Last month, co-op leaders gathered online for a three-day international symposium on Co‑op Identity and Energising the Co‑op Brand, hosted by the International Centre for Co-operative Management at St Mary’s University (ICCM), Canada, in collaboration with DotCoop and USA’s Northwest Cooperative Development Center. Participants shared insights and practices, connected with one another, and were inspired to take collective action, with the rallying call that “co-ops will be the best-kept secret no more”. Alice Toomer-McAlpine talks to programme manager Erin Hancock.
With the co-op movement looking to build on the 2025 UN International Year of Cooperatives (IYC), the four-day symposium, held from 19-21 May, looked at branding and marketing, as the sector struggles to improve visibility.
While low awareness of co-operation continues to be a frustration, the event points to a willingness to tackle the problem, with a crowded roster of 46 speakers from 11 countries, and the event available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Speakers were selected via an open call process.
“We wouldn’t have known to cherry pick those people,” says ICCM programme manager, Erin Hancock, “so I’m very thankful that people shared what we were doing, and we got so many new people in the door.
“On the heels of 2025, we thought it would be great to continue that conversation. So we’ve had this big international year that has involved a lot of advocacy, community education and exposure, so let’s capture some of what we’ve learned … and continue that momentum.” The marketing challenge became a focus for ICCM through its delivery of the Master of Management Cooperatives and Credit Unions programme, which has been running since 2003.
“When we get to marketing,” says Hancock, “we find that that’s one of those subjects where we notice that it’s really hard to find content that is specific to co-ops that really gets at the nuance of how we want to present ourselves, how we market to members.
“We know that in the consumer co-op world, marketing based on price really limits the loyalty that you build with people, because you teach them to be price shoppers – so how else do we talk about what we do and bring people into what we do?”
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For its course, ICCM has had to borrow relevant content from the areas of sustainability and social impact marketing to plug this gap.
“We haven’t found a lot of really good co-op content or co-op case studies on this,” says Hancock, “so that’s what sort of flagged it to us. We thought other people are also struggling to find this, so let’s see if we can bring people together around it.”
The challenging global context also served as motivation for the discussion, adds Hancock. “We’re in a time of poly crisis, where your average family is struggling in many ways … So it feels like a really important time in the world for us to be highlighting these kinds of models.”
Discussion at the symposium ranged from the practical to the philosophical, with speakers from co-ops of various sectors and size, but key themes came through strongly, says Hancock.
“The whole notion of co-operative principles and values, and practice, as such a core part of our brand, really stood out. So making sure that there’s a real consistency between those and the governance and the management and how members experience the co-op.”
There was also some “healthy criticism” levelled at certain practices within the co-op movement.
“We talked about isomorphism,” says Hancock, “this drift that sometimes occurs, partly because we hire people who maybe have technical or industry expertise, but don’t know co-operatives, and we maybe don’t properly onboard them or train them, and so we end up playing the games [of shareholder businesses].
“For example, credit unions playing the games of the banks – we talk about price, we try to engage people by giving them an iPad when they sign up for something, but it’s not the same as really helping people understand what it means to be part of that kind of institution, both the benefits and the responsibilities.”
One answer is to increase the visibility of co-ops through shared branding. On day two of the symposium, International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) director general Jeroen Douglas gave a keynote address on strengthening the co-operative identity through labelling and brand recognition, drawing comparisons between the co-operative movement and his previous experience working on Fairtrade.
Unlike the birth of Fairtrade, said Douglas, “we don’t need to fight over our standards, because our standard is held by the ICA, the undisputed custodian of the statement of the co-operative identity.”
Douglas spoke positively about co-ops around the world adopting a unified marque, stating that it “would create huge value”.
But he also warned of a need for co-ordination across the movement, quoting the African proverb, “if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together”. He added: “I think that the co-op movement is only now ready to move towards this unified mark, because there’s a lot of energy around it, but we cannot say what the Canadians do is best, or what the Bhutanians do is best. We need to build a coordinated approach.”
Hancock says there is much enthusiasm for shared branding and the unified co-op marque, and is urging anyone who wishes to continue discussions around this or any of the topics at the symposium to get in touch.
Contact details, as well as recordings of all sessions and speaker slides, can be accessed via the symposium webpage.
The ICCM is recruiting for its 2026 Master of Management, Co-operatives and Credit Unions online course, and will be delivering a range of online and in-person learning opportunities over the coming months. www.smu.ca/iccm/programsandcourses
