Elizabeth Bailey, Discusses the 2020 Women’s History Month theme, “Valiant women and the Vote.”

VERNON OAKES: Welcome everybody. This is Vernon Oakes. Welcome to Everything Cooperative. You know, it’s a beautiful Thursday to talk about co-ops, and it’s the start of Women’s History Month, and their theme for this year is Valiant Women of the Vote. And today we have Liz Bailey on the line with us that’s gonna talk about valiant women in the cooperative movement, which she is one of them. Good morning, Liz.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Good morning, Vernon.

VERNON OAKES: How are you today?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: I’m terrific.

VERNON OAKES: Great, great, great, great. Liz, how long have you been in this co-op world?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Oh boy, I guess it’s been since the early 2000s. So, it’s been about fifteen years. But, I’ve been in public policy world my whole career, so it kinda became a logical extension.

VERNON OAKES: Public policy and cooperatives, okay.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Yeah, well it’s all about governance, one sort or another. With governance in the public policy world, it’s getting things done through government programs and leadership there. And in co-ops it’s about governance and democratic ownership. So, they really are very compatible, even though I have to admit I didn’t even aspire to cooperative development as where I would spend a block of time. But, it just happened, and it gets in your blood, and then it becomes part of you, as you know.

VERNON OAKES: It does get in the blood once you get an understanding of it. And Liz, how it got into my blood was I started managing housing co-ops, and I watched everyday people make very intelligent decisions, and sometimes without a lot of formal education. But, they exercise that fifth principle of education, information knowledge. And so, they got educated on how you run a business, and they make very intelligent decisions. And a lot of women in the housing co-op world.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: That’s right. Yeah, recently I was at a conference here in Washington of new and developing home care co-ops, and the room was full of men and women, but primarily women and young women, and what was so fascinating was to sit there are realize that not only are they caregivers in the day to day world, but they were there to learn the governance piece, which was how to run a business and how to do it as a co-op. And it was just a serious discussion with these people learning about how to take ownership, and responsible ownership of a business. And it was really gratifying, because you realize they’re going to be sustainable, because they’re figuring out how to make it work as a business.

VERNON OAKES: And what do you mean about sustainable? So, you got these young people, this home care products is they go into homes and help mainly seniors, but maybe disabled people. And normally they don’t get paid much, and normally whoever’s running the business makes the profit, and they may live in the community, they may not, and that profit goes away from the community. And these people in the home care business, the ones that’s right there on the front line have a hard time making a living.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Well, and many of them will be hired by several different agencies, because none of them will hire them for enough hours for them to qualify for benefits. So, they are then working long hours, have no health insurance, no time off, you know, none of those kinds of benefits that a lot of us, you know, accrue with full time employment. And they then are strapped with hours of working. But, they do it because one, it may be the only job available. But, also because they’re caregivers, and they’ve got big hearts, which is what often the line with home care co-ops often is, you know, we need to hire the manager, and we need to learn the management part, but we don’t need to learn that caring for people part. That just kinda comes with the DNA.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And if they’re in a sustainable business they then can set their salary rates for each other. They decide as a group what kind of training they may need, when an employer in the for-profit world may not care about training them, because they don’t want to invest in their long-term employment there. And then if they can afford it then they figure out what benefits they can provide for each other. But, it becomes a decision of the member-owners of the business. And they make decisions that will make that business sustainable. And it may take a long time.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: You know, any startup takes a long time, but their passion, along with learning what the building blocks of a business are is what’s really going to make them sustainable. And we all know, especially in the care providing world, the need is huge. We’d have to figure out how to do it in a way that creates more of these sustainable kinds of opportunities.

VERNON OAKES: Well, I’m one of those baby boomers, and there’s a lot of us in the market now. And if we don’t need it now we’re gonna need it in the near future, this home health care, or move to some senior housing facility. And most of us want to be independent as long as we can. So, we want somebody to come in and help us.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: That’s right. That’s right.

VERNON OAKES: So, how can we afford it and then how can we afford a session where they can live a decent life, and have time for their families, and time to make what my mother called ends meet. That’s not having to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. But, how do you get enough in so you can feed themselves and send their kids to school and have insurance and housing, and everything that they might need, health care? How do they do that?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Absolutely, absolutely.

VERNON OAKES: And that’s what you mean by being sustainable, both the business being sustainable over the long-term, and the individuals can be sustainable, so is that what you mean?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Absolutely, yeah. And I think you see that and that’s one of the early home care co-ops in rural Wisconsin, Cooperative Care, they were in a competition about 20 years ago at the Kennedy School of Government, where they had a solutions in government competition. And when they created that co-op it was a rural county taking its case load of care providers, and saying, if you all will come together and form a co-op we will give you that first tranche of business. And then you need to make it into an ongoing business. And they came in second in that competition 20 years ago, because the judges didn’t think it was going to be sustainable.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And 20 years later, they’re in a rural place where you know, anything rural seems to be harder. But, they are still a viable cooperative. They have made a lot of decisions along the way that have made them sustainable. But, they have grown as a group, too, through all of that, to be some of the smartest business people in those rural places. Because they know what their business needs, and they know what the needs of the community are. So, apparently they can’t go back and reapply to that competition, which I said to one of them at one point that I thought they needed to go back and show them just how sustainable they were. And apparently there’s a statute of limitations of sorts, that they can’t go back in after they’ve been in the competition once.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: But, it’s just one of those success stories of where they have really defied the odds, but they’ve done it in a place that they’re providing services in a part of the state where there aren’t even nursing home options if people wanted them, because it’s too rural for many nursing homes to want to go in there.

VERNON OAKES: So, they applied for this competition, and they-

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Right, the county did. And this was back in, like, 2005, or something like that.

VERNON OAKES: But, I want to get, that they came in second place. They would’ve come in first place if the people judging it thought that they were sustainable, that they would be there for the long haul?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Right, they didn’t think that they would be there for the long haul. And ten years later they were still in business. They had rocky points, like a lot of startup business do, but they still have care providers — I think they have about 60 care providers that are part of — some are member-owners, some are not. But, they are still very much a viable business, and defied the odds that the judges at least had decided were against them.

VERNON OAKES: So, the difficulty with the rural part of it is that one of them, like, with rural electric co-ops, telephones, is the distance between in this case one family and the next one. And then these home healthcare providers have got to do this driving. Somehow they’ve gotta get to these different spaces. And that takes up more time, more expenses. And too often you can’t pass on that additional expenses to the person you’re providing. So, how do you make this thing work and provide efficient, caring services? Yeah, it’s daunting. If I was judging it I would be asking, how do you make this work financially? That would be my first question. I don’t know how you do it long-term.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: One of the real challenges is that Medicaid is the source of funding for a lot of their client base. And the Medicaid reimbursement rates are not at a level that can reimburse for the expenses that may be associated with taking care of someone. And so, they’ll limit the number of trips you can make in a week, say, to serve someone, because of the mileage that’s allowed. And also, the trick is to really get a mixture of some of your Medicaid client base, but then to get some private pay, and to maybe in some cases they’ve succeeded in working with the Veteran’s Administration on veteran clients in the area, too, which have a different formula, I believe for their reimbursement for services. So, the solution is to try and broaden your base. As much diversification in every part of our economy is part of the solution for getting sustainable businesses.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And homecare is no different. And it’s definitely a challenge, but there are a number of homecare co-ops now that are growing around the country. And it’s real gratifying to see how many are there and how we could, you know, sometime in the foreseeable future, kind of make some judgment that they’ve gotten to scale, that there are enough of them around the country with a lot of different ways that they’ve organized themselves that are, they’re providing services, and will be part of the care providing framework for the future. And there are women, mainly women in those who are the care providers. But, I will quickly add there are some great examples of men who are doing the care providing, too. So, it’s not exclusively, but it’s clearly a predominantly a female workforce.

VERNON OAKES: So, going back to our theme for the month is going to vote. Do you have any sense when you’re working with — and I want to get to that conference one year here. I know I’ve been trying to get it the last two years, to that homecare products, I’d like to be in the room and listening to them, and see what they’re learning. Do you have any sense whether or not the people in this home healthcare, that’s in these co-ops, go out and vote for their local elections, or state elections, or national elections?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: I have to believe that they do, because I think they have been sensitized to the fact that what services they provide at the local level are limited, or are enhanced by things like Medicare, Medicaid, and public policy surrounding those things at both the state and federal level. So, I suspect that they’re probably more aware of that than a lot of people employed, especially the people who work for the for-profits probably have no reason to connect their future with that.

VERNON OAKES: We’ve gotta take our first break, Liz. We’ll be right back. Everybody out there, please don’t touch that dial.

ANNOUNCER: Your news talk station.

VERNON OAKES: Information is power. That’s why WOL makes a great, great partner in this program, because we’re giving you information about the cooperative business model, so that you may look for them to do business with, or you may decide you want to start your own, whatever area that might be. So, we’re here talking about women in this cooperative movement over time, and the valiant women who get the vote out, and not only work in the cooperative model, but they also get the vote out. So, Liz, we have been talking about the Homecare Products Group, and I had no idea we were going to go there, but it’s a fascinating piece. And I would imagine they are sensitized to public policy, and what it means for Medicare, and knowing that if they get out and vote then they can elect officials that will help provide what people need, what these baby boomers and other people in these rural areas might need.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: You know, the one thing, Vernon, I was thinking on the break that, you know, governance, and democratic governance is so much a part of the co-op business model, that I think all members of co-ops, in all the sectors are more conscious of that public policy dimension of the world around them. Some people are attracted to co-ops because it makes economic sense. You know, it’s a business transaction, or a business to affiliate with, but an awful lot of them come to co-ops with some passion for economic justice, or access to healthy foods, or issues that are so much talked about in the public arena. But, I think you get an activism that comes out of members of co-ops. Whether the co-op itself takes that, or if it’s just what the demographic of the membership is. I think there is really a real belief in being engaged that’s part of the co-op culture. And I think it shows then in times like this when we have elections that people can participate in.

VERNON OAKES: So, my experience is economic justice, social justice, racial justice, access to good food, access to good housing, access to whatever the need may be in that community. So, that’s why I love co-ops. It gets in your blood, you mentioned earlier, because of all of that. And you had idea, you’re only 15 years, I guess I’ve been in this longer than you. I got involved 27 years ago when I started managing housing co-ops, and really fell in love with this model. And Liz, I just don’t see the capitalistic model approaching this economic justice, or racial justice, or social justice.

VERNON OAKES: I don’t see it, because greed is in the way too often. And the people that have, those capitalists that have money don’t necessarily have the compassion to help the people that are the laborers or that don’t have money. And so, there’s always this tension between the land baron and the peasant if you will, going back years ago, but, it’s the laborers and the management and all of that. And in the co-op model you do get it, because the laborers own the business, so you don’t have that tension anymore and the profit goes to them. Okay, I’ll stop trying to preach here, okay.

VERNON OAKES: I get excited about this model, and I know you do, too. So, I wanted to talk a little bit about the Bailey Group. What do you all do? You have a consulting firm that you’re doing now.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Well, it’s primarily economic development related to the co-op model. And it draws out of the work I did both at NCBA, the National Cooperative Business Associated, and the cooperative development foundation, where we really were looking cross-sector at all the co-op work. And so, what I’m trying to do now is continue some of the passions I had, and some of the opportunities to help others who are working on various co-op initiatives, and also to further the co-op brand. I serve on the board of Cooperatives for a Better World as well, which is focused on trying to get better understanding of the co-op model, and have people understand what it is, and what it isn’t. And that feeds into it, too.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: So, I’m having a lot of satisfaction, I guess, in continuing to be able to do cooperative development, but in a different way than I was in the first involvement. And I’m always available for hire, or for pro-bono work, so I’ll put that out there.

VERNON OAKES: Okay, what kinds of clients do you have? But before you do that, you mentioned the different sectors of the co-op world. So, I’ve broken it down into four, and I’ll quickly give a definition here. So, the four is — and it depends on who owns and controls the business — if it’s owned and controlled by the employees it’s called a worker cooperative. And so, any business can be a worker cooperative. If the business is owned and controlled by the consumer, those that uses the products and services, it’s called a consumer cooperative. Housing co-ops, credit unions, there’s a health clinic in Madison, Wisconsin that’s owned by the patients, so it’s a consumer cooperative.

VERNON OAKES: Then you have the purchasing co-ops. And farmers use that a lot, artists are beginning to use it. And it’s a group of people that come and start a business that buys what they need. For farmers it could be seed, or fertilizer, or gasoline, or equipment so they can get a better price, and normally a better quality product because they have people that understand it. And then those farmers on the other end will start what I call a marketing co-op, some people call them producer co-ops, so that all of the milk farmers, they’ll gather together, and they’ll start this business and sell their milk, or whatever they make to this company. And this company then can add value to it, like Cabot Creamery or Organic Valley, Ocean Spray. And they can get their products to markets that the individual farmer could not, and more often get a better price for it. So, those are the four basic types when you mention sectors. And so, I assume you work in all of those sectors?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: What I try to do is I work in the cross-sector co-op world, which is not necessarily diving into one individually, but trying to get — most of the initiatives I’m working on are trying to get better public awareness of the fact that co-ops are all around them, and are in all of those places, and people don’t realize it. You know, I think most people are probably a member of a co-op, if they’re, you know, they’re a member of a credit union, or they shop at an Ace Hardware store, and don’t appreciate the fact that that’s part of the — it’s there probably because it’s a member of a purchasing cooperative that makes a difference in their bottom line.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: So, my work is really not in going out and creating co-ops, right on the ground, but it’s more related to trying to help that public policy world, and the broader public world to just better understand that co-ops are a business model that are part of the economy, a big part of the economy, and that they are really producing a huge amount of results for the economy, and for their members, who are then getting the benefit of a better price, a better access to markets that they might not otherwise have. And those are all things that are often not appreciated at all, that you know, you have a very good description of the different co-op sectors. It’s just a lot of people don’t realize that they’re out there, and that they’re connected to them.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: There are a lot of people who think of co-ops only as a movement, that it’s about, you know, the bigger issues for the economic justice, and the access to housing, and food, and all of that, which we all know are part of it. But, in addition to that movement part, there is the actual business model, and as we talked earlier, sustainable businesses, that just like any other business that needs to grow, co-ops require nurturing, they require good management. They require all of those other things, including the commitment to the issues that we all want to advance. But, ultimately, it’s about what members want and need for themselves. And they then have actual control over that.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And getting back to your women’s history thing, all of those co-ops are full of women who are either in leadership positions of the business itself, or as members are leaders in the fact that they are voting — one member, one vote — in those co-ops. Or, they’re head of the trade associations, and other organizations that lead the co-op movement. So, we’ve called them — a lot of times women, you know, we refer to the soccer moms, or the suburban women as voting blocks, and you know, I think that a lot of them are also co-op members, whether they realize it or not, and are providing that same kind of presence, and interest in issues for their co-op memberships as well.

VERNON OAKES: Okay, so I got from Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard when she wrote the book Collective Courage, she said when she started collecting information about it, she was told that co-ops were not for Black folk, it was for hippies. And that was sort of the image of what co-ops were. And after fifteen years of studying it she got that there was this rich history of almost every major Black activist had with it, this co-op model. And so, it’s for all people, particularly, one member, one vote was the second principle. The first principle that co-ops are open for everybody. It doesn’t make any difference who they are, what nationality, what gender, whatever, that’s the first principle. Second is this one member, one vote. And the third one, I think if I don’t get ‘em mixed up, is economic participation.

VERNON OAKES: You can put some money in, and become a member, but you get money back if there’s some kind of profit, and you get to decide what happens with that profit. So, we’re gonna take our second break, Liz. And when we come back I want you to talk about, besides Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard who’s an educator and has done a lot, but listen, what are some of the other women and what areas have they been in, in this co-op world? Okay, we’ll be right back.

VERNON OAKES: Hi, this is Vernon Oakes, and the program is Everything Cooperative. We have Liz Bailey on the phone with us. Liz, let’s start talking about those women whose work led to the creation of Cooperative Development Advocacy Group. Could you just give us some examples of those women and what groups that they worked with?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Well, one of the leads, there has been cooperative advocacy forever, but in terms of the actual on-the-ground organizations that are doing cooperative development across the country, a lot of them are all members of a group called CooperationWorks. Which started with a small handful of cooperative development centers, and a number of them led by women, around the country, and it’s now grown to be 30 to 40 members. And I apologize to CooperationWorks if I’ve got their number down lower than they are. I’m a member, too, but I’m not sure what the membership is.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: But, it was women who Judy Ziewacz was at the National Cooperative Business Association, and took the leadership back when NCBA had a rural task force years ago that decided that one of the ways to get cooperative development happening beyond just the agricultural community that was so prevalent at that time was through the US Department of Agriculture to set up a rural cooperative development grant program, which then provided seed money that allowed some of these cooperative developers to do their work out around the country in rural places.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And that program continues today, and it is CooperationWorks became the first clustering of all of those members. But, it allowed people like me, a [SOUNDS LIKE: Melba Smith] to be working down in rural Mississippi, people like Kim Kuhns to be working, doing cooperative development in Davis, California, and serving that area, Diane Gassaway doing incredible work up in the Pacific Northwest where they’ve done all sort of cooperative development, but have a real focused program on homecare, as well as on the conversion of manufactured housing communities to resident ownership.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: They’ve taken real leadership on that. Margaret Lund was in the Minnesota area. She’s now branched out, and is doing broader consulting. But, women have been leaders in this grassroots cooperative development. It hasn’t been so much advocacy, except advocacy by example, of showing what kind of cooperative development is happening in this rural places, and under the technical assistance that can be provided by these centers. [SOUNDS LIKE: Naomi Gills-Fink] is doing similar good work in the New England area. There’s just incredible amount of leadership, and I only mention a few of the women who are doing that work. But, it’s really grassroots kind of work. Deb [SOUNDS LIKE: Troka’s] working out of Indiana and out of her program she developed a conference for newly developing food co-ops called Up and Coming, Up and Running.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And it’s actually being held as we speak in Madison, Wisconsin with over 300 people in attendance. So, you know, it’s growth of knowledge and leadership, and helping advocacy by way of doing. So, that’s one form of it at a very grassroots level.

VERNON OAKES: I went to the Up and Coming last year. And even though she’s in Indiana she has it up in Madison, or somewhere.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: It’s become national yeah.

VERNON OAKES: But, you mentioned Deborah Troka, who’s been on, Margaret Lund, Kim Kuhns out in California, Melba Smith, Naomi, you didn’t mention Christine Barker, but she’s been on. So, six or so.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: I did not mention Christine, but you’re absolutely right. What they’re doing in Cincinnati is absolutely terrific.

VERNON OAKES: And that whole union cooperative initiative. I’ve been out there I think three of the four years that they’ve had theirs. And I just learn some — and I love to be around it. Now, who I haven’t had on the program is Shirley Sherrod in Georgia, working with the Federation of Southern Co-ops. And so, I keep putting that out there, because I want to get her on. She has a tremendous story I would like to get on air and get it documented through here. So, those are some great ladies. And I kind of believe with the ones that I know of, that voting is a huge part of their world, huge part of what they — they would make sure that they vote, their family votes, and everybody they can. Not saying who they should vote for, or what party they should belong to, or any of that, just let your voice be heard. Let your voice be counted, which is part of the cooperative world. And I guess you would agree with that from what you said earlier.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Absolutely. In fact, one of the things I’ve always thought would be a good function for a co-op in the community, since most of them with their education focus are looking for ways to provide education, and what ever is immediately relevant to their sector, say if it’s healthy foods in a food co-op, or in an agricultural purchasing cooperative it may be more related to their industry. But, a lot of them will also have facilities where they could host town meetings. And it’s something I’d always thought would be really an interesting component where you would not necessarily — like you say, not tell people who to vote for — but be that host in the community for a gathering of candidates for whatever the office might be, and have the co-op be, maybe it would be to have a forum about healthy foods. Or they may set a topic that’s relevant to their particular interests or broader, just to be that place in the community where discussion can happen, or engagement with candidates, and with the rest of the community could happen.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: I think that’s a marvelous way that a co-op could play a role in the community, since not every place will have rooms where people could meet and could host something like that. But the whole co-op commitment to governance and democracy is just so compatible with helping to have a dialogue at a local level about issues that then percolate up into the system.

VERNON OAKES: I like that a lot, because I didn’t get this until the day, what, ten years ago I figured out what I want to be when I grow up, or who I want to be, and that is to promote and develop co-ops. And so, that fits right in with what the Bailey Group is doing. And I had not realized that we’re so entwined in what we are doing and want to do. So yeah, we can figure out more how we can work together to do that.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: We definitely do. There’s a lot of work to be done in that arena.

VERNON OAKES: Absolutely. I want to now go, you talked about the fifth principle of education, knowledge, and information. And so, can you talk about some of the women that are in this space of being educators, to make sure that folks know about this co-op world?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Yeah, there are some real giants in the education field. And a number of them are already in the cooperative hall of fame. So, they have gotten recognition for the real contributions they’ve made. People like Ann Hoyt, who ran the UW Center for Cooperatives for a number of years.

VERNON OAKES: That’s the University of Wisconsin, okay.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: University of Wisconsin, yeah sorry. As a UW grad I shorten that, sorry, my alma mater too. And Ann Reynolds, another giant in the Wisconsin scene, again also with UW University extension, and doing real work there. And Jessica Gordon Nembhard, who you mentioned already is also somebody who just has just an incredible contribution, and continues to do it today. That’s the beauty of it is, these people, it’s not just a job, it’s a career, and it’s a way of life, so that they are continuing to be engaged in cooperative development. And this year in the hall of fame, they will be inducting another person who is still very much engaged in the act of doing cooperative development, and that is Carmen Huertas-Noble, who is with the CUNY law school up in New York City.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: She along with Jessica Gordon Nembhard and Melissa Hoover are probably some of the giants in the worker cooperative development world. They have all been nurturing and growing it. And Carmen has been particularly involved in the legal clinic work that they’ve been doing out of New York City where they’re advising a number of worker co-ops on getting organized and how to do it. And she’s been deeply involved in helping to refine bylaws and all of the building blocks that are part of it, that it’s not just esoteric conversation, but the real tangible pieces of what you need to have in place to have — again, we get back to sustainable co-ops.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And there’s also another dimension on the education side, which we in the advocacy world don’t interact with them as much probably as we should, but ACE is an organization called the Association of Cooperative Educators. And that membership is made up of a lot of men and women — not just women — who are faculty in colleges and universities around the country. A lot of them in the agricultural curriculum. Others might be in consumer economics. You know, the whole range of degree work, and even the technical work that’s done around various things that intersect with the co-op world. There’s a whole world of that that is in place and an awful lot of people who are doing really good work, who know that they’re doing it as part of the world relating to cooperatives.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And then also in the private, or I guess considered the private world, Farmer’s Union is one example that has cooperative educators and Kathy Sikes, who runs the National Farmers Union program just does tremendous work with education, with young people that they have summer camps, and other educational programming that they’re doing to really educate not only farm community kids, but kids from rural spaces about not only co-ops, but the other work that is related to how they fit into the rural economy. So, there’s tremendous amount, and I will also say that there’s Roberta McDonald, who we know and love, has been a sponsor of an amazing amount of educational programming that Cabot Cooperative Creamery has been doing that has nothing specifically to do with dairy, which you would expect she might do.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: But, they have girl scout patch programs — what it started out as — that you can earn a patch in community by learning about a co-op. And it’s got all sorts of educational tools that have now been adapted for use in North Carolina through Emily Nail, who runs the Cooperative Council for North Carolina, has a summer camp — you need to go to this one, Vernon — where they take high school kids on scholarship attend this and they form a co-op in the time they’re at camp, and run it, and then dissolve it, and make all the decisions about the co-op. And they use the [SOUNDS LIKE: Cabots] work on that, too

ELIZABETH BAILEY: So, they’re doing education for those young audiences, which are the future. So, there’s lots going on in the educational world, as you would expect.

VERNON OAKES: So, the good news, as you were going through these names, I got about seven names, and all of them have been on the show, except for Carmen, and she will be this coming May, because April, May time we’ll interview the hall of fame folks. And just to shout out, May the 6th is where they will be inducted into the hall of fame. Michael Mercer was on last week, and that was-

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Ah, a wonderful guy.

VERNON OAKES: Yes, and Ben Burkett, who’s part of the Federation of Southern Co-ops, and Everett Dobrinski, we expect him to be on an April/May timeframe. But, it was nice as you were going through these names I wrote them down, and just put a checkmark by them, and most of them have been on the show. We’re gonna take our final break. And so, when we come back we’re gonna talk about other cooperative leaders. Those folks have been advocates. And I really want to get to those that have been in the capital markets, who have helped bring money to the arena. And we’ll be right back.

VERNON OAKES: The National Cooperative Bank sponsors this program so that people can get that power, to get the information, put that information to use, and then that’s where they will get that power. NCB’s mission is to support and be an advocate for America’s cooperatives and their members, especially in low income communities, by providing innovative financial and related services. And they’ve done a great job since the 80s, especially in low income communities, where you’ll find a lot of marginalized people, particularly brown and Black folk. So, they’ve been a really great advocate for us.

VERNON OAKES: And Liz, we want to go back to talk about those women who have been helping in this capital world. You know, we talk about the capitalistic model versus the cooperative model, and I have it that they both have to exist. Because, the co-ops need capital. The capitalists don’t necessarily need co-ops, but our world does, the community does. So, who are some of the women who are in this capital world, who provide capital to co-ops?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Well, one of the pioneers, and I think you’ve had her on your program, is Rebecca Dunn, who is now retired from the Cooperative Fund of New England. But, she was one of the people who in addition to building out a portfolio of lending had very, very few defaults, just an extraordinary record of good, solid lending. She’s one who especially at the time when places like the SBA and others were not recognizing co-ops for viable lending, Rebecca participated and because I think of her track record, and she was early on in applying to make CDFI, which was one of the first, I think, in the group that was doing that. She participated in several SBA pilot programs, where they kind of carefully put their toe in the water to lend to co-ops, and were pleasantly surprised, whether they admitted it or not, that those loans were not bad loans, and that the Cooperative Fund of New England has a good model for lending.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: You know, they looked at collateral and the business, and other things. And one of the continual sticking points that co-ops have with the SBA at this point, even with a marvelous Main Street Employment Act that was passed in 2018, there’s still foot-dragging at the SBA for lending to co-ops without looking for personal guarantees. There’s one thing that they just cannot get past. We fought this back in 2012 when we all were involved in the summit that we did with the White House. We started the conversations then about the need to accept that the co-op model has a different structure, and that the people with substantial interest are not just a handful of people, as in a regular LLC or whatever, but that in a co-op you could have 100 members.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And you can’t have each one of them carry the burden of the personal guarantee. And that just is a concept that we wrestled with, and made some progress with. But, the SBA is still reserving the right to require a personal guarantee of some sort, which in spite of the new law is something that’s creating a barrier for access to guarantee the lending. One the other hand we have the experience the US Department of Agriculture did, a marvelous job of taking their business and industry loan program, which you know, you have to be rural and be in the right Zip Code for that. But, a program which had been a lending program for small businesses was modified through the regulations, went through all of the appropriate checks and boxes, to extend that to allow for a small business owner to sell his business, or her business to employees, who would then make it into a worker-owned business, keep the business in the rural community.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: And what was new and different was, the loan could extend through that transition period, which had never been allowed before. If you got a loan as a small business owner you couldn’t have something that would help you in that real difficult period where people were learning how to run the business, not just work there anymore. And that now is available for small businesses that want to do that kind of a conversion in rural places. But, the pipeline for that is I think still not filled out so that the lenders in the co-op world like National Cooperative Bank, and Shared Capital, and CoBank and others are ready to participate, but the pipeline is not an adequate one yet, to give a lot of activity there where there are small businesses.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: It’s coming, but here again, it’s in parts. People need to learn that it’s out there. It’s a change that was made several years ago, and it’s slow in getting the number of business conversions that could eligible into there. But, you know, the women who are, in addition to Rebecca Dunn, Christina Jennings is the leadership at Shared Capital. And [indistinct] has just been a real rock, and a real advocate. She had National Cooperative Bank for a number of years now. [SOUNDS LIKE: Kara Tyree] is with CoBank in Washington, and involved in a lot of their advocacy, and their work for that whole farm credit system. And then Allison Powers is at Capital Impact Partners, is their presence as part of a team that’s developing the cooperative development piece.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: So, there’s a good team of women and all the people that they work for, and work with, who are ready to receive and are trying to do as much as they can to develop a pipeline for one thing, but then to have good lending instruments that are available to co-ops that either are startup or expansion or some component of that.

VERNON OAKES: Right on. And I would like to spend some time talking about the differences between the capitalistic model and the co-op model. But, we don’t have a lot of time. So, let’s go to those women that are sort of national leadership. Who are some of those women?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Well, one who I have — that’s a long list, too. You won’t have enough time. But, I want to pick out a couple to really shout out, and one is Shirley Bloomfield, who is running the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, Rural Broadband Association. It’s got a long name to it, but her organization is made up of co-ops, and non-co-ops in the broadband world. And they have been fighting the fight to get broadband out there throughout the country. And they’re making progress but have just had incredible hurdles along the way.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: But Shirley has been at the helm, at NTCA for a decade or more. And they are making incredible progress. And she provides this incredible leadership in that area. Someone who is no longer at NRECA, the rural electric, I’d like to do another shout out to Joanne Emerson, who was just a powerful leader for too short of a time, but was really, really working to have a new generation of rural electric engagement at the local level, which is something that she passionately believed in as a former member of Congress, too, and was really making that happen. Of course, you have Kathy McMahon, who’s head of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions. Melissa Hoover, one of my favorite worker co-op people, really a visionary person, and leader of Democracy at Work Initiative. Which is part of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Roberta McDonald, you know, she is just kind of in the creative space for the whole co-op world, even though Cabot Cooperative Creamery is her day job. It certainly isn’t where her interests end. And she’s just doing just incredible contributions.

VERNON OAKES: Let me say something real quickly, she called me sinister on the air, okay, because I said that I believe that one percenters don’t want folks to know about co-ops, because it will take their share, their profit away. And I think they do things to make sure that folks don’t know about this cooperative model. She said that’s very sinister. And what I like about her, if you want to know what Roberta thinks, ask her. She’s straight and she’s great, and I like talking to her on air or not on air. And I’ve had several opportunities to do that. And she’s just wonderful, yeah, got it. Who else?

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Another person who has really risen as an interesting story to tell is Gina Schaefer, who started, and I think you’ve had her on your program.

VERNON OAKES: Several times.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: Yeah, and now she’s on the board of Carpet One, or CCA Global. She was on the national board of Ace Hardware, and started as a co-op owner, and then have gotten very involved in the buy local movement, and is just really passionate about co-op the way everybody gets when they’ve been involved with it. Another person who I think is just an incredible gem for the co-op world is Anya Firszt who is the head of the Blooming Prairie Foundation in the food co-op world. And she’s really been visionary in her work with the Willy Street Co-op in Madison. And they have two traditional co-ops. And then have now opened a third co-op in Madison, which is-

VERNON OAKES: Liz, we are going to have to leave it with that.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: You’re out of time. Well, we’ll end of food. That’s a good place to end.

VERNON OAKES: You know, food is great. I can’t thank you enough for being on and sharing your wealth of knowledge about this co-op model and the women in it. And I have it that women have been the nurturers of this co-op model. Sometimes not out in front, but behind the scenes, and they’re really out for getting the vote out, and making sure that people are heard. Thank you very much, Liz.

ELIZABETH BAILEY: You’re welcome, bye.

VERNON OAKES: Everybody else out there, we’ll see you next week. Live cooperatively.