The Cooperative Development Foundation is a 501 (c) 3 charitable family of funds that advances economic development through cooperative enterprise.
The Cooperative Development Foundation was created in 1944 in the wake of World War II. First known as The Freedom Fund, the organization helped in the reconstruction and development of overseas cooperatives in Europe in the post-war era. The following year, CDF wrote the check that created the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE), which provided economic relief to war-torn Europe. Nationwide Insurance Vice-President Murray Lincoln was CAR’s first president, now known and recognized worldwide.
In the 1980′s the Freedom Fund was renamed the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) and with that new name came a focus on domestic cooperative development. Our mission is to promote community, economic, and social development through cooperative enterprises.
History of the Cooperative Development Foundation
| 1940’s | Created in 1944, CDF was first known as the Freedom Fund. It focused on the reconstruction and development of European cooperatives in the post-war era, an initiative that engaged the entire U.S. cooperative community. One of CDF’s most significant investments was a $30,000 grant to help launch Cooperatives for American Relief to Europe. Today this organization is Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere, better known as CARE. |
| 1950’s | In the 1950’s, CDF turned its attention to the development needs of Third World nations. In partnership with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, CDF established a permanent office in New Delhi. Founded on the concepts of self-help and mutual aid at the grass roots level, the programs developed by the India office became the blueprint for cooperative development in Latin America, the Caribbean, Indonesia, and Africa. Over the years, CDF invested over $1.5 million in India and, in partnership with U.S. fertilizer, dairy, and oilseed cooperatives and the leading Indian cooperative organizations, helped create three of the largest cooperatives in Asia at the time. |
| 1960’s | CDF began to shift its focus to domestic cooperative development. It established the Worldwide Co-op Partners program to capture the human and financial resources in the U.S. co-op community and matched them with specific cooperative projects in the U.S. and Third World countries. This program was the predecessor of the VOCA (Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance) part of today’s ACDI/VOCA. CDF helped launch the University Center for Cooperatives at the University of Wisconsin, which has trained thousands and performed valuable research about the cooperative business model. |
| 1970’s | In the 1970s CDF consolidated its programs. It launched a project that started five cooperative organizations to serve Native Americans in Arizona and New Mexico. CDF assisted in the creation of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, which brings cooperative development to some of the country’s poorest counties. CDF partnered with the Ford Foundation to launch a cooperative housing training institute that was run by the Cooperative Housing Foundation to train co-op housing organizers, managers, and directors. |
| 1980’s | Housing for seniors was a CDF priority in the 1980s and 1990s. CDF created two funds to provide pre-development financing for cooperative housing for seniors in rural areas: the $700,000 Parkin Fund and the $1 million Kaplan Fund. The Parkin Fund was a $350,000 grant from the Retirement Research Foundation plus a $350,000 revolving line of capital from NCBDC and the Kaplan Fund was a $500,000 grant from the Joel Kaplan Fund plus a $500,000 line of credit from NCB. The Parkin Fund made 34 pre-development loans totaling $2,219,383 and created 149 units of senior cooperative housing. The Kaplan Fund made 48 pre-development loans totaling $279,991 and created 632 units of senior cooperative housing. While not all projects went to construction and some loans were converted to grants, valuable lessons about senior co-op housing in rural areas were learned. |
| 1990’s | CDF was instrumental in the creation of the Homestead Housing Center, a national effort that led to the development of 334 units of senior cooperative housing in 16 rural communities. CDF received a grant from USDA that resulted in a report and a how-to manual on senior cooperative housing. CDF was heavily involved in the National Rural Cooperative Development Task Force that recommended to Congress that it fund the Rural Cooperative Development Grant (RCDG) program to create a national network of cooperative development centers. This network is now CooperationWorks!. For several years, CDF provided CW with assistance in networking, administrative support services, publications, and visibility. United Co-op Appeal (UCA), the Kagawa, Kagawa Student Cooperative Reinvestment, NCBA, Frank Sollars, Howard Bowers, and Shirley K. Sullivan Funds were all established in this decade. |
| 2000 – 2010 | The Mutual Insurance Foundation donated its assets of over $2 million, which now comprise CDF’s MSC Fund, to CDF during this decade. This dramatically reshaped the organization and brought about a new focus on cooperative solutions for rural seniors. The MSC Fund made 12 grants totaling $251,055 for various aspects of senior cooperative housing in rural areas from education of member/owners to conversion of mobile home parks to the feasibility of a purchasing co-op of senior housing co-ops. The Kaplan Fund made three loans totaling $313,600 for 125 units of senior co-op housing in CA and MI.
CDF hosted a public forum affiliated with the White House Conference on Aging in December 2005 and commissioned a report, which was submitted to the Policy Committee of the White House Conference on Aging. The Committee added it to the official record of the Conference and a number of the forum’s recommendations are in the Conference report that was sent to the Administration and Congress.
CDF made its Disaster Recovery Fund permanent so it would be ready to aid U.S. and overseas cooperators rebuild after natural disasters. The Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund gave their disaster fund to CDF’s Disaster Recovery Fund. A bequest from a Chicago cooperator became CDF’s CDF Fund, which is for innovative projects that do not fall under CDF’s other funds. The Jim Jones Fund was started in honor of the 2009 Cooperative Hall of Fame inductee. |
| 2010 – present | In the fall of 2010 CDF received its first of three Rural Cooperative Development Grants from USDA. These grants have enabled CDF to greatly expand its work for rural seniors, especially in the areas of housing and home care. With these grants CDF has educated cooperative developers, economic developers, public officials, and others in the cooperative model; helped convert senior rural manufactured home parks to cooperative ownership; established a website section for senior cooperative information; produced studies of the multi-stakeholder model in Quebec and Cooperative Care in Wisconsin; and begun work on feasibility studies on multi-stakeholder home care cooperatives in Wisconsin and “housing with services” home care cooperatives in Florida.
The NCBA and Sollars Funds were combined to create the Co-op Innovation Fund. |
Funds of the Cooperative Development Foundation
and Total Grants Made 1992 – 2012
| Purpose
Fund |
Education, Training, &
Leadership Development |
Cooperative Organizations & Projects | International Cooperative Development | Rural Seniors | Disaster Recovery | Student Cooperatives | |
| Bowers | Food co-ops | $312,325 | |||||
| CDF Fund | 71,500 | 21,000 | |||||
| Co-op Innovation | Housing and international |
161,643 |
1,530,838 |
305,303 |
17,750 |
||
| Disaster Recovery | Disaster recovery |
513,780 |
|||||
| Jim Jones | Education | ||||||
| MSC | Seniors | 27,500 | 106,500 | 588,117 | |||
| Kagawa & Kagawa SCR |
Students |
807,566 |
|||||
| Kaplan | Housing | 279,991 | |||||
| Parkin | Housing | 2,219,383 | |||||
| Sullivan | Education for co-op communicators |
12,594 |
|||||
| Operating | General | 29,365 | 336,098 | 12,768 | |||
| United Co-op Appeal
(UCA) |
Cooperative development organizations |
900,000 |
900,000 |
The Kagawa, Kagawa SCR, Kaplan, and Parkin Funds are loan funds. All others are grant funds. The Kaplan and Parkin Funds are no longer active. The Jim Jones Fund is not yet active. The Kagawa SCR Fund was given to Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund.
Grants and loans made before 1992 are estimated at over $4,424,369.
One Success Story from Each Fund
Bowers Fund
CDF Fund
Co-op Innovation Fund
Partners Worldwide’s volunteer’s trip to enhance the mentoring relationship with members of Ugandan farmers’ cooperatives was successful. There has been significant progress in meeting the goals of engaging farmers to grow and market amaranth by increasing acreage, supplying amaranth poppers, and providing training in seed multiplication and how to move amaranth from the farm to the market.
Disaster Recovery Fund
Haiti after the earthquake: Doing credit union business out of a tent provided by WOCCU, which received a grant from CDF’s Disaster Recovery Fund.
Jim Jones Fund
The Jim Jones is not yet active.
MSC Fund
$50,000 grant to ROC (Resident Owned Communities) USA resulted in the conversion of three rural senior mobile home parks from private to cooperative ownership, giving the owners of the 355 sites ownership of the land beneath their homes and control over their communities. The three parks are in Carver, MA, Lindstrom, MN, and Duvall, WA.
“We Own It”: Residents of Duvall Mobile Home Park
Purchase Their Community
Duvall, Wash. – Homeowners in this 25-home manufactured housing community took a big step toward securing their financial futures when they collectively bought their neighborhood as a resident corporation. Stewart Davidson, a homeowner at Depot Village and president of its interim board, said the relief of controlling the community is hard to measure. “It’s great to change from having Damocles’ Sword in the air that you know can fall, to having the security of knowing that when I pass, my wife can live here and not be worried about having a knock on the door with someone saying, ‘Here’s your notice, you’re out in a year,’” Davidson said.
Kagawa and Kagawa SCR Funds
Kaplan Fund
Parkin Fund
Sullivan Fund
Operating Fund
United Co-op Appeal