A Tale of Two Co-op Gathering

I am closely involved with a cooperative house where I share meals and community, I bank at a credit union, and I am on the board of the Peoples Food Co-op of Ann Arbor.  Passionate as I am about cooperatives, I've been lucky this past month with opportunities to go to two weekend programs about building co-ops. Both programs were in Western Michigan, one at Circle Pines, a cooperative education center http://www.circlepinescenter.org/ located between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids , the other at a Unitarian church in Mt. Pleasant. These two groups would like different elements of the community of movers and shakers in the co-op movement. 

The first was an event sponsored by an organization with the most peculiar name, the Latter-day Society of Equitable Pioneers*. The group started last fall and this was its third meeting.  This retreat was a wonderful opportunity to meet with co-op activists from across the state.  While there was some structured activities, I found the really juicy part of this event to be the opportunity to talk to people who were excited about co-ops. There are some interesting new co-op projects going on around the state. 

Grand Rapids seems to be bubbling with co-op activity. A restaurant, a new co-op house, a brewing co-op, and a food store are all Grand Rapids projects in various stages of start up that I learned about.

Detroit also has some promising co-op potential. I got to meet two organizers of the Detroit Community Cooperative. One of the organizers, a lawyer who specializes in worker ownership, has been laying the groundwork for this project for six years.  I am impressed with her vision. It is now launching a business services cooperative which she hopes will be the hub for a collective of workers cooperatives. The model for what she would like to see developed is Mondragon, the largest workers cooperative in the world. The Detroit Community Cooperative is having an organizing potluck on June 6, http://www.c2be.org

The event also attracted the general manager for the Kalamazoo food co-op. I admire his co-op leadership. The Kalamazoo food co-op recently built a new storefront, with an adjacent community kitchen that acts as a local foods incubator. The Kalamazoo food co-op has been important to their community in other ways too, like creating the system that allows Kalamazoo's farmers market to accept food stamp cards. When I asked him what made his co-op so effective, he suggested that it was alignment of vision between the board, himself, and his staff.

I walked away from the Circle Pines retreat with a renewed eagerness to make things happen in the co-op world. In theory the focus of this group is to link up experienced cooperators with new co-op activists. I think that new and old are not so clear lines in the co-op movement at this time, there is a lot that many of us can share with each other. Another function the organization serves is exactly what I got, to help co-op activists feel connected to a bigger movement, giving us the support and courage to continue our work for a better world.

The second event, the one in Mt. Pleasant was a Co-op Board Leadership training called CBL 101. This training was put on by Cooperative Development Services Consulting Co-op http://www.cdsconsulting.coop/  that works with food co-op boards of directors. The event was a statewide event, including board members from eight food co-ops, seven in Michigan, and one from Indian.

This co-op training was considerably more structured than the Circle Pines event, a one-day event with two morning sessions two afternoon sessions, and an opportunity to tour Green Tree food co-op in Mt. Pleasant.  The membership of these eight co-ops totals to about 20,000. People's food co-op in Ann Arbor had more members than those of the other Michigan and Indiana co-ops attending. In addition to the event itself a highlight was driving there and back with three other Peoples Food Co-op board members. 

The first session of the day was about co-op history starting with the origins of the Rochdale co-op in England in the 1800s. I appreciated the concerns raised by the woman sitting in the row behind me, she wondered if focusing on an Anglo European origin for co-ops gets in the way of having a more culturally diverse co-op movement.  A second session covered the legal responsibilities and protections of a board of directors. 

After lunch we had a session about a process called policy governance, this is the method around which the Peoples Food Co-op board organized. I have had an uncomfortable relationship with policy governance, there are parts of it that I find helpful from the standpoint of running an effective cooperative, on the other hand there are elements that I believe can create an excessive hindrance to effective cooperative operations.

 I will take a moment or two to explain how policy governance works, because it is at heart of how most food co-ops are run, if co-ops are to be Democratic their members should at least know this. In a nutshell what policy governance is about is separating larger policies of an organization, from the operational tasks of running that organization. The job of the board, it is postulated, is to set a broad policy framework, then it is assumed that the board should turn operations over to general manager. Policies that a board develops include, policies on how the board itself runs, policies about the relationship between the board and a co-ops general manager, policies setting out the desired results wanted from the cooperative venture, and finally limitations for the general manager on how to achieve those results. 

 Potential pitfalls with this approach that I have observed include a lack of organizational transparency, limiting of organizational descent, and the hindrance of the implementation of board vision. I don't believe that any of these pitfalls are insurmountable within the structure of policy governance, but it is not always clear to me how to surmount them. This session and some conversations peripheral to it were helpful for me in getting clarity around how best to use this methodology. In terms of the food co-op board that I sit on, my take-home message is that we must work more with our ends policies, these policies are where the board articulates the results it wants from the co-op.

Finally the fourth session focused on understanding finances. A simple exercise that was part of this session and used real data from our co-op gave me confidence that our co-op has resources with which we could be doing more than we are presently doing . First things first of course, the People's food co-op of Ann Arbor is looking for a general manager, this position needs to be filled before the store takes on anything new. Nonetheless, I believe the board can begin to lay the groundwork now.

The Mt. Pleasant event also gave me an opportunity to begin to meet and connect with other board members from other co-ops. There is a natural comradery among this crowd, and, comrades are good to have.

In Michigan there is a healthy community of co-op movers and shakers,  activists and leaders. I believe that co-ops in their many forms are seeds for the type of economy we should strive to grow. From that perspective this community is far too small. Nonetheless, I feel proud and honored to count myself among this community.  

*this group is named after the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, the Rochdale co-op developed what is now known as the seven principles of cooperatives.