Cooperative Development Foundation

📣 In partnership with the National Co+op Grocers, the application portal for CDF’s Disaster Recovery Fund to support the food co-op ecosystem is now open. Cooperatives and cooperative support organizations can submit applications at https://bit.ly/3U24oAo. Help us spread the word!

Interested in lending for PERMANENTLY AFFORDABLE SHARED EQUITY HOUSING? Well, we want you to be! And we are here to help with a webinar "Lending to Shared Equity Models: Demystifying Lending to the Co-op, the CLT and the ROC" Wednesday, October 16 at 3-4:30 pm EST Register here https://lnkd.in/eAW-VYWt

We’re grateful for the more than 200 donors that have rallied to support co-ops affected. Help us continue to spread the word.

Thank you CoBank for supporting rural electric co-ops in need through CDF's partnership with NRECA.

CDF is grateful to the over 150 donors that have rallied to support co-op recovery in areas affected by Hurricane Helene. In partnership with NRECA and National Co+op Grocers, as of noon on October 7, we have raised $39,249.80 for rural electrics and $54,505.40 for the food co-op ecosystem for a total of $93,755.20 raised in one week. Please share with your networks to help us spread the word. Don’t forget that NCG will offer a match up to $100,000 for donations made by October 31 to the food co-op ecosystem. Interested in helping co-ops in general get back to business? Donate to our general Disaster Recovery Fund donation link. CDF will direct 100% of your donations to other co-op sectors affected by natural disasters. Support rural electric co-ops – https://bit.ly/3N39tEy Support the food co-op ecosystem – https://bit.ly/3zGyL8w Support general disaster recovery - https://bit.ly/2vp83MA

The Cooperative Development Foundation’s Disaster Recovery Fund supports efforts to help cooperatives and their members recovering from natural disasters and other crises or emergency hardship situations.   For electric cooperatives – NRECA has started a fundraising campaign, through CDF’s Disaster Recovery Fund, to ensure electric cooperatives have what they need to restore power to areas affected by Helene. Donate here: https://lnkd.in/ePRMyH4s.   For cooperatives that support the food sector – National Co+op Grocers, through CDF’s Disaster Recovery Fund, is raising money for the entire food co-op sector and will match all donations up to $100,000 by October 31. Donate here: https://lnkd.in/eNuM2fHh.   CDF does not charge operating or administrative fees to donations made for the Disaster Recovery Fund. 100% of donations go to disaster recovery.

Nannie Helen Burroughs was a fierce fighter for the empowerment of Black women, an educator and a civil rights leader. She was also a co-op innovator, a co-op educator, a co-op advocate, and an accomplished cooperative stateswoman. Because of these accomplishments and the many ways she combined civil rights issues and women’s rights with cooperative business development, she will be honored with induction into the Cooperative Hall of Fame. Join us in Washington, DC on October 3 as we celebrate Nannie Helen Burroughs and her contributions to the cooperative community.

In 1939, The Greenbelt Cooperator Newspaper noted that on a visit to the co-op: “Greenbelt visitors were impressed by the loyalty and common-sense manner in which deep seated and difficult economic problems were being solved by members of Cooperative Industries, Inc. … It has a record of splendid achievement under the leadership of Miss Nannie Helen Burroughs, president.” Nannie Helen Burroughs was also a member of the DC chapter of the Cooperative League of the United States and was often asked to give public speeches about the power of cooperatives.

By the time Northeast Self-Help Cooperative was renamed Cooperative Industries, the co-op had become what may have been the first multi-stakeholder cooperative in the United States – combining the worker co-ops with the co-op farm and the consumer grocery co-op. Nannie Helen Burroughs was quoted as saying that she created the co-op based on a “firm belief that cooperatives furnish one of the best ways for the Negro to develop initiative and self-help.” She saw herself as a movement builder.

When Nannie Helen Burroughs was 5, she and her mother moved to Washington, DC in search of good schools. Ms. Burroughs studied classical literature at the prestigious M Street High School. One of her teachers was Mary Jane Patterson, the first Black woman to graduate from an American college. After school, Ms. Burroughs planned to become a teacher. It was a sensible choice: ninety percent of educated Black women of the time chose that profession. But her application was rejected – she was thought “too dark” to teach at her alma mater. The experience fueled a plan to create her own school – one open to all Black girls and all qualified Black teachers. In 1907, Ms. Burroughs realized her dream of starting a school for girls in DC. With the support of the National Baptist Convention, she opened the National Training School for Women and Girls in 1909. It was the first vocational school for Black girls in the United States. Ms. Burroughs made space at her school available for members to work when she started her first co-op 25 years later. 📸: Library of Congress