and cashier [...]
The roll out right before Thanksgiving turned out better than expected. Having a single centralized spot where everyone could see what was happening in real time was an incredible improvement to the status quo experience of phone tag or tracking people down during the holiday order rush. You could simply post a message and almost instantly see somebody respond to the issue. The staff [...]
Common Ground Food Co-op Urbana, IL Year founded: 1974 Number of members: 5,800 Member equity: $60 Number of employees: 95 Retail square feet: 8,000 Common Ground Food Co-op in Urbana, Ill. has been one of the fastest-growing food co-ops in the country. When they moved to Lincoln Square Mall, their expansion plans included a comprehensive approach to community outreach, customer service and education that [...]
River Valley Co-op in Northampton, MA is a jewel among startups with over $25M in annual sales and robust growth. Rochelle Prunty, the GM at RVC takes us through the co-ops history, as well as a possible future, in which the region has many more River Valley Co-ops and an exponentially greater impact on its members, staff, and communities.
By Marilyn Scholl 140 January - February - 2009 In my work with food co-op boards and staff over the past 30 years, one of the questions I have often encountered is this: How can we get more people more involved at the co-op? The question has prompted a lot of soul-searching and hand-wringing. Co-op leaders intuitively believe that member involvement is vital to [...]
Weaver Street Market Carrboro, NC Year founded: 1988 Member equity requirement: $75 individual, $135 couple, $175 three or more Number of members: 18,000 consumer-owners, 210 employee-owners Number of staff: 250 Number of locations: 3 retail stores and Food House commissary kitchen Over the years, Weaver Street Market has enjoyed significant success as an innovator in launching numerous retail stores and developing a commissary kitchen. [...]
By Gail Graham, Rebecca Torpie 180 Sept-Oct 2015 A lot has changed in Cuba since the July 2014 visit by U.S. cooperators, reported in these pages by Stuart Reid (CG#175, Nov.¬Dec. 2014). A few of us couldn’t resist jumping on a recent opportunity to explore the new Cuban cooperative initiative. So, in February 2015, we flew from Cancun to Havana with three other curious, cooperatively [...]
