How CDI can help start or improve your cooperative

How CDI can help you start or
improve your cooperative...

Cooperative Development Institute
P.O. Box 244
South Deerfield, MA 01373
phone: 1-877- NE COOPS, 413-665-1271
fax: 413-541-8300
info@cdi.coop

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.

CDI can help you with each stage of development for your cooperative. Find out how.

pepperidge woods residents (Cooperative Development Institute)

The very first homeowners stand in front of their home in the new Pepperidge Woods Cooperative in NH, the nation's first energy-efficient manufactured housing park co-op. Photo courtesy of New Hampshire Community Loan Fund.

The more you know about cooperatives and the cooperative business structure, the stronger start you will have. Below is some helpful information.

Cooperatives are:

User-Owned - People who own and finance the cooperative are those who use the cooperative.

User-Controlled - The people who control the cooperative are those that use the cooperative.

Benefits return to users - The cooperative's sole purpose is to provide and distribute benefits to its users on the basis of their use.

So your first job is to decide who are the members and what benefits do they want from this cooperative.

Co-ops are owned by:

	consumers
	producers/farmers
	workers
	businesses/organizations
	municipal/government
	other co-ops

Cooperatives can bring the following types of benefits to their members:

	Consumer Co-ops - provide products and services for their retail members
	Purchasing Co-ops - purchase products and services in bulk to reduce or share costs
	Marketing Co-ops - build markets for members' products and services, improve member bargaining power, facilitate delivery of product to market, and improve product quality
	Value-added Processing Co-ops - add value to members' products to increase members' share of retail mark-ups.
	Worker Co-ops - provide jobs for their members

For more on cooperatives, read about the cooperative business structure.

The Cooperative Development Process

The timeline for starting a cooperative is 40 hours of board meetings and 12-18 months of planning.

Acme Cooperative (Cooperative Development Institute)

Members/Owners of the Acme Cooperative in New England.

Resources needed include: dynamic, future-thinking, risk-taking leadership; cooperative business, legal, and financial specialists; member equity investment; and start-up financing.

Legal Structure

There are two paths to becoming a co-op:
Incorporate under a co-op statute in any state OR
Incorporate as a corporation and adopt cooperative by-laws.

Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs) also operate cooperatively but are not technically cooperatives.

Do you need more information?

Questions you need to ask yourself before consulting an attorney to help you design the legal documents necessary for a cooperative business.
Four Reasons Why You Might Want to Start A Co-op and Four Reasons to Reconsider.
General Guidelines for Success.
CDI Services and Programs.

Home, Educational and Training Programs, Coop 201 Training Sessions, Values and Principles of Cooperative Business, Cooperative Professional Standards, Reasons to Start a Coop, Guidelines for Success, CDI Services and Programs, Assessment for Group-based Businesses