Cooperative Development Institute: Northeast Center for Cooperative Business

Green Worker Cooperatives is a finalist in the Revelation to Action ideas competition. Other finalists include AS220, a community arts cooperative in Providence RI providing living and studio space to artists; Red Tomato, the local foods marketing network in eastern MA; and the Common Ground Country Fair, a revival of agricultural festivals in Maine. Too bad you only get 3 votes! Voting closes this week -- the top prize is $50,000.

Pedal People co-founder Ruthy Woodring was interviewed on WRSI by Monte Belmonte ("Ruthie the Pedal Person"), and the Valley Advocate's Tom Sturm wrote a profile, "Re-Cycling: Northampton's Pedal People are the unsung heroes of the Valley's bike trails." Congratulations to this successful 8-year-old cooperative showing a real path to sustainability. Now delivering lunch!

The Cooperative Fund of New England has been providing loans to cooperatives and small nonprofits serving the needs of low-income people for 35 years. Having started with $11,000 in social investments and an initial $2,000 loan to Buffalo Mountain Food Co-op in 1975, CFNE has over the years made over $19 million in loans, without losing a penny of investors' capital. Read more about their work helping to create good green jobs, healthy local food systems, affordable homes, and cooperative networks in the 2009 Annual Report.

The Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society, based in Hanover, NH, recently announced the opening of its fourth store, across the border in White River Junction, Vermont.

The CEO of the National Cooperative Business Association, Paul Hazen, wrote an op-ed in Forbes magazine pointing out that while the recent financial and economic crisis was largely the result of risky behavior pushed by profit-driven investors, those firms that have weathered the crisis best and are serving people's economic needs most faithfully are owned by their members: cooperatives and credit unions.

The DFTA Workshop, "Domestic Fair Trade Association: A Movement Based Approach to Fair Trade," is scheduled for Friday morning, June 25th, at 10 a.m. in Cobo Hall Room 02-33. The panelists will include Rosalinda Guillen of Community to Community Development; Joaquin, a young farmworker traveling with Community to Community; Elizabeth Henderson, farmer and NOFA representative; Richard Mandelbaum of CATA-the Farmworker Support Committee; and myself.

LSA Family Health Service, founded in 1958, is a nonprofit community based organization that works with the people of East Harlem to address the physical, emotional, educational, and spiritual dimensions of family health. Its home-based and center-based programs are designed to empower those who are most vulnerable and who have least access to the basic necessities of life in the conviction that the entire community grows when individuals and families are affirmed in their own dignity.

At this time, we are recruiting for a Cooperative Business Organizer/Manager to incubate a worker-owner cooperative that will run the warehousing, tagging and inventory functions of a retail thrift store. This is a p/t position (10 hours/week) to start, with the potential to grow into a f/t position with the development of a comprehensive Co-op Incubation Program.

The Portland Press Herald had an article yesterday by Avery Yale Kamila on Local Sprouts, the worker cooperative community supported kitchen and catering business that has now just opened a cafe. Dedicated patrons can become members of the cafe by paying for a subscription in advance and will benefit from a 10% discount on the breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu featuring organic, Maine-sourced food.

Cooperative 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").

Food Co-op 500 has Evolved...

Into a new, non-profit organization that will continue to support new retail food co-op development across the United States -- the Food Co-op Initiative. A recent press release describes the organization and its impact and announces the appointment of an executive director, Stuart Reid.