International Co-operative Alliance

Cooperative Imagination
A graphic showing the top 300 international co-ops from "Exploring the Co-operative Economy" by ICA and Euricse.

A graphic showing the top 300 international co-ops from “Exploring the Co-operative Economy” by ICA and Euricse.

I’m writing about imagination because I need to. The co-op movement needs it. To consider the ideal instead of the worst. Imagining the worst possible scenarios breeds propaganda, invoking fear and threats to safety, that keep us from working together cooperatively.

We need to envision a better world. It can be difficult to do with propaganda and the distraction of what Chris Hedges defines as spectacle. We’re lucky to have important intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges analyze our present reality, but they paint a bleak picture. Therefore, we need to first be informed on realities then consider growth, prosperity, progressive economics, and cooperative solutions. Cooperative solutions are in the past and present. Collective action is part of American history and can capture the imagination – imagination that is being fought for. It was modern propaganda, created on a mass scale for World War One, led by George Creel, that changed progressive politics and how Americans think. See Chris Hedge’s book Death of the Liberal Class.

We owe a lot to those that have maintained imagination for co-ops. Nathan Schneider and Trebor Scholz are editors of Ours to Hack and Own, and creators of platform cooperativism. They’re tenaciously imagining new forms of ownership. A review of the book and the movement is nicely summarized by Makery.info. With a vision, we start to think of how.

Thanks to Nathan Schneider, we’re considering specifics on how to build a better web. Twitter could be owned like the Green Bay Packers; maybe too ambitious, but it’s visionary. And it has evolved into more thinking on the topic. The latest news on #BuyTwitter is described on Shareable.net covering innovative thinking from Nathan Schneider, Trebor Scholz, Douglas Rushkoff, Chris Cook, David Hammer, and Rachael Lamkin.

So, first, don’t be lazy about your news sources. This will affect your ability to imagine what is needed for our cooperative future. Ironically, I think you need to read the worst case scenarios on news sites such as CounterPunch.org (which wrote about co-ops this month), but then picture a good future. Truthdig.com is another alternative news source. Then, second, don’t forget to read YesMagazine.org, and Shareable.net.

Co-ops are a bigger part of society than people realize. The 2016 report “Exploring the Cooperative Economy” by the ICA and Euricse reports $2.5 trillion in annual revenue earned by the world’s top 300 co-ops. Co-ops can solve social, economic, and sustainability issues. We need the power of the collective action in the coming years. Standing Rock is showing how it’s done. And we need a lot of imagination. Let’s create good news with co-ops.

Marketing the movement
Howard Brodsky presents at the International Summit of Cooperatives

Howard Brodsky presents at the International Summit of Cooperatives

The movement is massive. And it can save the world. It’s the co-op movement worldwide. Co-ops as a solution to the world’s problems was a predominant theme at this year’s International Summit of Cooperatives hosted by ICA and DesJardins October 11-13 in Quebec City. At the event economists Joseph Stiglitz, Jeremy Rifkin and Robert Reich all touted the critical role for co-ops.

But it’s time to make a broader audience see the light. Cooperatives have a strange identity crisis right now and can be viewed in the mainstream as not viable and/or not modern — an issue also agreed on at the conference. As Robert Reich said at a presentation on October 12, we have to raise the co-op voice. Vic Van Vuuren, from the International Labor Organization, said in an October 13 session, we must externalize the value proposition of co-ops consisting of the triple bottom line: economic, social, and environment. Nicole Alix, President of La Coop des Communs in France said let’s reach out to activists. And Charles Gould, Director-General, in charge of the e, International Co-operative Alliance in Belgium, mentioned the irony of large and influential co-ops — in many cases, co-ops with thousands of members — being unknown to the general public as cooperative organizations.

The need for promoting co-ops you’ve likely heard before. But at this summit about increasing our capacity to act, Howard Brodsky, CEO, Chairman and Co-Founder of CCA Global Partners showed how he is doing it. He’s created a promotional campaign at cooperativesforabetterworld.coop. What Brodsky described in a session titled “Making Cooperatives the Way of the Future” was the need to tell stories. Stories are how people remember things. If we want people to understand and remember the co-ops that exist around them and what they have to offer, then we must tell their stories.

His approach is to answer the why of co-ops, and he’s created multiple videos that answer this question. He showed two well-produced videos at the summit that shed light on what co-ops have to offer in brief but effective messaging. Telling why co-ops are a solution will be slightly different depending on the co-op sector. But he says that each sector needs to tell their stories.

This marketing effort is a bridge for educating the general public on the value and benefits of co-ops. Coopertivesforabetterworld.coop is a resource with videos, sector descriptions, and blogs. Under the link “explore,” there is a video that describes a co-op. Another link divides co-ops into nine sectors.

Let’s brand co-ops as a mainstream business solution. Howard Brodsky is showing the way.

Some videos promoting co-ops I produced can be viewed at Kingbird Content. One video explains co-ops in 60 seconds.

Co-ops Explained in Sixty Seconds

A co-op can be difficult to explain. But KingBird Content has ventured to do it in sixty seconds. See the video below for the most essential aspects of co-operatives. Information collected in this video comes from the ICA definition of a co-op, and the ideas of Janelle Orsi, Marjorie Kelly, and Stacey Cordeiro. (more…)