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Not all o f the housing associations in the United States are following standard cooperative practice in every respect. In order to be truly cooperative there should be genuine democracy. Membership should be voluntary and should consist of a group of persons with common interests. Each member should have one vote and no more, regardless o f how much stock he owns in the association. I f interest is paid on share capital, such capital should draw no more than the current legal rate.

An association or chamber is a group of persons working together to advance a cause or mission. Nonprofit organizations have served the USA for more than 150 years. With 1.5 million nonprofit, exempt organizations, the common traits are a 1) mission statement and 2) a volunteer board of directors. Good governance requires a vision, strategy and team efforts.

Yearly orientation or a “refresh and blend” session of about two-hours will improve comfort and confidence with governance responsibilities. All board members should attend. Familiarize them with the organization, including finances, programs, staff, authority, lines of communication, subsidiary organizations, strategic plan, and the governing documents. Have directors sign a commitment form to protect themselves and the organization

Think.COOP has been developed as a low-cost, easy to use training tool for those interested in establishing or joining a cooperative. It draws on technical content from existing materials in different ILO cooperative training tools and peer-to-peer, activity based learning methodology from the ILO’s Community-Based Enterprise Development (C-BED) programme, Think.COOP provides simple information on the basics of cooperatives.

From early in the development of commercial agriculture in the United States, farmers have used cooperatives to market their commodities and buy farm inputs. This report presents an overview of cooperatives performing these activities. More detailed reports are available on cooperatives handling each of the major farm products and farm supplies

Five chapters make up this guide. Chapter 1—What Are Cooperatives?, is the most extensive chapter and generally describes where and how cooperatives fit into the American system of business, their unique principles and practices, and their defining structural characteristics, and it introduces the roles of the major cooperative participants— members, directors, manager, and employees. Chapters 2-5 go into further detail about the participants. Chapter 2 gives an overview of cooperative members, Chapter 3 describes directors, Chapter 4 discusses the cooperative manager, and Chapter 5 explains employees.

WHY COOPERATIVES SHOULD BE ATTRACTIVE TO DEVELOPERS AND INVESTORS

Co-operatives are active in every sector of the global economy. A key distinguishing feature is that co-operatives create wealth for the many members of co-operatives who engage in co-operative businesses as service users, producers, independent business owners, consumers, and workers1, not solely for the few who are rich enough to invest capital in investor-owned enterprises. Co-operatives help counterbalance the massive growth of inequality between the world’s rich and poor; an issue that, if not addressed, has major economic, social, cultural, environmental, and political consequences.

This report explains the essentials of antitrust law and why limited antitrust protection granted in the Capper- Volstead Act is critical to cooperative marketing by agricultural producers. It outlines who is covered by Capper- Volstead, how a cooperative must be organized to qualify for limited antitrust protection, and what types of activity are protected. It also discusses several areas that pose special antitrust risks for farmer cooperatives and other points of law cooperative leaders must be aware of to successfully manage their antitrust risk.