Cooperatives are businesses that are owned by the people they serve

Cooperatives come in all types and sizes. Cooperatives are uniquely American and as old as the nation itself. The first successful U.S. cooperative was organized in 1752 when Benjamin Franklin formed the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire — the nation’s oldest continuing cooperative.

The modern cooperative era dates to 1844, when the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society was established in Rochdale, England. These pioneers wrote down a set of principles to operate their food cooperative. These principles contributed to their success and spread to other cooperatives around the world. Cooperatives have thrived in part because the concept is so fundamental and universally appealing — people or businesses banding together to form an independent business entity to serve the needs of the collective membership, customer base, employees or other user group. But as old as the form of business may be, cooperatives have never been more modern in the way they operate. Like other businesses that must reinvent themselves every day in response to ever-changing markets, cooperatives are continually evolving to meet their members’ needs, with new cooperatives started all the time.

Co-ops typically are formed when the marketplace fails to provide needed goods or services at affordable prices or of acceptable quality.

Among things, cooperatives provide:

• Business services, such as personnel and benefits management,
  and group purchasing of goods and services
• Childcare
• Credit and personal financial services
• Equipment, hardware and farm supplies
• Electricity, telephone, Internet, satellite and cable TV services
• Food and grocery services
• Funeral and memorial service planning
• Health care
• Housing
• Insurance
• Legal and professional services
• Marketing of agricultural and other products

Cooperatives follow seven internationally recognized principles as the basis for doing business:

• Voluntary and open membership
• Democratic member control
• Member economic participation
• Autonomy and independence
• Education, training and information-sharing
• Cooperation among cooperatives
• Concern for community

In part because the cooperative community is so diverse, there is no current authoritative count of cooperative businesses in the United States or their economic impact. Past estimates of the number of co-ops have ranged as high as 40,000. This report counts 21,367 co-ops in six individual sectors. It is the beginning of an effort to develop new estimates of the size and impact of the entire co-op community. Across America people who belong to cooperatives are enjoying a better way of life. Whether those co-ops provide food retailing, healthcare, banking, electricity or other types of services, it is clear that cooperatives benefit their members as well as their communities. In the case of an electric cooperative, like SECO Energy, that means the people who buy the electricity, own the company.

Did you know? Electric cooperatives:

• Serve 18 million businesses, homes, schools, churches, farms, irrigation systems, and other establishments in 2,500 of 3,141 counties in the United States
• Have the largest electric utility network in the nation
• Serve 75% of the US land mass
• Total more than 900 local systems serve people in 47 states
• Have 42 million member-owners and serve 12% of the population
• Distribute power over 2.5 million miles of line
• Own and maintain nearly half of the electric distribution lines in the U.S.
• Own $112 billion in generation, transmission and distribution assets
• Employ 70,000 people in the United States;
• Retire $545 million in capital credits (money given back to members) annually;
• And pay more than $1.4 Billion in state and local taxes.

A few Co-ops you might recognize:

Page last updated: October 29, 2012