Author:  Michelle Schry Food co-ops are experts at doing things the hard way. We are grassroots organizations—it comes with the territory. People’s Food Co-op (PFC) in La Crosse, Wis., and the Rochester Good Food Co-op in Rochester, Minn., decided to take advantage of current resources by working together for our mutual benefit. We traded some old challenges for new ones along the way—but through the process we hope to gain additional insights ...

Author:  Kristina Kruzan One of the issues that faces startup co-ops is how best to use their oftentimes limited resources to get the most impact in equity, publicity, and community support. The Kitsap Community Food Co-op approached this same puzzle in our first year of organizing with a small, local fair, held at an historic farm and staffed by people who cared about our cause. Subsequently, we’ve developed an annual fair that brings in repeat ...

Months before Occupy Wall Street grabbed the headlines, a group of activists on Vashon Island was agitating for people to transfer their deposits from big banks to credit unions. Problem was, Vashon Island didn't have a credit union. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and U.S. Bank were the only options on the island of about 10,000 residents. Puget Sound Cooperative Credit Union, a small Bellevue institution with branches in Tacoma and Renton, recognized the opportunity. It opened a Vashon branch ...