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 [...]
Growing Leaders from Within
By Melanie Reid 186 Sept-Oct 2016 As co-ops evolve and expand and our industry continuously changes, it’s important that we have mechanisms in place that enable employees to see career pathways within our organizations. Opportunities [...]
Key Financial Indicators
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 [...]
Workplace Conflict Policy FAQ
By Carolee Colter, Columinate & Heather Wright, Esq, WrightJones PLC Columinate is recommending replacing the old Cooperative Model Grievance Procedure from 2009 with this new Workplace Conflict Policy. Why do you recommend changing the [...]
New North Willy Street Co-op Serves Needs and Values
Willy Street Co-op Madison, Wisc. Year founded: 1974 Equity investment: $56 single/$91 household + $2 service fee Number of members: 34,000 Number of employees: 420 Number of locations: 3 retails, commissary kitchen, central office Every [...]
Including Members in the Ends Dialogues
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 [...]
Courageous Leadership Today Stronger Co-ops Tomorrow – Fall 2016
Facing heightening competition and increased pressure from member-owners, what does it mean to lead with courage? Building off of his wildly popular talk from our last round of Cooperative Cafes, Dave Olson of National C0+op Grocers (NCG) [...]
Policy Register Template Users’ Guide
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 [...]