Our culture has a lot of beliefs about money that range from its worship to seeing it as the root of all evil. Food cooperatives especially have been historically conflicted about capital, once seeing it as the cause of destructive economic practices, to the point that raising money was once practically shunned. This left many cooperatives under-capitalized and some of them had to close [...]
By Bill Gessner 129 march - april - 2007 Where we gonna get the grubstake? The 300 food co-op stores in the United States, owned by more than 400,000 consumers, face the continuing challenge of building capital if they are going to continue to grow and develop to serve their members and communities. As much as we might want to ignore this challenge, co-ops [...]
Sarah Lebherz passionately stewards the cooperative business model as a seasoned cooperator with deep roots in her home town. Equipped with years of financial management and expansion project expertise, she has found fresh purpose in pro forma and budget development with colleagues at Columinate.
Ten years ago, the Assabet Co-op Market recruited its first member-owners in the small mill town of Maynard, Massachusetts. Today, the co-op boasts more than 2,100 member-owners from 40 communities, and this spring they'll celebrate the grand opening of their 8,000 square-foot grocery store along the Assabet River. "It's been a pure grassroots effort from the beginning," says Lorne Bell, the co-op's operations coordinator. Bell estimates that he and co-op volunteers have "tabled" at more than 500 farmers markets, festivals, and community events over the years.
The Columinate Cooperative Board Leadership Development (CBLD) program provides annual board support that includes monthly consulting, facilitated board retreats, board training, and resource development. CBLD helps boards take advantage of their collective knowledge and talents, identify their annual goals, and connect with specific resources for their challenges of the moment. The program is run and staffed by industry professionals with experience and expertise in a variety of areas, and it can help to broaden the knowledge base each co-op has to draw upon to meet their goals.
By Rebecca Torpie, Thane Joyal 196 May-June 2018 What does it mean to be an owner of a consumer cooperative? At the most fundamental level, cooperative ownership means that we are in business together. And for the owners of a cooperative that is under substantial market pressure (and what business isn’t?), everything the business does needs to match the needs and aspirations of the community that [...]
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 and individual as the members themselves. And yet each group is holding a unique piece of wisdom about the cooperative. This field guide offers boards tools and resources to [...]
Ben Sandel is a board leadership consultant and capital campaign expert working with startups and established co-ops helping them to reach their fundraising goals using best practices and clear planning gleaned from a multitude of successful fundraising efforts from food co-ops and startups nationwide. In this short presentation, Ben imparts some great top-level wisdom about how to plan and organize a successful campaign and [...]
Steve Breckheimer, Board Member at Hendersonville Community Co-op in Hendersonville, NC describes two different versions of what alignment can look like and why alignment is so critical to Ends accomplishment. Then he tells a story of Hendersonville's successful engagement and outreach around a capital campaign to help grow their food co-op and impact.
By Ben Sandel 182 January-February 2016 Gaining members quickly and efficiently is a major hurdle for most startup co-ops. A co-op is selling a dream when it has no store, minimal (if any) staff, and, when organizing in areas that don’t have other food co-ops, no credible examples to refer to. This can make membership growth slow and painful. Nevertheless, some startups have had [...]
