Context Matters: Using Trends to Monitor the Financial Health of your Co-op
By Michael Healy When it comes to numbers and data, context matters. The context in which we place particular numbers helps us make meaning of those numbers, and this is particularly important when we are talking about financial data. Over many generations, managers and accountants have developed financial reporting tools that help them do their jobs. Balance sheets, income/expense (aka profit/loss) statements, and [...]
Great Idea: Using Trend Data in Financial Reporting
Along with the template Financial Conditions policy, in the CBLD Library you can find an easy to use monitoring report template that reflects the trends approach outlined in this article. When it comes to numbers and data, context matters. This is particularly important when we are talking about financial data; the context in which we place particular numbers helps us make meaning of [...]
Featured Video: Fostering Belonging
Fostering Belonging Dale Woodbeck, General Manager Lakewinds Food Co-op Chanhassen, Minnetonka, and Richfield, Minnesota Dale Woodbeck shares the story of Lakewinds Food Co-op’s success fostering a sense of belonging among its stakeholders through the Lakewinds Organic Field Fund. The fund gives assistance to farmers producing organically and to farming organizations providing sustainable agricultural support. “This is something that resonates totally with our owners,” [...]
New Resources: How to Have the Best Meeting Ever (Webinar)
How will you make your next meeting the best meeting ever? Here is a useful tool for helping you run effective meetings and create common ground with groups. You’ll find tips for meeting process design, preparing for a meeting, creating meeting materials and the agenda, as well as insight into the stages of group development and meeting process. “In this [...]
Co-op Leaders Comment on Visibility
By Carolee Colter, Helena O'Connor 172 May-June 2014 According to 2013 CoopMetrics data, 30 percent of member co-ops in the National Cooperative Grocers Association have expanded or opened a new store in the last five years; and many more co-ops are planning expansions and new stores. Serving more customers in new ways is exciting, but it also adds to the workload of employees and [...]
Case Study: Telling the Co-op’s Story through the Ends
City Market Onion River Co-op Burlington, VT Year founded: 1973 Member investment: $200 equity Number of members: 10,000 Retail square feet: 12,000 Number of employees: 215 The City Market Onion River Co-op in Burlington, Vt. is a thriving downtown food co-op celebrating its 40th anniversary. It’s poised for growth and with a membership of 10,000 people has made a real impact during its history. [...]
Featured Video: Participation—Going Further
Michael Healy Recorded at The Cooperative Cafe Michael Healy invites us to expand our thinking around participation in our co-ops, specifically how we look at measuring participation. According to Healy, there may be way more to examine if we can move beyond just counting voter turnouts and Annual Meeting attendance. Rather than looking at participation as something co-ops need to convince people to do, [...]
Articulate Co-op Purpose and Meaning through Strategic Leadership
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 [...]
