Do you plan on attending the late May CCMA conference or know someone who is?  It will offer a chance to meet in person with your favorite CBLD (Cooperative Board Leadership Development) consultant, along with other Columinate consultants and co-op colleagues from across the country.  

Columinate will have a large contingent of members who will be in attendance, many of them presenting or co-presenting as part of the program—including these CBLD consultants: Jade Barker, Hether Jonna, Michael Healy, Molly Phipps, Laura King, and Molly Snell-Larch.

Other Columinate members delivering presentations at CCMA are Jeanie Wells, Sarah Dahl, and Wynston Estis. Also attending the conference from Columinate (as of this writing): Vernon Oakes, Rose Marie Klee, and James Morrell.  They are eager to hear from other cooperators before or during the conference—so feel free to reach out to them. 

This year CCMA (Consumer Cooperative Management Association) will again bring a crowd of food co-op leaders and allies together for three days of intensive presentations, workshops, networking, and celebration. The 2026 CCMA will be held in Tacoma, Washington, on May 28-30, under the theme, "A Cascade of Cooperation: Building Community Power in a Time of Change." 

Columinate is one of nearly twenty organizational sponsors of the event, which draws co-op directors, managers, and staff, along with lenders, consultants, business allies, and co-op developers. The conference has five tracks, with multiple sessions in each. These tracks titles are listed below, with Columinate member presentations noted.  

An added special session, announced in early April, will feature four co-op managers/CEOs and National Co+op Grocers discussing "Integrity, Care, and Equity Under Pressure: Twin Cities Food Co-op leaders on navigating ICE presence in their communities." See here for the complete and detailed description of all sessions. 

Track 1: Foundations at the Foothills: Building strong operational roots 

Track 2: Cultivating an Evergreen Workforce: Growing resilient, inclusive teams that thrive in every season 

• Finding True North—How trusting your leadership instincts transforms workplaces. Presented by Laura King and Melinda Schab. 

Track 3: Cascading Connections: Creating authentic relationships that ripple through communities 

• Stronger Together: Buildingbridgesacross race. Presented by Jade Barker and Molly Snell-Larch. 

Track 4: Peak Leadership: Reaching new heights in board effectiveness and cooperative governance 

• Fair Pay, Fair Power: Addressing genderbias in co-op leadership and governance. Presented by Jeanie Wells and Sarah Dahl. 
• The Leadership Cascade: Strengthening GM–boardpartnerships forcooperative resilience. Presented by Jasmin Woodside, Wynston Estis, and Mark Tarasawa. 

Track 5: Currents of Change: Harnessing trends and technologies to navigate toward a sustainable future 

• Better Together: The story of two food co-ops unifying through consolidation. Presented by Catherine Downey, Sara Morrison, Luke Engel, and Molly Phipps.

CCMA is presented by the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, with this year's co-hosts Central Co-op and Seattle's co-op community. For your questions or suggestions, contact Megan Webster at mawebster@wisc.edu or 608-890-1048. For Columinate support, contact Events Manager Sean Schuette, seanschuette@columinate.coop.