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 [...]
Using Policy Governance to Improve Board Leadership
By Marilyn Scholl 078 September - October - 1998 Food cooperatives around the country are talking about Policy Governance -- a system of board leadership developed by John Carver. While people are drawn to the [...]
Governance Toolbox: for Directors of Natural Food Co-ops
by Mary Courteau & Corinne Shindelar In the fall of 1996, over 200 directors of natural food co-ops were surveyed for a project funded by Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund and the National Cooperative Bank Development [...]
Challenges to the Cooperative Board of Directors
Edited by Dave Gutknecht and Karen Zimbleman
The Co-op Empowerment Stream
By Bill Gessner 063 March - April - 1996 Our cooperatives are truly empowering organizations, in origin and in practice, in vision and in mission, in theory and in action. Empowerment can be a simple [...]
We Own It: A Workbook about Member Equity
By Rob Wilson and Rob Okun