Molly Phipps is a new cooperative member of Columinate—welcome! Phipps has joined the Cooperative Board Leadership Development (CBLD) team, but she also brings other key skills to Columinate and to her clients, developed over twenty years of diverse consulting engagements. 

In 2023, Phipps applied her grant-writing experience to successfully obtain funding from Cooperative Development Foundation for the new Columinate Cooperative Foundation. More of such grant-writing work is on the back burner for now. 

However, Phipps’s related skills in financial planning and risk assessment are supporting her contributions to the Columinate team that is developing the 2026 capital campaign plan and weighing options for our future. That work is ongoing, and Phipps will be working with legal counsel to follow up on capital options.  

Phipps also continues to seek ways to apply her skills and experience in research, survey design, and methods of learning and education. 

As for board training, Phipps’s experience on boards began in high school, and it included several years as president of the Minnesota Association for Environmental Education. More recently, after being elected to the board of Mississippi Market Co-op in St. Paul, she encountered CBLD through training delivered by Thane Joyal. Phipps is now in her fifth year as president of that co-op, which in late 2025 consolidated with River Market Co-op in nearby Stillwater to form Rivers Cooperative Markets. Phipps was active throughout the consolidation process and its joint Confluence Committee, which met monthly to review finances, bylaws, and more. 

Evaluating the consolidation effort, Phipps said the leaders were aligned, the messaging was clear and deliberate, and the co-op boards did well in maintaining confidentiality before publicly announcing the proposal. The announcement was made in mid-August of 2025 and, after informational town hall meetings, was approved by the co-op members’ vote in late October. Mississippi Market brought its three St. Paul stores to the consolidation, which had been fully supported by the co-op’s CEO. River Market is a single store that will benefit from the enhanced capacity and efficiencies of the consolidated structure. No jobs have been lost because of the consolidation.  

Phipps said that the two nine-member boards aim for a single nine-member body but are not forcing anyone to resign. Rather, to select the single board they are holding staggered elections for three seats each over a period of three years.  

If that deliberate and perhaps unique pace is a bit of “Minnesota Nice,” Phipps provided another example: When asked for a lesson from her experiences consulting with co-ops, which often have surprising or inappropriate policies or personnel, she quipped, “I’ve gotten better at maintaining a poker face! In all seriousness though, I’ve learned that each co-op has things to teach the wider co-op community and things to learn from the wider co-op community. Thank goodness for Principle Six: cooperation amongst cooperatives. 

To learn more, see these Library items: Meet Molly Phipps and Molly Phipps Offers Grant Writing Services.