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The International Co-operative Alliance
defines a co-operative as:
“…an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their
common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a
jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.”
In simpler terms, when a group of people with similar interests and needs
pool their resources to meet those needs all the while participating equally
in the decision making process, they’ve formed a co-op. For example, a group
of farmers may form a co-operative to purchase agricultural inputs in order
to benefit from volume pricing from suppliers. As long as each farmer has an
equal say in the decision-making process, it’s a co-operative. And as
members of the co-op, they’re also the owners by virtue of investing time
and or capital to ensure it can meet their needs. Co-ops are owned by the people who use their services or purchase their
products. Members, who are the owners, invest share capital to ensure the
co-op can provide itself with facilities and equipment, experienced staff,
inventories, etc. Non-members can use the services of some co-ops,
particularly consumer co-ops, but they don’t share in the surplus
distribution or other benefits that may be offered by the co-op
But a co-op is more than a group of people who get together to meet their
needs. Co-ops rely on Co-operative Principles to guide their business and
operating decisions. You’ll learn more about the Co-op Principles (and Co-op
Values) elsewhere on this site, but briefly, they are: