Helping Build a Thriving Future for Food Cooperatives
By Marilyn Scholl 102 September - October - 2002 Long before "just do it" became part of the American lexicon, the teenaged Homer Hickam, inspired by the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and fueled by [...]
Your New Store: Meeting First Year Challenges
By Bill Gessner 099 March - April - 2002 You have successfully navigated the stormy waters of a relocation/expansion project. Your co-op has proudly opened the new store amidst celebration, praise, relief, adrenaline and exhaustion. [...]
Community Mercantile Meets Compressed Timeline
By Jeanie Wells, Nancy O'Connor 096 September - October - 2001 When you last read about Community Mercantile Co-op in Lawrence, Kansas, we had just barely survived Wild Oats coming to town. The article in [...]
Making Co-ops A Great Place to Work
By Marilyn Scholl, Carolee Colter 088 May - June - 2000 What we love most about co-ops is the emphasis on people. Food co-ops are businesses that operate on a human scale, valuing individual voices--whether [...]
Expansions and Relocations Toolbox
Planning and implementing a successful expansion or relocation for your natural foods cooperative is a major undertaking that always involves risk. As the natural foods marketplace is experiencing rapid change and growth, retail natural food [...]
Conducting Member Loan Campaigns
By Bill Gessner 086 January - February - 2000 Cooperatives need to pursue debt capital from members through the creation of member loan programs and member loan drives. The purpose of this article is to [...]
Management Evaluation Under Policy Governance
By Marilyn Scholl 084 September - October - 1999 The relationship between the board and the general manager is probably the most important relationship in a co-op. To be successful, a cooperative needs a strong [...]
Encountering Cooperative Extremists
By David Fowle, Marilyn Scholl 083 July - August - 1999 Do the following statements or situations sound familiar in our cooperatives? "The co-op shouldn't carry (X), because these products are not natural." "This is [...]
Building and Improving Membership Programs
By Karen Zimbelman, Marilyn Scholl 080 January - February - 1999 Members are the lifeblood of a co-op: a truism of cooperatives. Without members, a co-ops wouldn't be a co-op; it would be just another [...]