This week, I had the opportunity to address cooperative leaders, developers, funders, economic-development practitioners, elected officials and community partners gathered in Duluth for the second annual Minnesota Cooperative Summit.
Organized around the theme “Meeting the Moment,” the summit reflected both Minnesota’s extraordinary cooperative history and the urgency of applying that tradition to today’s challenges. It also offered a timely reminder that cooperatives should be understood not simply as an alternative form of business ownership, but as essential economic development infrastructure.
Communities are confronting challenges that are usually discussed in separate policy silos. Locally-owned businesses are disappearing as owners retire without succession plans, families cannot find affordable childcare, older adults struggle to secure dependable home care and housing costs increasingly separate people from the communities where they work. At the same time, economic power is becoming more concentrated, while data and AI are giving a relatively small number of institutions greater influence over employment, credit, health care, education and consumer choice.
Each of these challenges is also an economic development issue. A region cannot build a dependable workforce if parents can’t access childcare, and a community cannot retain workers who can’t afford housing. A rural economy cannot remain resilient when viable businesses close because their owners retire, while a care economy cannot function when workers are underpaid, isolated and constantly leaving the field.
People will also have less economic agency if the data they create—and the technologies that increasingly influence their opportunities—are controlled entirely by institutions in which they have no voice. Cooperatives will not solve every one of these problems, but they provide a structure through which people can organize, pool resources, share risk, build institutions and exercise greater control over their economic lives. That makes the cooperative model especially relevant in this moment.
The challenge is that individual cooperatives cannot do this work alone. Their success depends on the ecosystem around them: cooperative-development expertise, patient capital, supportive public policy, education, technical assistance, strong associations and cooperation among cooperatives. Two recent examples—from Virginia and Maine—show what this looks like in practice.
Responding to market failure in Virginia
In 2023, Tyson Foods closed a poultry-processing complex in Virginia, idling 265 farmer-owned poultry houses and threatening an estimated $358 million in annual regional economic activity. The farmers had made substantial investments in land, buildings and equipment, but—as is typical in vertically integrated poultry production—had little control over the processing and marketing system on which their livelihoods depended. Because there was no readily available alternative processor, the closure put entire farm businesses and broader community at risk.
The consequences extended far beyond a single company. Farmers risked losing their markets, workers risked losing their jobs, suppliers faced the loss of customers, and local governments faced declining economic activity and tax revenue. Rural communities also risked losing an industry that had supported families for generations.
No individual poultry grower could solve that problem alone. The farmers organized the Central Virginia Poultry Cooperative and began transitioning farms from broiler production to cage-free egg production. Twelve farms became the center of a plan involving a 13-year supply agreement and approximately $39 million in farm conversions.
The growers, however, did not simply hold a meeting, file incorporation papers and emerge with a viable cooperative. The Virginia Foundation for Agriculture, Innovation and Rural Sustainability provided specialized cooperative-development assistance, while USDA Rural Development contributed expertise and connections. The Commonwealth Regional Council convened partners, coordinated planning, pursued grants and helped assemble a broader economic development package.
Lenders and other partners helped structure financing, while experts in agriculture, processing, management and cooperative governance contributed additional knowledge. The growers were the essential agents of change, but they did not act alone. An ecosystem mobilized around them.
That distinction matters because cooperative stories are sometimes told as though people simply discover the cooperative principles, join hands and succeed through determination. Determination and member leadership are indispensable, but determination without capital, technical assistance, market knowledge and supportive institutions is often not enough. The Virginia experience demonstrates how cooperatives can help producers and communities respond to concentrated market power, preserve essential economic infrastructure and gain greater influence over decisions otherwise made far away from them.
The broader lesson is that cooperative ownership should be considered whenever people face the loss of a business, market or service that is essential to a community’s economic future. A cooperative cannot reverse every closure, but it can give people a structure through which to organize a credible response. Whether that response succeeds will often depend on whether the surrounding ecosystem is ready to help.
Cooperative ownership should be considered whenever people face the loss of a business, market or service that is essential to a community’s economic future.
Preserving local businesses in Maine
A second example comes from Maine, where cooperative leaders are working to make employee ownership and cooperative conversion a more routine part of business succession. Across the country, thousands of business owners are approaching retirement, and many of their companies remain economically viable. These firms employ people, serve customers, contribute to the tax base and form part of the identity of their communities.
Many owners, however, do not have a family member who wants to take over the business. An outside buyer may not exist, a competitor may purchase the company only to acquire its customers, or the owner may eventually close the doors. When that happens, a community can lose jobs, services, local knowledge, long-standing relationships and another piece of locally controlled economic infrastructure.
Employee ownership and cooperative conversion provide another path. Workers can purchase the business collectively, while a retiring owner receives fair value and preserves their company’s legacy. Jobs and services remain in the community, and employees gain a direct stake in the enterprise they helped build.
Jobs and services remain in the community, and employees gain a direct stake in the enterprise they helped build.
These conversions are complicated. Workers need to understand the business, the owner needs credible advice, financing must be assembled, and new legal and governance structures must be created. All of this must happen while the company continues serving customers and meeting its financial obligations.
That is why the ecosystem matters. In Maine, the Cooperative Development Institute provides conversion expertise and technical assistance, while the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast provides patient, mission-aligned capital. The Cooperative Maine Business Alliance connects cooperatives, raises visibility, supports advocacy and strengthens relationships across the state.
O’Donal’s Nursery in Gorham shows what this ecosystem can make possible. Founded in 1953, O’Donal’s was a longstanding family business whose owner could have sold to an outside buyer or closed when he retired. Instead, with help from the Cooperative Development Institute, 22 employees formed a worker cooperative and purchased the nursery.
Since the conversion, sales have grown, more workers have gained access to improved wages and benefits, and the cooperative has purchased the 10 acres beneath the business. That land purchase secured the nursery’s location and created room for its future development. O’Donal’s demonstrates what business succession can look like when an owner, employees, cooperative developers and aligned capital have an ecosystem ready to support them.
O’Donal’s demonstrates what business succession can look like when an owner, employees, cooperative developers and aligned capital have an ecosystem ready to support them.
The important feature is the connective tissue. People know one another, understand their respective roles and have experience working together. A business owner considering succession does not have to invent an entirely new support system from the ground up.
A healthy ecosystem makes cooperative solutions more visible, credible and achievable. Economic development officials, lenders, accountants, attorneys and business advisers need to understand that cooperative or employee ownership is an option when a local company faces closure. They also need to know whom to call, whether appropriate capital is available and whether owners and workers can obtain competent assistance early enough for a conversion to succeed.
Without that infrastructure, cooperative succession will remain an occasional exception. With it, cooperative conversion can become part of the standard economic development toolkit. Maine offers a useful example of how a state can begin making that transition.
Principle 6 as a development strategy
These stories from Virginia and Maine involve different sectors and circumstances, but they point toward the same conclusion. Virginia shows cooperation responding to an immediate market failure, while Maine shows an emerging ecosystem making cooperative solutions more visible and replicable. In both cases, the cooperative business model is a powerful agent of change, but its ability to succeed and endure depends heavily on the ecosystem around it.
In both cases, the cooperative business model is a powerful agent of change, but its ability to succeed and endure depends heavily on the ecosystem around it.
This is where Principle 6—or “cooperation among cooperatives”—becomes not only a statement of identity, but also a development strategy. By working together, cooperatives share knowledge, move capital, build supply chains, create shared services, influence public policy and improve the chances that the next cooperative will succeed. Cooperation among cooperatives strengthens both individual enterprises and the wider movement.
A cooperative movement cannot remain strong if every cooperative focuses only on its own balance sheet and immediate membership. Every cooperative must operate effectively, manage risk, serve its members and remain financially sustainable. But the health of each cooperative is also connected to the health of the institutions surrounding it.
Those institutions develop the next generation of cooperative leaders, defend cooperative policy interests and regulatory agencies, explain the model to the public and help new groups conduct feasibility studies. They finance early-stage cooperatives that may not yet fit conventional underwriting, preserve cooperative history, teach cooperative identity and bring together sectors that rarely interact. These functions require durable institutions, and those institutions require participation and investment.
Embedding education in the co-op ecosystem
Education deserves particular attention because cooperatives are sophisticated enterprises requiring leaders who understand both sound business practice and the unique demands of member ownership, democratic governance and cooperative identity. Cooperative education, however, is too often fragmented, difficult to access or unavailable to the people who need it. If cooperatives are economic development infrastructure, then cooperative education is what equips the people who build, govern and sustain that infrastructure.
If cooperatives are economic development infrastructure, then cooperative education is what equips the people who build, govern and sustain that infrastructure.
At the Minnesota Cooperative Summit, I shared one way NCBA is working to close this gap. Through our Learning Hub, NCBA is offering a new professional-development program in partnership with Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business. The partnership will make rigorous, accessible cooperative education available to emerging leaders, employees, directors, developers and professional advisers across the cooperative economy.
The first course, Foundations of Cooperative Enterprise, consists of four stackable micro-credentials covering cooperative identity, cooperative law and public policy, why cooperatives form and cooperative models across sectors. These micro-credentials culminate in an applied capstone experience, with the first course scheduled to launch next month. Additional offerings are planned as the Learning Hub develops.
Enrollment in Foundations of Cooperative Enterprise is now open
This partnership illustrates the broader argument. We cannot expect cooperatives to expand into new sectors, manage increasingly complex enterprises, preserve democratic governance and respond to emerging technologies unless we deliberately invest in the people who will lead them. Education must be built into the cooperative ecosystem rather than treated as an optional benefit.
Building the next economy
Cooperative leaders should treat ecosystem-building as a central responsibility. That means making cooperative ownership a normal part of economic-development practice, supporting stronger pipelines of technical assistance and patient capital, and investing in education for cooperative employees, managers, directors, developers and professional advisers. It also means applying cooperative strategies to childcare, home care, housing, business succession and other challenges that determine whether people can participate fully in the economy.
This work requires reaching beyond the existing cooperative community. Government, philanthropy, universities, workforce-development organizations, employers and community leaders all have roles to play. The cooperative movement must make a clear case that shared ownership can contribute to business retention, workforce stability, local wealth creation and community resilience.
The cooperative movement must make a clear case that shared ownership can contribute to business retention, workforce stability, local wealth creation and community resilience.
Cooperative leaders should also begin exploring shared-ownership approaches to data and artificial intelligence. Data is becoming an increasingly valuable economic asset, while AI systems are influencing hiring, credit, health care, education and access to opportunity. Cooperative and community-owned structures offer a pathway for people, businesses and public institutions to establish rules for data use, negotiate with technology providers and share in the value these systems create.
Finally, cooperative leaders must support the institutions that make cooperative ecosystems possible. In Minnesota, that includes participating actively in CoMinnesota, supporting regional organizations such as Cooperative Network, investing in strong sector associations and engaging nationally through NCBA—soon to operate publicly as U.S. Co-ops. These institutions perform different but complementary functions.
Participation in these organizations is not overhead around the edges of a cooperative’s business. It is how the movement builds the infrastructure that protects cooperatives, develops leaders, moves resources, shapes public policy and makes cooperative ownership visible. Membership also means more than writing a check; it means showing up, sharing knowledge and supporting work whose benefits may extend beyond one institution.
It means supporting events such as the Minnesota Cooperative Summit, statewide cooperative networks, development centers, patient-capital funds and cooperative education. These investments help build a movement in which the next cooperative has a better chance of succeeding than the last one did. They are Principle 6 translated into institutional practice.
The opportunity before us is not simply to preserve the cooperative legacy. It is to use that legacy to build the next economy: one that is more resilient, one in which ownership is more broadly shared, and one in which people have greater influence over the forces shaping their lives and futures.
That is how cooperatives can meet this moment.