thinking strategically

Board Self-Monitoring: Replacing Surveys with Discussion

By Mark Thorne|2023-05-05T20:04:46-04:00December 29th, 2022|

At the Moscow Food Co-op, all C policies (Board Process) and D policies (Board-Management Relationship) are currently monitored using categorical surveys sent out to each board member with either a “How much do you agree with the following statement?” scale or, “With this sub-policy, is the board in compliance or not in compliance?” For each global policy and sub-policy, there is a comment option where a board member can express their thoughts and can explain why they answered as they did.

Co-ops at a Crossroads: A Co-op Security Case Study

By Paul Feiner|2023-05-05T20:05:48-04:00February 2nd, 2018|

By Michael Feiner, Paul Feiner 194 Jan.-Feb. 2018 Retail grocery co-ops are as quintessential Vermont as the brilliant colors of our fall foliage, the hallmark herd of Holsteins on the pasture, or the one-room schoolhouse at the crossroads of two backcountry roads. In fact, it’s said that Vermont boasts the most food co-ops per capita in the country—somewhere in the neighborhood of 17, give or take, [...]

Making Smarter Strategic Decisions through Board Engagement with Owners

By Rebecca Torpie|2023-05-05T20:06:24-04:00June 2nd, 2017|

When boards and management make decisions with the long game of co-op impact in mind, a powerful relationship with owners can develop. Strategic decision-making can be an opportunity to build a strong, participatory co-op culture that understands that the leadership is obliged, by virtue of its fiduciary responsibility, to make decisions to benefit the co-op and accordingly, its owners. Owners typically have high expectations [...]

Analyzing Your Store’s Systems

By Walden Swanson|2023-05-05T20:29:18-04:00December 28th, 2015|

By Mary Myers, Walden Swanson 042 September - October - 1992 This is the third in a series of articles based on Business Planning For Cooperatives, a manual published by Cooperative Development Services that provides step by step Instructions for writing business plans. This manual is based on the principles of systems analysis, which recommend an analysis of each of a retail co-op's key [...]

Boycotts and Democracy – The Eden Foods Product Boycott as an Opportunity to Renew Co-op Participation and Democracy

By Todd Wallace|2023-05-05T20:29:20-04:00December 22nd, 2015|

By Todd Wallace In the summer of 2014, a Supreme Court ruling in the case of Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby led the CEO of Eden Foods, a prominent organic foods producer, to revive an earlier 2013 court case arguing that the company be exempted from paying for its employees to receive birth-control, as required by the Affordable Care Act. The company’s lawyers cited the [...]

Multi-Year Planning Template

By Columinate|2023-05-05T20:07:31-04:00February 13th, 2015|

Reinventing our Cooperative Democracy: A Conversation

By Arthur Sherwood|2023-05-05T20:07:43-04:00November 16th, 2014|

By Art Sherwood, Todd Wallace 175 November-December 2014 In 2013, the International Cooperative Alliance, in its “Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade,” identified the elevating of participation as a key component of its 2020 Vision for more and stronger cooperatives. The “Blueprint” states that, “Democratic member participation is the best-known feature of the co-operative way of doing business and a major part of what characterizes [...]

The Growth Roadway

By Arthur Sherwood|2023-05-05T20:08:15-04:00November 16th, 2012|

By Art Sherwood 163 November-December 2012 Expansion and growth are on the minds of many cooperative board and management leaders. And this makes sense, since growing our cooperatives’ abilities to deliver on their organizational Ends is of critical strategic importance. It certainly was on our minds at Bloomingfoods Co-op (Bloomington, Ind.) this last year as we addressed growing to include a fourth store and [...]

Writing Ends Policies

By Todd Wallace|2023-05-05T20:08:32-04:00September 6th, 2012|

Where we are headed matters. If we don’t know where we are going any road will do. A primary responsibility of a board is to define the reason for the organization’s existence. What are we here for? What should be different because we exist? For whom? For a board that uses Policy Governance®, Ends are written policies which define a) results, outcomes or benefits [...]

Measuring Ends, Telling Our Story

By Michael Healy|2023-05-05T20:33:18-04:00March 17th, 2012|

By Michael Healy 159 March - April - 2012 Why does the work of measuring the co-op's accomplishments and telling the co-op's story matter? Cooperative enterprises build a better world. This tagline for the 2012 International Year of Cooperatives says so much with so few words. These few words can lead us to ask many compelling questions, among them: What does that better world [...]

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