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capital campaign

Assabet Co-op Market: Getting creative in the face of financial headwinds

By |2023-05-05T20:04:35-04:00April 25th, 2023|

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.

Capital Campaign Funding Builds Expansion Momentum

By |2023-05-05T20:05:24-04:00May 9th, 2018|

The town of Astoria, Oregon has a strong independent streak. While other nearby areas are overrun with chain stores, their town has not sustained that level of attention or development. That doesn’t mean the 10,000 people who live there don’t want nice amenities, efficiency and convenience. The difference is that they are willing to create those opportunities for development from within their own community.

Is An Owner Capital Campaign Right For Your Co-op?

By |2023-05-05T20:05:49-04:00January 25th, 2018|

It seems like many co-ops are either in the middle of, just finished, or are about to start a project. And all of those projects need adequate capital to be successful. Raising money from co-op owners has become a standard component of project capitalization and the amounts co-ops are raising has been growing.

Cooperative Business Law Basics: A Primer on Organizational Structure and Capitalization Options

By |2023-05-05T20:05:59-04:00December 5th, 2017|

By Thane Joyal, Dave Swanson Change in the market, change in the world, can mean stress in the relationships within a cooperative as the organization adapts to the changing circumstances. Both having the right organizational structure and choosing the right vehicles to capitalize your co-op are important in making your cooperative responsive and resilient in the face of change. But their technical and legal [...]

Video Field Guide: Membership Growth

By |2023-05-05T20:06:49-04:00September 27th, 2016|

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 [...]

Connecting the Dots: Strategic Board Leadership in Action

By |2023-05-05T20:06:52-04:00September 7th, 2016|

By Thane Joyal 185 July-Aug 2016 The future is unknowable. Or is it?  Courageous leadership relies in large measure on wise choices. In his entertaining novels, Robert Parker often references the military strategist Clausewitz for the proposition that you should “plan not for what you think your enemy will do, but rather for what your enemy can do.” Wise leadership, in other words, requires [...]

Planning a Member/Owner Capital Campaign

By |2023-05-05T20:29:11-04:00February 11th, 2016|

Capital campaigns can be a very important part of an expansion project - serving as a healthy test of member support.  Will your members be willing to make a sizable at-risk investment because they believe in the co-op, its leadership and the benefits of the proposed expansion? Offering investment opportunities is also another benefit you can offer to your members. The planning phase of [...]

Cooperative Communication Conundrums: Exploring paths to alignment and healing when a cooperative encounters controversy

By |2023-05-05T20:06:44-04:00July 7th, 2015|

By Thane Joyal 179 July-August 2015 To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives... The future is an indefinite succession of presents, and to live [...]

Why Equity is Part of the Co-op Difference

By |2023-05-05T20:07:19-04:00April 7th, 2015|

Seward Co-op's GM, Sean Doyle, has a passion for finances, and he's here to share his passion with you! Sean discusses some unique lending avenues available to many co-ops and why equity may just be the key to the cooperative difference.

People’s Expands: A Tale of Two Co-ops

By |2023-05-05T20:30:04-04:00May 19th, 2014|

Michelle Schry, General Manager People's Food Cooperative, LaCrosse, WI & Rochester, MN   Learn about the process, the challenges, and the triumphs of the unique "merger" that took place in Rochester. Michelle Schry, GM, tells about the engagement, the participation, and the support that poured from BOTH communities.

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