Cooperative Development Institute: Northeast Center for Cooperative Business

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.

Register now to attend the 2010 national worker cooperative conference this August in the Bay Area!

Early registration deadline ($10 off) is June 30. Scholarships are available.

The Work We Do is the Solution
August 6-8, 2010

Come spend the day exploring the world of employee ownership at the Eighth Annual Vermont Employee Ownership Conference, being held June 9th in Burlington. The early registration period ends on May 28th, so register now to take advantage of the lower pricing.

Date: Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
Time: 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM (Registration starts at 7:30 AM)
Location: Champlain College, 375 Maple St., Burlington, VT
Cost: Early registration: $120/$85 additional attendees. Late registration: $150/$115 additional attendees. (Early registration ends on May 28th.)
To Register: Click here to register online. You can also download a registration form and mail it in.
For More Info: Call 802-861-6611, or email info@veoc.org.

The National Cooperative Business Association held its annual meeting and conference, “Cooperatives Transforming the Economy,” in Washington, D.C. last week, with active participation from several cooperatives and groups in the Northeast.

CDI was proud to present at a pre-conference workshop, “Growing the Cooperative Economy: Co-ops Seeding Co-ops”, about the various ways that cooperatives can create more co-op activity by looking up and down the supply chain, meeting more member needs, creating more markets and products, and replicating their organizations. We also presented “Co-op Housing and You: Creating Cross Sector Connections for Affordable Manufactured Housing”, about how cooperative ownership makes homeownership viable in manufactured home communities (“MHCs”) nationwide, co-presented with Paul Bradley, CEO of ROC USA™.

The Neighboring Food Cooperative Association (NFCA) is an alliance of over 15 New England food co-ops. Founded in 2004, NFCA has defined its primary long-term desired outcome as a thriving regional economy. A thriving regional economy will include a food system that provides all people with access to healthy food from the region as much as possible. At the heart of such an economy, we see cross-sector collaboration among a variety of cooperative enterprises.

On December 18, 2009, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced two pieces of legislation intended to encourage employee ownership in the U.S. The first bill (S.2909) is called the Worker Ownership, Readiness and Knowledge (WORK) Act.

There are some great ideas being proposed at the "Revelation to Action" contest sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee and Ashoka's Changemakers. They want to find and help fund the most innovative ideas and organizations that strengthen and improve communities in Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Worker Cooperative Office Manager

The Center for Family Life in Sunset Park promotes and supports the founding of cooperative businesses as part of our community development initiative. Under the auspices of our Adult Employment Program, our first cooperative business, “We Can Do It! Women’s Cooperative”(Si Se Puede!) was incubated and launched in August of 2006. This Coop has 23 members who have worked together to build a successful housecleaning business. All of the members of the coop are considered “Worker Owners” and decisions in the group are all made democratically with each owner having an equal vote. Since 2006, CFL has incubated three additional cooperative businesses and a collective, We Can Fix It!, Beyond Care, a childcare cooperative, a women’s painting cooperative and an international cooking collective called Émigré Gourmet.

The successful candidate for the position of Cooperative Office Manager will have: