In my previous article, I presented the case — reporting on a speech by Doug O’Brien, head of the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA CLUSA) — that co-ops are crisis infrastructure. Rural electric co-ops reached families that corporations wrote off in the 1930s. Credit unions helped their members weather the economic shock of 2008. Food co-ops kept shelves stocked and their members safe through Covid lockdowns — and, this year, made sure food reached neighbors afraid to leave their homes during the federal Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities. 

But that raises a question: how do co-ops keep pulling this off? The answer doesn’t just live at the level of the individual co-op. I promised last time to return to O’Brien’s speech for the rest of the story, and here it is. 

O’Brien’s speech in March was to accept the Neighboring Co-operator Award in March; he opened by deflecting the credit: “This award is not really about me, it’s about NCBA, which is to say, our entire cooperative community.” Where my last article was about how various types of co-ops rise to the occasion during crises, this one is about what connects co-ops across sectors — the associations through which food co-ops, farmer co-ops, credit unions, housing co-ops, and worker co-ops act as one. 

O’Brien laid out how that works in practice, and why it multiplies their power. Below: three policy fights co-ops fought (and are fighting) together, what association builds between the fights, and what it all means for us at Hunger Mountain Co-op. 

Three fights, one pattern

O’Brien gave three examples — different years, different sectors, same move. 

• The tax fight. Last year, credit unions faced tax status changes that could have forced 70% of them to close. The whole cooperative sector “united under the ‘don’t tax my credit union’ banner,” O’Brien said — and won. Food co-ops and housing co-ops showing up for credit unions, because next time it might be us.
• The Covid letter. In the early days of the pandemic, Congress drafted business-relief legislation that would have left some types of cooperatives out in the cold. “I reached out to the executives of all the associations representing other kinds of co-ops,” O’Brien said, “and asked if they would join in a letter to Congress that made the very simple point that all cooperatives need to be eligible. We were successful in that. It had an impact on different sectors of billions of dollars, and it ensured that many cooperatives could remain in business.”
• The SBA fix. This work never really ends. Right now, O’Brien is pushing the Small Business Administration to fix how it treats co-op lending: “SBA requires all the owners to personally guarantee those loans. Well, that’s bananas for a co-op that has hundreds or thousands of members. It doesn’t work, right? So, we have to work with them to change that.” 

Notice what these efforts have in common. None of them could have been pulled off by a single co-op, or even a single sector. Each one took scale, speed, and — this is the part that’s easy to miss — trust built long before the crisis showed up. You can’t assemble a coalition while the house is on fire. 

What the network does between fights

Policy battles are the visible part. The quieter value of association is everything that happens between them. 

Think of it as a system running from the local to the global: policy roadmaps, hard-won lessons, and crisis playbooks that get shared instead of reinvented, co-op by co-op, from scratch. When a co-op in Vermont figures something out, a co-op in Oregon shouldn’t have to figure it out again. 

Building networks is an ongoing process, too. For example, NCBA CLUSA and the NFCA have recruited Vermont’s U.S. Rep. Becca Balint to the Congressional Cooperative Business Caucus, and in June she met the folks at the nearly-ready-to-open Caledonia Food Co-op in St. Johnsbury. (The co-op just opened July 8; we congratulate them on the accomplishment!) 

But a network is only as good as the people who show up for it. O’Brien made a point of praising leaders who “lean into association and giving time and energy to advance a common cause.” Showing up matters. It’s what keeps a handful of dedicated people from carrying the whole load until they burn out. It’s what turns occasional projects like strategic planning from a chore every co-op tries to do itself into a set of tools created together that all of us can use. And it’s how good ideas travel instead of dying in isolation. 

Where we come in

So, what does this mean for us at Hunger Mountain Co-op? Three things, none of them complicated: 

• We stay connected — to NFCA regionally and NCBA CLUSA nationally. 
• We speak up — lending our voice on policies that shape things our community depends on, like SNAP and cooperative development funding. 
• We keep teaching — investing in member education about what co-ops can do, because the “best-kept secret” problem doesn’t fix itself. 

And there’s one more association you benefit from every time you shop: National Co+op Grocers (NCG), a co-op made up of food co-ops. NCG gives us many of the advantages of a national chain — including billions of dollars in combined purchasing power to negotiate prices on national products — while every member co-op keeps its full autonomy. That special you grabbed last week? There’s a decent chance it came to you through NCG. 

None of this is new. When NCBA CLUSA was founded in 1916, the world was in worse shape than it is now: armies of capitalist nations were slaughtering each other in the First World War, and Russia was (unknowingly) on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution. Some people back then proposed skipping both capitalism and communism and running the whole economy on the cooperative model. (Some people haven’t given up on that.) The movement’s answer to a world on fire, then as now, was the same: organize together. 

Which was O’Brien’s closing point, and I’ll borrow it as mine: association is essential. When we invest in our network, the network invests in us.

A Milestone in Our Strategic Planning

You may have noticed the announcement in this issue: we have hired Faye Mack Consulting to help guide the strategic planning process. I want to share how the Council is stewarding this important work. We formed the Strategic Planning Committee composed of Council members, management and non-management staff, and other member-owners, and we entrusted it with wide-ranging authority, including to select our consulting partners. As your elected representatives, the board will be updated throughout the process and vote on approving the final plan, ensuring it aligns with our co-op values and the priorities of our member-owners. This is a shared journey, and your voice will be important.

The Wrap 

Q: Why did the coffee file a police report?

A: It got mugged.

—Carl Etnier, Council President

Do you have any questions or comments about the council? Do you know any jokes even faintly related to food and/or co-ops? Please email them to me!