Expanding the Co-operative Influence
In his parable “The Sinking Ship,” Daniel Quinn tells the story of a ship that’s beginning to sink. Although the Captain orders the lifeboats lowered, those on board choose to divide into groups based on similar interest and bicker about issues that aren’t nearly as pressing. In the end, the ship sank and everyone drowned because they weren’t able to come together.
I see so much similarity in this story to the issues we’re facing now. Our nation is consumed by an “Us vs. Them” mentality that simply isn’t serving us. Many of us seem to have forgotten that at the end of the day we all want to see our communities not merely survive—but to thrive! In a time when our world is engulfed in a war of despair, co-operatives offer us a fighting chance. The fundamental structure enables members of a community to put aside our differences in order to work together to lower the lifeboats.
The benefits of co-operatives are simple enough for anyone to understand. The fundamental structure offers products and services to consumers from an organization that is transparent, democratic and directly accountable to the members. But our mission runs so much deeper than that. As co-operators, we have agreed to share both the blessings and the burdens that life brings. The response from co-operatives to the devastating storms in Oklahoma was inspiring, to say the very least. While many of our for-profit counterparts could only be bothered to offer condolences, co-operators across the nation jumped into action to ease the unimaginable burden. From offering no interest loans to donating food and supplies, we proved through action that we understand what it means to live cooperatively.
Witnessing this parallel effort from across various sectors of the co-operative movement struck a chord with me, and raised a very important question.
How can we continue to collaborate with co-operatives in other sectors to expand the ways in which we serve our members?
A great place to begin would be to simply start the conversation. If your credit union is active on social media, have you considered connecting with other co-operatives in your region? Consumer Co-operative Management Association is a great place to find consumer co-operatives in or near your community. By “liking” the Facebook pages and following the Twitter accounts of other co-operatives, you’ll have access to a wealth of knowledge and information and can collaborate to share new ideas and fresh perspectives that neither of you may not have yet considered. You can additionally coordinate to mutually promote the efforts of one another and collaborate to co-host community events.
An idea that I think would be particularly powerful to our individual causes would be to combine our reach to expand legislative influence. By promoting cross sector support, we would have roughly one third of Americans behind any and every effort we undertake. It’s a given that by combining our influence and raising our voices in unison we can begin to see the legislative change our country so desperately needs come to fruition. During my trip to London for the G8 Innovation Conference, I lost count of the number of world leaders who spoke frequently and fondly about the power of cooperation. As we enter into an era of cooperation, this joint effort between various sectors could very well be the first step toward forming a political party that nominates leaders who truly embody the co-operative principles and will strive to serve the interests of our communities. Wouldn’t that be something?
Whichever path we choose in order to expand the co-operative mission, we cannot afford to wait. We must join forces with our fellow co-operators to lower the lifeboats before it’s too late.
