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Contribute to a more Cooperative Economy--
Give to the United Co-op Appeal!
Cooperative Development Institute The Keep Local Farms program connects consumers with New England dairy farmers through promotion of all dairy products, education on farm activities and the potential for consumers to directly support dairy farmer-members of the New England Family Dairy Farm Cooperative. If you are interested in local food production, productive open land and your local community – click to learn more about the Keep Local Farms program.
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Members of Organic Valley Co-op Team up to Buy and Run a Co-op Feed Mill in MaineCooperative Development Institute has been working with the 12 organic dairy farmers who are launching Maine Organic Milling in Auburn, ME, a farmer-owned cooperative to mill and mix organic feed for their livestock. Read "Maine organic farmers launch grain mill" by Lindsay Tice in a recent issue of the Sun Journal. The farmers are members of Organic Valley Family of Farms cooperative, which helped the group with inventory, technical support and logistics. This partnering is a perfect example of co-ops helping to form new co-ops and grow the cooperative economy (see our recent presentation at the NCBA Annual Conference on "Growing the Cooperative Economy: Co-ops Seeding Co-ops"). 2010 CDI Outcome Measurement and Client Satisfaction Report ready to readFind out what our intensive clients are saying about us. If you have anything to add, please go to our general open survey. Past news stories:Amazing Variety of Green Living Options: Together on the Land Tour increases in popularity despite wet weather
Twenty-seven intrepid community seekers spent a full Saturday traveling the rainy hills and valleys of rural Franklin County together to explore what it takes to build sustainable and affordable housing in community. Some came to meet new people, others to get ideas for projects back home – but all left with a sense of greater possibilities.
Share your experiences with CDICooperative Development Institute is conducting its regular strategic planning process and would like to hear from you about your cooperative development experiences. Please take some time to give us your thoughts about what resources you have found helpful during your involvement with co-ops in the Northeast. We welcome your insights and hope you will share your advice with us. A compilation report of anonymized responses will be made available at the end of our survey period. A Time to Learn: Upcoming co-op trainings, presentations, meetings, and moreThese cold winter months are a great time to bone up on the topics that interest you most. And spring and summer are great for traveling to meetings that will inform and inspire. Browse the upcoming presentations that CDI will be doing, along with a selection of offerings from other cooperative centers. If there is a topic you’d like to see, let us know. Be sure to review the presentations and trainings that CDI is prepared to offer. Evergreen CooperativesThe Ohio Employee Ownership Center, in collaboration with the city of Cleveland, The Cleveland Foundation, and Shore Bank of Cleveland, has been involved for the past few years with an exciting cooperative economic development initiative. Their mission is to create jobs that generate wealth for low-income residents while also stabilizing neighborhoods. The project emerged as they began to explore how they could anchor and create businesses that employ residents and build wealth in the surrounding area. Employee ownership is an excellent tool to use. It has a proven track record of generating jobs, anchoring capital within neighborhoods, promoting asset accumulation and building viable economic enterprises. A critical tactic is the creation of new employee owned businesses, largely structured on the co-op model, whose products and services would match the procurement needs of large nearby institutions. In addition, the Evergreen Cooperative Development Fund will provide long term funding resources. View the six-minute video of the Evergreen Cooperative Story. CDI Rings in the Fiscal New Year as the Rural Cooperative Development Center for the NortheastCooperative Development Institute is one of 28 awardees for the Rural Cooperative Business Service's fiscal year 2010 Rural Cooperative Development Grants. Find out more about how CDI uses the RCDG to help cooperative businesses -- including yours! -- take off. Who’s New? Fresh Faces, Fond Farewells, and Familiar Folk at CDIWho is CDI? The people behind the name have shifted during the past year. Find out more about our new Executive Director, Housing Program Manager, and Board members. CDI turns 15, revs engineFifteen years ago, a group of cooperative leaders from New England and New York introduced the region to the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI). Its mission: to grow the Northeast’s cooperative economy. Read on to find out more about CDI's new programs... Massachusetts-based Co-op Developer Joins National NetworkAs the newest member of the ROC USA Certified Technical Assistance Provider Network, Cooperative Development Institute will help owners of manufactured homes buy and operate their communities in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Read the full news release.
Lilac Drive Co-op in Raymond, NH, the site of the ROC USA launch event in May of 2008. Photo credit: Geoff Forester.
Our vision of a cooperative economy is of an inter-dependent dense network of enterprises and institutions that allow us to meet our needs through principled democratic ownership, and that care for community, combat injustice and inequity, and promote conscious self-governance. The cooperative economy is embedded within and helps create a cooperative society aware of its place in a cooperative ecology.
CDI collaborates with numerous other actors to work toward this vision. Our particular role is to provide direct technical assistance services and training, communicate about the multitude of paths individuals and groups can take toward the vision, and convene meetings that spark further collaboration and development. We help bring the resources and energy together to produce creative, lasting responses to our real human needs.
Cooperatives use basic democratic principles to elect officers and to form decisions. Members invest in the co-op by paying a membership fee or similar cash security, and they receive benefits in proportion to the use they make of the co-op's goods or services. Profits are returned to members in the form of Patronage Dividends, or members may decide to reinvest the dividends back into the co-op for capital purchases or other needs. CDI fully supports the statement of values and principles adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA). CDI's work is also guided by the Madison Principles, professional standards set by cooperative development leaders in Madison, Wisconsin in 1994. Find out more about CDI's services and products and our educational and training programs.
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