CDF helps the co-op community help cooperatives and their members struck by disaster
The Cooperative Development Foundation has a history accepting donations and sending funds and making grants to assist in the recovery of cooperatives and their members struck by natural disaster.  From the floods in North Dakota and Mozambique in the 1990s to the Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the Haiti earthquake more recently, CDF has collected and given more than $530,000 in emergency funds for 14 disasters:

• 2011 – $76,286 for Hurricane Irene (ongoing)
• 2011 – $115,546 for Japan earthquake and tsunami (ongoing)
• 2011 – $4,371 for Spring Storms in the United States
• 2010 – $62,980 for Haiti earthquake
• 2006 – $15,908 for Indonesia earthquake
• 2006-2008 – $121,700 for Hurricane Katrina
• 2004 – $39,198 for Asia tsunami
• 2001 – $30,399 for 9/11
• 2001 – $17,661 for El Salvador earthquake
• 1998-1999 – $5,557 for Caribbean hurricane
• 1998 – $31,265 for Nicaragua (Hurricane Mitch)
• 1998 – $9,779 for Kenya bombing
• 1998 – $1,626 for Mozambique flooding
• 1997 – $2,836 for North Dakota flooding

This money is not for immediate relief as there are many organizations for that purpose.  This money is to help cooperators rebuild their lives, to help cooperatives re-open to serve their members, and to promote cooperatives as a tool for rebuilding and economic development.  CDF works with the local cooperative leadership and cooperative development organizations with projects in the affected countries to be sure that funds are distributed to cooperators and cooperatives most in need.

How to Contribute

If you would like to contribute to the recovery of cooperators and cooperatives from a natural disaster, please visit www.cdf.coop and use the Google checkout cart on the right.  Thanks to a generous grant from Google, Inc, all donations to CDF that are made online through Google have no fee taken out.   If you prefer to write a check, you can send your donation to CDF at 2011 Crystal Drive, Suite 800, Arlington, VA 22202; please note that your donation is for disaster recovery.  CDF also takes no administrative fee for disaster recovery donations; as a result, 100% of your donation will go to cooperators and cooperatives in need of assistance.  All donations to CDF are tax-deductible and donors of $25 or more will receive a letter of acknowledgement which can be used for tax records.  If cash donations are collected by an organization which then sends a single check to CDF, we ask that the organization send a list of donors with mail or e-mail addresses and the amounts donated so CDF can send acknowledgement letters for donations of $25 or more.

Hurricane Irene Co-op Recovery Fund

Regions throughout the continental United States have been hit by a devastating series of storms, tornadoes, floods and wildfires.  In the latest major storm, Hurricane Irene, the victims again include co-ops and their members.  The devastation has been massive, with flooding and wind damage that has inundated both urban and rural areas from North Carolina to Vermont.  The fund directs tax-deductible contributions specifically to individuals and cooperative businesses along the East Coast and throughout New England who have experienced losses. The fund also will seek to assist organic farmers who are prime suppliers to food cooperatives.  Three grant awards already have been made that represent a representative cross-sector of the New England cooperative community.  The recipients include: Deep Root Organic Co-op, a Vermont farmer co-op; Arethusa Farm, a Vermont worker co-op farm; and Brattleboro Food Co-op, a Vermont food co-op.

CDF is partnering on this fund drive with its colleagues in the cooperative community, both nationally and in the region to assure the maximum possible impact. CDF’s primary points of contact in the affected area are the Cooperative Fund of New England, the Neighboring Food Cooperative Association and the National Cooperative Grocers Association who are assisting in identifying the needs and dispersing funds to those with the greatest needs.  Other partners who will assist in outreach and identification of needs include:  Cooperative Development Institute; the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund and the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives.  The seed money for the Fund came from $5,000 contributions from both the National Cooperative Bank (NCB) and the National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA). Additional resources will soon be available through the merger of the Hurricane Irene Fund with the disaster assistance fund from the North Country Cooperative Foundation. For information on how to make a contribution to the Fund, click here.

The Spring Storms of 2011 Cooperative Recovery Fund

In the Spring of 2011, regions throughout the continental United States were hit by a devastating series of storms, tornadoes, floods and wildfires.  Especially hard hit have been states in the South, but the bad weather continued with massive flooding in the Mississippi River Basin and wildfires and drought in other parts of the country taking a similar toll.  The Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) launched a fund drive to provide support for cooperatives and their members who were victims of the storms, floods and wildfires.  The fund drive closed in September 2011 with the award of a grant for $4,300 to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/LAF for use is assisting cooperatives in the Gulf Coast region that experienced devastating losses from the 2011 spring storms.

Japanese Cooperative Recovery Fund

On March 12, the day after the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) was ready to accept donations to aid Japanese cooperators and cooperatives.

Japan is home to the Japanese Consumers Cooperative Union (JCCU), the organization that donated the seed money for CDF’s Kagawa Fund, which has made over $800,000 in loans to expand student housing co-ops across the United States.  In the areas hardest hit there are university, agriculture, fishery, and consumer cooperatives.   Some of Japan’s consumer co-ops were among the structures heavily damaged by the tsunami and the JCCU has set up a task force to monitor the situation of its members and to assist with rebuilding.  The Miyagi Co-op in Sendai reported that services are only available at 13 of their 48 stores; many branches are closed because their distribution centers are not fully operational due to the earthquake.  Of the Iwate Co-op’s 11 stores, one is heavily damaged and many of the others are open only during the day due to the lack of electricity.  There is not much information available on Co-op Fukushima because of communications problems.  The city of Fukushima has no electricity or water.

The funds raised will be given to the JCCU for distribution to cooperatives in Japan. To read the Japanese Consumers’ Cooperative Union’s March newsletter about the earthquake, how it affected co-ops, and how the JCCU is responding, click here.

U.S. Cooperatives Help CDF Help Haiti after the Earthquake
In April 2010 CDF made three grants totaling $62,980 to three organizations with programs in Haiti:

• World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) to help rebuild the Haitian credit union community ($23,730)
• NRECA International Foundation to help rebuild the electric generation and distribution system  countrywide with an initial focus on the Port-au-Prince area ($24,250)
• ACDI/VOCA for cooperative development in the rural, southeastern part of Haiti ($15,000)

The projects for which the funds were used are major initiatives for which substantial additional public and private sector funds were committed.  The CDF grants primarily covered the costs of volunteers with special expertise to travel to Haiti and participate in the rebuilding.  “This is all about co-ops helping co-ops,” said Terry Lewis, then-CDF board chair and current CDF board member.  She singled out the food cooperative community for special thanks as 78% of the funds raised for Haiti were from food cooperatives and their members.

CDF then-Chair Terry Lewis (second from left) presents grants to representatives of NRECA International Foundation, ACDI/VOCA, and WOCCU

U.S. Cooperatives Help CDF Help the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina
Of the $121,700 donated, most went to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund to help the long-term recovery of rural areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, where some of the poorest counties in the U.S. are located. FSC/LAF used this money to repair their co-op training center in Alabama, bring technical assistance to cooperatives and their members for temporary help and long-term recovery, work with credit unions to help them raise resources to help families get loans for recovery, commission a feasibility study and technical assistance to fishermen to form the Plaquemines Parish Fishermen’s Cooperative, and give cooperative development training to economic developers and communities interested in starting cooperatives as an alternative development strategy.  The remaining funds went to CooperationWorks!, the national network of cooperative development organizations, to give scholarships to economic developers from the Gulf region.  They attended CooperationWorks!’ week-long training sessions on cooperative development so that they could take back to their communities the cooperative business model as an alternative economic development tool.