This is the time of year that people interested in learning the unique differences of managing a co-operative have the opportunity to enter the only English-language master's level program that does just that.

The Masters of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions program through St. Mary's University is an on-line executive master's program. Students work together in cohort for three years (six semesters) learning the history and development of cooperative management, global economics from a cooperative perspective, accounting and equity management in cooperatives, as well as innovation, best practices, human resources, marketing and strategic planning. The class work also includes a field trip to either Mondgraon or the Emiliano-Bologna region of Italy to study, in depth, the worker cooperative systems of those societies. The last year is spent on the student's project (it is not a thesis, since the work is not published but designed to improve one's own co-operative).

There are other co-op study opportunities to be found; however, they tend to focus on development or the sociology of coops. Others might see coops as one tool for community development. All of them, and they are great programs, tend to end their study once the coop is created or limit the discussion to governance issues. The MMCCU recognizes that if we manage our coops just like our competitors, then we will lose the advantage of being a cooperative. It isn't enough to simply subscribe to the principles or even the Identity Statement, we need to operationalize those values, ethics and principles into the everyday management decisions that our co-operatives consider (whether or not we have workers with the title of manager).

The deadline for application is the end of May. Unfortunately, US students have been denied access to loans and Federal funds by the US government (since this is an on-line only program from a foreign university). However, it is affordable ($30,000 for the whole program including travel) and there are Canadian grants available even for US students.

 I graduated in 2010 as part of the 4th Cohort and will be happy to provide more information and thoughts to anyone considering an application. I can truly say that this program changed my life and my thinking about co-operation. It was worth the sacrifice and the money.

A lot of conferences this year. Sadly, too many of them are in June when I will be busy in Halifax. Still, if you have the time, money, and inclination, there is a lot to do this year:

Madison Cooperative Jobs Conference: June 6-7
The City of Madison and area cooperatives are sponsoring a discussion about using the cooperative model to rebuild our local economy and create new jobs as well as preserve existing jobs.

Philadelphia Cooperative Conference: June 13

US National Conference on Democratic Workplaces: June 22-24
This biannual conference will be in Boston this year and will have dozens of workshops and exciting speakers.

US Federation Annual Meeting: June 24
Also held in Boston, this is the annual business meeting of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives.

ACE/CASC/CIRIEC/ICACCR: June 25-27
This joint conference of Canadian (CASC, CIRIEC), US (ACE) and International  (ICACCR) researchers will take place in Montreal. The last time that these three organizations came together was in Saskatoon (in 2007). It was an incredible conference and this one should be just as exciting especially as many minds will be on the one of the biggest Co-op events in our lifetime, the Imagine 2012 conference in October.

Imagine 2012:: October 6-11
This conference will be held in Quebec City and include economists from all over the world. It is sponsored by The Sobey School of Business at St. Mary's University and Desjardins. It includes two conferences: the International Summit on Cooperatives and International Conference on Cooperatives. This is the G20 of the cooperative movement.

This news item came across the wire last week: Bill Gates launches co-op backed anti-poverty scheme.

I've never been a Bill Gates fan (and to be fair, my affinity to Steve Jobs has been more about style and functionality than politics). However, now that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has discovered the historical power of cooperatives to address poverty and change communities to a more sustainable basis, I have to say that I am impressed. Even more, the fact that Bill Gates refers to the co-operative model as "cutting edge" is incredible given that the current model is 169 years old and its predecessors go back even further (in this country all the way to Ben Franklin).

One of the things that can be difficult for us in the coop world is to accept the new comers no matter where they come from. It isn't easy. I would love to have Bill Gates for a couple of days to really educate him on co-ops. However, the fact that he has realized our incredible power has to be enough. Hopefully, it will spread. Who knows, maybe one day the American Legislative Education Council will suddenly see co-operatives as the real answer to the nation's problems.

I can dream.

It is officially the holiday season in the United States. There are a number of holidays coming up through February 5th (Superbowl XLVI). Co-ops offer a great selection of gifts and resources for your parties. Given that the Year of the Co-operative is upon us, how can you resist?

Fair-Trade Coffee with Worker Co-op Coffee Roasters

There are a number of "fair trade" coffees out there; however, if they aren't using a worker-coop or unionized coffee roaster, they are just as exploitative as Folger's and Nestle.

Just Coffee--Madison, WI: offers a number of roasts. They practice "transparent trade" which means that you can read their contracts with producers on their web site.

Just Us Coffee, Maritime Canada: Great coffee roasters, and a worker coop to boot.

Equal Exchange--MA: They created fair trade coffee and now have sugar and chocolate. They used this model to break the Reagan Quarantine of Nicaragua which insured the existence of that countries cooperatives even after the counter-revolution.

Okay, if you want to give more than coffee, then here is a bigger list. . . .

REI--Seattle, WA: This is a great store to all outdoor activities.

Willy St. Co-op--Madison, WI: Gifts Cards, Food Platters, etc. The are the largest food co-op in Wiscsonsin and will be happy to do their best to accommodate you.

New Orleans Food Co-op, New Orleans: My dear friend, Lori Burge, is the general manager. I haven't been to this store, but it just opened after years of hard work by the membership and Lori. Check them out on Facebook. I am not sure if they can ship, but they might have gift certificates.

Rainbow Grocery Coop, San Francisco, CA: The cheesemonger at this store is a dear friend as well. He also has an excellent book (Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge). He can get Wisconsin cheeses that Willy St. snubs its nose at. Ask for the Dante--the best goat cheese in the United States (and it comes from a cooperative goat dairy in WI).

NoBAWC--if you are in any way engaged in the San Francisco area, check out NoBAWC to find a co-operative to meet your gift-giving needs.

Co-Soap, Bay Area, CA: Hand made soaps designed for your skin, not for corporate profits.

Union Cab of Madison--Madison WI: If you live in Madison or have relatives in Madison, you can either purchase coupons or sign-up for the Rider Rewards account (co-op and credit union members save 5%).

Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund, MN: Instead of buying a US Treasury bond, invest in the NCDF. You can even direct the money into the Worker Ownership Fund.

Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative: A local bookstore in Madison, WI that can meet all of your needs. Consider joining for $30 and get a 10% discount. They can special order and ship.

Some Coop Workers with books include:

(Please purchase from Rainbow Bookstore or another locally-owned bookstore in your community)

Vampire Cabbie--written by Union Cab driver Fred Schepartz
Save Me, Julie Kogon--written by former Union Cab Driver and Rainbow Bookstore member Allen Ruff
Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge--written by Rainbow Grocery Cheesemonger, Gordan Edgar
Hitchhiking From Viet Nam: Seeking the Ox: written by Richard Chamberlin, a Union Cab driver
Holy Cooperation!: Building Graceful Communities: written by NCBA staffer Andrew McLeod


There are many more, of course. I hope that you keep co-ops in mind in your shopping this season. Let's keep our money within our community. That is the best gift that we can give ourselves.

Thanks to my friends at the Madison Worker Cooperatives, I just learned about Dwolla. Dwolla is a new method of engaging in e-commerce that greatly reduces the fees associated with credit and debit cards and even challenges paypal.

The home accounts of this organization are with largest Iowa Credit Union, Veridian Credit Union. Here is a blurb from their website:

"Dwolla account holder funds are deposited with Veridian Credit Union. Founded in 1934, Veridian has grown to become the largest credit union in Iowa and among the top credit unions in the nation. Today, Veridian Credit Union is a modern, full-service financial institution offering a broad range of products and services to fit a variety of member preferences and lifestyles.  Your money is secure at Veridian Credit Union."

Dwolla's model is to charge a simple 25¢ per transaction (I think that is on each end, so 50¢ total). For consumers, this is a much cheaper method than some debit card fees or percentages. For merchants, it wipes out transaction fees and other costs. They currently have a map of merchants who accept Dwolla for payment.

Obviously, Dwolla has a long way to go to start competing with the major actors, but this is yet another way that we can keep our money in our community. As cooperatives should seriously consider signing up to accept payment through Dwolla. The system allows brick-and-motor coops to benefit as people can make payments through their smartphones as well as on-line. I'm not sure how all of the technology will talk to each other, but am happy to see credit unions embracing the future of cashless payments.

The United Nations had declared 2012 to be the International Year of Cooperatives. In response, cooperative organizations around the world have been planning events to acknowledge, promote, investigate and celebrate the achievements of cooperatives.
In this spirit of collaboration and celebration, the leading cooperative research and education organizations and networks operating in Canada – the Canadian Association for Studies in Cooperation (CASC), the Interdisciplinary Research and Information Centre on Collective Enterprises (CIRIEC Canada), the International Cooperative Association Committee on Cooperative Research (ICACCR) and the Association of Cooperative Educators (ACE), the Measuring the Cooperative Difference network and Territorial Development and Cooperation network – are joining forces with their most important stakeholder groups – the Canadian Cooperative Association (CCA), le Conseil canadien de la coopération et de la mutualité (CCCM), le Conseil québécois de la cooperation et de la mutualité (CQCM), le Comité de la relève coopérative du Québec, the Ontario Student Cooperative Association and the North American Students of Cooperation – to organize this conference.
The goal of the conference is to bring together the overlapping communities of researchers, educators, practitioners and policy makers from academia, professional associations, civil society organizations and government to share knowledge and engage in discussion about policy proposals and strategic directions for the sector, both in Canada and internationally.

Conference Theme
The theme of the joint conference has been chosen to draw attention to the core mission of cooperatives, which is to make a positive difference in the lives of their members and communities.
How cooperatives take up this mission has always been conditioned by historical circumstances. In our own times, the various challenges of and opportunities for cooperative activity are conditioned by such factors as the changing nature of our economies (e.g. trade liberalization, lean production, transnational production, shorter product lifecycles, economic concentration, etc.) and the environmental (e.g., climate change, global warming, habitat and species loss, degradation of arable land) and socio-economic harm created by these economic changes (e.g., high levels of under- and unemployment, contingent labour, chronic poverty, income polarization, food insecurity, inadequate social and educational programs).
Cooperatives in Canada and around the globe have been responding to these problems, often in innovative ways. This theme of the conference is intended to highlight the fact that in responding to these challenges and opportunities, cooperatives produce change. Some of the changes are directly intended, others are unanticipated by-products. These changes occur within and across different social realms – the economic, political, the cultural – as well as impacting our natural world. Changes also, and perhaps most importantly, occur within and among the members of cooperatives, producing the personal growth and changes in organizations with facilitate better economic, social and environmental performance.

Conference Topics
We invite abstracts and proposals that investigate how cooperation, including inter-cooperation among cooperatives, promotes change in the lives of cooperative members, their communities and the larger society.
Possible topic areas include the following:
• Management Structures and Practices
• Ownership and Governance Structures and Practices
• Business and Marketing Strategies
• Social, Economic and Environmental Impact Evaluation
• Youth and Student Cooperatives
• Social and Solidarity Cooperatives
• Inter-cooperation between Cooperatives Internationally
• Aboriginal Communities
• Poverty Reduction and Local Development Strategies and Practices
• Local, Organic and Fair Trade Production in Agriculture
• Sustainable Production in Extractive and Resource Industries
• The Role of Education in Cooperating for Change
• The Role of Research in Cooperating for Change
• The Role of Public Policy in Cooperating for Change

Submission Guidelines
We invite researchers, students, and practitioners to submit any of three types of proposals:

1. Individual Papers – Proposals should include: a) your name, title, affiliation and email address; b) a short (two-line) biographical note; c) title of the paper; d) a 100 word abstract (to be printed in the program), and; e) a 500 word summary of the argument, which should include the relationship of the paper to the literature, the research question, methods and, where applicable, findings. Proposals for both empirical and theoretical papers are invited.
2. Panel Proposals – Proposals should include: a) the title of the panel; b) a 250 word description of the issue or theme that the panel investigates and how the individual papers relate to the theme/issue; c) the names, affiliations and contact information for all panel participants, and; d) 250 word  descriptions of all panel presentations. Panel proposals should include 3 or 4 presentations.
3. Proposals for Roundtables – Proposals should include: a) the title of the roundtable; b) a 500 word description of the issue or theme that the roundtable investigates and how the appropriateness of the individual members for participating the roundtable; c) the names, affiliations and contact information for all panel participants, and; d) a short description of the key points/areas that the members of the roundtable will cover. Participants are not expected to deliver formal papers.

• The deadline for the early bird call for proposals for panel sessions and roundtables is Nov. 21st, 2011. Priority for travel subsidies and scholarships will be given to applicants who meet this deadline.
• The final deadline for paper abstracts and proposals for panels and roundtables is January 24th, 2012.
• Abstracts and proposals may be submitted either in English or French (in either Word or Rich Text Format). They should be sent by email to casc.acec@usask.ca. A total of two presentations per person will be permitted.
• All proposals (for individual papers, panels and roundtables) are subject to peer review. Applicants will be informed of acceptance by February 15th, 2012. A directory of conference delegates will be published in the Conference Program; if you do not want to have your name, contact information and institutional affiliation published, please notify us when you submit your abstract.

Program Committee Members

• Darryl Reed (York University), President, Canadian Association for Studies in Cooperation (CASC).
• Lou Hammond Ketilson (University of Saskatchewan), Chair, International Cooperative Association Committee on Cooperative Research (ICACCR).
• Marie J. Bouchard (University of Quebec at Montreal), Vice-president, Interdisciplinary Research and Information Centre on Collective Enterprises (CIRIEC Canada) and Chair, Canada Research Chair on the Social Economy.
• Sarah Pike, Executive Administrator, Association of Cooperative Educators (ACE).
• Tanya Gracie, Program Manager, 2012 International Year of the Cooperative, Canadian Cooperative Association (CCA).
• Michaël Béland, Director of Communications and Programs, Canadian Council of Cooperation and Mutuality (CCCM).
• Fiona Duguid, Senior Policy and Research Analyst, Cooperatives Secretariat, Government of Canada.
• Sonia Novkovic (St. Mary’s University), Past President, International Association for the Economics of Participation (IAFEP) and Academic Co-lead for the CURA grant on Measuring the Cooperative Difference.
• Marie-Joëlle Brassard, Director of Research and Development, Quebec Council of Cooperation and Mutuality (CQCM) and Co-Lead for the CURA grant on Territorial Development and Cooperation.
• Tom Klein Beernink, Ontario Student Cooperative Association (OSCA).
• Erin Hancock, Board Member, North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) and coordinator for the CURA grant on Measuring the Cooperative Difference.

TBA, Comité de la relève coopérative du Québec.
Conference Information
For more information on the conference, please visit: www.coopresearch.coop

Today marks the official beginning of the International Year of the Cooperative. I write about it from the worker cooperative perspective on my other site; however, here, I wonder what the other sectors will use this year to accomplish.

Will this simply be a marketing effort by consumer and ag coops? A special twist that allows them to express a cooperative advantage without actually having to create a cooperative difference? I imagine for a number of coops, the real answer might be neither--they may not even recognize that the year is upon us, or don't understand its significance.

I think that cooperatives need to use this year to express why they are a better, not just a different, market based economic model. They need to embrace the Occupy Wall Street energy and clearly explain that coops are the economic model of the 99% (or at least of the 90%). Cooperatives began as a direct answer to the rise of capitalism. Honest food at fair prices that working men and women could afford was the raison d'etre of Rochdale. They didn't put chalk in the flour or rocks in the coal. In fact, they had to teach their consumer members that flour wasn't supposed to be white, that was the result of the grocery adulterating the food supply.

They need to explain why the prices are higher, in some cases: Fair Trade (domestic and foreign) means that our food isn't based on the exploitation of workers and farm hands. More importantly, they need to find ways to help working men and women eat well and within their budget. The role of education in coops isn't just limited to teaching about coops, it should also include how to live a simpler, more cooperative life. Teaching people to make a great healthy dinner in the time it takes to drive round-trip to KFC is as important as having organic food on the shelf.

What will be the success of IYC2012? A year from now, or even 5 years from now, will our coops look back and say "that was fun" or will we look back and say "wow, look at what we accomplished?"

Over the weekend, a co-worker handed me a copy of American Cooperatives by Jerry Voorhis. The author was a New Deal Democrat who served for 12 years in congress before suffering defeat at the hands of a nasty, red-baiting opponent in his first campaign by the name of Richard Nixon. Voorhis then went on to become the Executive Director of The Cooperative League.

In 1961 he wrote a book about US cooperatives. I am just starting to dive into it, but I wanted to share this page from the second chapter entitled, "A New Kind of Business for a New Age":

"We don't know for certain just how or when the first beginning was made toward a civilized society. But probably it happened somewhat like this:
 It was a bitter cold winter day. Lightning had struck a tree and it was burning. A dozen or so fearful, furtive primitive human beings had approahed the warmth of the fire from various directions. Each of them feared all the others. In fact, they were all so afraid of each other that they were prepared to let the precious fire burn itself out and dies, leaving them to the cold and darkness, for they did not yet know how to start a fire.
"Then a great thing happened. Someone in that number gathered about the fire, conveyed to the rest a simple proposal that contained every basic element in teh civilizing process. The proposal was that they all agree to give up the practice of attacking one another and that they, instead, agree to work together to maintain the fire for the benefit of all."

Unfortunately, they also decided to create a committee to further study the proposal and by the time the committee reported back, the fire had gone out. Sorry, bad joke. Here is the next paragraph:

"Sometime, somewhere , some such proposal was this was accepted , the practice of mutual aid and cooperation was born, and mankind started on the path toward civilization."

This is, of course, the real message. Sadly, it is one that we are still learning. We cannot really be a society (a civilized one) if the main purpose of action is to get one over on the other guy. Voorhis knew this first hand. As a member of the New Deal Congress, he worked to help provide the mutual aid that provided rural electrification, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Wagner Act, the the alphabet soup that prepared this nation to stand up to global fascism and created the fabled "middle class" that is really the working class with fair pay and benefits.

Clearly, as his loss in 1946 to a man who would eventually disgrace to office of the US President demonstrated, we still have a long way to go. I think that part of the struggle must be that those of us who believe in cooperation need to promote it not simply as a good place to buy decent food or as a good thing to do, but as a lifestyle that shares it values with that of our federal and state constitution. We can work together and stay warm or stand alone and freeze in the dark.

Over the last year or so, there has been a growing effort to create Federal legislation to promote the development of cooperatives. NCBA held and educational session for members of Congress last year and US Representative Chaka Fattah (D-PA) from the Philadelphia area has joined as a sponsor of the Cooperative Development Act of 2011. The Website is The Campaign for Cooperation.

This should be bipartisan legislation at its finest. The goal is to build cooperative infrastructure by assisting existing Cooperative development centers, providing start-up loans, and otherwise assist urban areas to build a local, sustainable economy. This will create jobs in the heart of the highest unemployment. It will help move people from welfare to sustainability. It will help rid our urban areas of food deserts.

The long-term effects will pair with the efforts of the USDA Rural Development group. By building a cooperative community, we create a true nation of entrepreneurs and innovators. We capture the imagination of those who are motivated by civic pride, community strength and sustainable economic models. This, in turn, helps the more common entrepreneur have a solid consumer base to make their profit, to invest in communities because their is a base economic level that can support their business.

More importantly, it can replace the tired notions of the War on Poverty on the liberal side and the obsession with cutting social spending on the conservative side. We can quit arguing over giving people fishes, by lending them the money to learn how to fish.

Sign up. Get involved.

We can occupy Wall Street and Main Street all that we want, but if we don't actually support a better solution (with our voices and our pocket books), it is just an ego blast.

I began the annual month of celebrating Cooperatives and Credit Unions by sitting at a table for my worker cooperative, Union Cab in a large room with one of my credit unions, Summit Credit Union, my food cooperative, Willy St. Coop, two of my favorite coffee roasters: Equal Exchange and Just Coffee, and several other cooperatives representing the Agriculture sector, utilities, consumers, workers, and the support groups such as MadWorC,the UW Center for Cooperatives, The Cooperative Network, Cooperative Development Services, and more.

It was a great celebration to start off the annual month of recognizing the power of cooperatives in our community. Madison Mayor, Paul Soglin, gave a short talk on his vision on cooperatives. He embraced cooperatives during his campaign to unseat a popular incumbent and has become something of our movements official spokesperson. His administration will be hosting a conference on cooperatives next spring in order to help city planners, developers, and those interested in succession planning for their business learn about the benefits of cooperatives to the community.

As the continued debate over the power of capital and the rights of citizens (actual, human citizens) continues, the cooperative movement is poised to be the solution to the nation's, if not the word's, economic problems. Our movement is based on sustainability and accountability. While the dominant economic system crashes under its failure with regards to those basic principles (do we really want politicians who promise to run government like a business?), our movement has the opportunity to flourish.

I will be getting back to regular postings--sorry for the absence.