Cooperative Ends, Impact, and Telling the Story
An individual member-owner or customer or vendor could probably describe how the co-op impacts their life: This is where I get the food that feeds my family. Or, I see all my friends here. Or, [...]
Updating Trends in General Manager Compensation
By Carolee Colter March-April 2017 View data by downloading attached PDF. Data from 104 co-ops with annual sales ranging from $1M to $74M In 2006 and 2011, this magazine published studies on general manager (GM) [...]
Food Co-ops Are on the Leading Edge
As director of Food Systems Initiatives for the Self-Help Credit Union, Steve Saltzman has a unique perspective on the work that is being done by food co-op sin communities throughout the region. And from where [...]
From Credit Union to Community: Stories of Impact
At the Local Government Federal Credit Union in Raleigh, NC Michael Spink has the enviable title of Innovation Strategist. In this brief video Michael shares a few stories of how the LGFCU is creating an [...]
Moving Forward Together
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 [...]
The Participation Burger: All Staff Create Impact
Dan Arnett, Cooperator in Chief at Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, tells the story of how he's inviting all staff members to create participation and impact by way of building the best burger in town. Dan [...]
Participation: Systems & Structures
Systems & Structures within a cooperative are essential to creating and maintaining strong communication between co-op stakeholder groups. Rebecca Torpie shares some brief points about how these systems can better be leveraged to create and [...]
On Participation
In her work as a Participation & Engagement consultant for cooperatives, Rebecca Torpie gets to see many successful campaigns engendering authentic relationships between co-op stakeholders. From members, to staff, to community members, the connections between [...]
Board Communication: Using the Board’s Unique Perspective to Increase Owner Engagement and Participation
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 [...]
What Drives Co-op Employee Engagement
Workplace employee engagement is a hot topic. Open any human resources publication and you’ll find countless articles on making work fun, motivational and results-oriented. No matter what the individual strategies are to achieve that, the [...]