Making America Stronger One Cooperative at a Time

If you believe that independent businesses and entrepreneurs are important to the American economy, then you’ll believe – as we do – in the importance of cooperatives. They are a proven way to help independent businesses stay strong and independent. In fact, there are now somewhere around 30,000 cooperatives in the United States with over 350,000 members. Co-ops are helping independent businesses in just about every industry you can think of – from citrus growers and flooring dealers (Sunkist and CarpetOne) to grocers and hardware stores (Topco and Ace Hardware). That’s because co-ops work. Not just for their members, but for their customers and communities too.

The mission of the Cooperative Management Group (CMG) is to identify industries that could benefit from a co-op, but don’t yet have one. Then we partner with the independent businesses within these industries and help them build a cooperative that the members own and control. CMG provides expertise, funding, and leadership to launch the cooperatives, and to keep them operating successfully.

The two industries we’ve targeted so far are characterized by many smaller independent businesses threatened by a few dominant players attempting to consolidate market control and access. You can read about them below.