An historic proposal was floated among members of 3 Twin Cities food co-ops to merge their 3 distinct organizations into one co-op. Two of those co-ops chose to merge, in this video we get to hear from the one that chose NOT to merge. Eastside Food Co-ops John Lacaria and Carolyn Buzza share about their next steps in deciding how their co-op can create [...]
There’s commonly a remarkable diversity among how the members of a co-op’s board of directors and how co-op staff see and understand the co-op. And the perception of the myriad owner members are as distinct and individual as the members themselves. And yet each group is holding a unique piece of wisdom about the cooperative. This field guide offers boards tools and resources to [...]
The CBLD template Financial Conditions policy and sample report suggest that boards and managers regularly monitor a number of key indicators of financial health. Here are definitions and/or formulas for many of those indicators as they are typically used by food co-ops. Using common definitions makes it easier to compare your co-op’s performance to others. Many of these metrics are expressed as a % [...]
How is your board spending its time? It’s easy to get caught up in the delegation and accountability portion of a board’s job. Yet there’s a whole other side to the work that is equally important, and the ultimate endeavor of the board: spending time thinking about the co-op’s desired outcomes, members and member needs. A board is accountable for results produced, but ends [...]
Co-op boards that use Policy Governance® write policies as a way to codify their agreements for how they will work together, how they will delegate responsibility to management, and what authority they will then actually delegate. Our CBLD team of consultants created this set of template policies based on what we saw does or doesn’t work for most food co-op boards, and we periodically [...]
Good leaders often ask this question: what would set us up for success? Most of the time the answer is simple. Master the fundamentals. By being good at the basics—like being committed to consistent governance systems and applying respectful, inclusive communication to discussions and decisions—success as a board member is most-likely assured. Yet, it’s harder than it looks in practice. That’s exactly why fundamentals [...]
In the more than 30 years I’ve been involved with co-ops—student housing co-ops, food co-ops, even a worker-owned collective—almost all of the participants have been white. The same has been true for most of the co-op conferences, meetings, and trainings I’ve attended. Currently I work with food co-ops across the country in which the overwhelming majority of the directors, staff and customers are white. [...]
All board committees should have a charter – a description of the committee’s purpose and authority. One person, generally the board secretary, should have primary responsibility for drafting charters as directed by the board. This helps the board have a consistent approach for how charters are written. Committee charters should include: The lifespan of the committee (An ad hoc committee should exist only as [...]
By Michael Healy 184 May-June 2016 Co-ops bring to life their member-owners’ common values, and for most co-ops these include a desire for the co-op to be a great workplace. In the event that your co-op’s board of directors hears employees assert that something is amiss in the workplace, how will the board react? One end of the range of options often involves the [...]
We’re in a position not unlike the years after WWII when the small grocery cooperatives began to fold in the wake of full service supermarkets with vast parking lots. Jerry Voorhis, former president of The Cooperative League (now NCBA CLUSA), made these poignant remarks about the lessons learned from that time: 1. No cooperative business or institution ever stands still, it grows, expands, develops—or [...]
