ROC USA, Concord, NH – $50,000 for technical assistance to convert at least five rural manufactured home communities to co-op ownership.

Direct Care Alliance, New York, NY – $15,000 to develop a tool kit and on-line membership and cooperative resource center for direct care co-op owner/members and to provide technical assistance to link direct care workers with cooperative resources.

The Cooperative Network, St. Paul, MN – $1,000 for general support of the annual Senior Co-op Housing Conference, which educates member/owners of rural senior housing co-ops about co-ops, co-op housing topics, and senior issues.

2009 – $88,000

Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, NE — $20,000 to analyze and develop models for local co-op grocery stores, develop a web-based clearinghouse for such information, and start a co-op grocery store.

Senior Cooperative Foundation, St. Paul, MN — $8,000 to educate the seniors’ families, the general public, community leaders, developers, and the media that senior housing co-ops are major service and financial contributors to the community and are a growing market and to study the feasibility of creating a set of standards for a label to identify organizations that are senior co-op housing.

Rural Community Assistance Corporation, West Sacramento, CA — $40,000 to provide education and outreach to residents of mobile home parks about co-op ownership, provide technical assistance and training to convert senior mobile home parks to co-ops, and build RCAC’s internal capacity.

Maryland Assistive Technology Cooperative, Columbia, MD — $16,000 to expand its outreach to more rural counties; expand training of volunteers and support staff at local hospitals, home health care agencies, and assisted living facilities; and encourage co-op buying to reduce costs to seniors.

Aging in Place-Glens Falls, Glens Falls, NY — $4,000 to form a service cooperative of and for senior citizens that would include services such as transportation, food preparation, winterization of housing, respite care, and social activities to that seniors can remain in their homes and maintain social contacts.

2008 – $64,975

The Hospital Cooperative, Pocatello, ID —  $16,000 to develop educational materials for seniors that address preventing falls and medication errors and making homes safer and to develop training modules to prepare hospital-based health educators to teach seniors about these topics.

Maryland Assistive Technology Cooperative, Columbia, MD — $17,775 to do outreach and set up a demonstration center on the features and benefits of low-cost assistive devices for seniors, which make daily living as independent as possible for as long as possible.

Circle of Life Cooperative, Bellingham, WA — $14,000 for a community education program for seniors to their families and a public program about issues and options for seniors.  This addresses the gap between the potential need and the knowledge about such services.

NCB Capital Impact, Arlington, VA – $17,200 to develop affordable housing, track the process, and develop financial feasibility models, related strategies, and policy recommendations that will ensure a viable fiscal model built on mixed income membership.

2007 – $119,490

Cooperative Care, Wautoma, Wis. —  $25,000 to create a training and orientation program  that will teach current and new members of a home care cooperative about their roles and responsibilities as owners, rather than employees, of a worker-owned business.  The final product will be available on a CD ROM format so that it can be used by other home care cooperatives for the training needs of their member-owners.

New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, Concord, NH — $19,000 to support the Fund’s ongoing work to create cooperatively-owned communities, as well as specific support for the Fund’s Leadership Development Program.  This program trains leaders of manufactured housing cooperative communities, many of them senior citizens, in the basics of cooperative governance, as well as the management of the wide array of issues and challenges confronting these resident-owned communities.

Senior Cooperative Foundation, St. Paul, Minn. — $12,000 for a study to determine the feasibility of establishing a purchasing cooperative or other similar organization to enable shared purchasing of commonly used services/commodities among senior housing co-ops.  The feasibility study will focus on Minnesota’s senior housing cooperative community.

Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation, Davis, Calif. —  $25,000 to support the Foundation’s work in Yolo County, CA to lead a county-wide drive to educate and engage local officials, financial institutions and current residents to convert existing mobile home parks to cooperative resident-owned communities.  The initial focus will be on working with the five mobile home parks, three of which are senior-only parks, that have already expressed a desire to become cooperatives.

Northwest Cooperative Development Center, Olympia, Wash. – $23,240 to support the Center’s work to help establish the East Hawai’ i Home Care Cooperative in a sparsely populated area on the big island of Hawaii.  The grant funds will be used for the planning and implementation of a series of interactive town meetings that will involve seniors, their families and current caregivers. The innovative format for these meetings reflects the Hawaiian tradition of “talk story”. The expectation is that these meetings will increase local understanding of the cooperative concept and help establish the market for specific home care services.

Circle of Life Cooperative, Bellingham, Wash. – $15,250 for market analysis, as well as business, financial and strategic planning for a newly-incorporated home care cooperative.  The cooperative will serve residents of Whatcom County, WA and the surrounding area, the far northern area of Washington State that has a growing senior population.

2006 – $97,870

CAP Services, Inc, Stevens Point, Wis. —  $27,830 to support home care co-ops in various stages of business start-up by creating a collection of resources for use in home care co-op development by care givers, community organizers, long-term care advocates, co-op developers, and co-op staff.

Minnesota Association of Cooperatives Education Foundation, St. Paul, Minn. — $2,200 to expand the Foundation’s services to better serve and educate an increasing number of rural senior housing co-op member/residents through meetings, workshops, and newsletters.

Public Hospital Cooperative, Pocatello, Idaho —  $12,000 to improve patient care by providing training to management and staff of the 13 rural nonprofit hospitals, clinics, and long-term care units that are members of the cooperative. This grant will allow PHC’s Leadership Committee to continue its training program, which is geared to the needs at each individual facility.

Rural Community Assistance Corporation, West Sacramento, Calif. — $48,000 to assist three rural senior mobile home parks convert to co-op ownership through technical assistance on legal structure, organizing, finance, and management operations.  Ownership of the land means residents are not susceptible to closure or sales, which usually deprive them of their investment in their home and force them into higher-cost housing.

Senior Cooperative Foundation, St. Paul — $5,250 to address education needs of senior rural housing co-op residents, staff, and developers. The education program covers legal, financial, and community issues; board of director responsibilities; transfer of responsibility; working with the management company; aging in place; and fair housing laws.

Cooperative Care, Wautoma, Wis. —  $2,590 to enable four members to attend the second nationwide Worker Cooperative Conference. The conference is a networking opportunity and  provides consultations with specialists in finance and law and sessions on skill building, governance, planning, economic development, and organizational strategies.

2005 – $92,000

Foundation for Rural Housing, Inc, Madison, WI ($20,000) – to establish an educational and marketing plan for replication of a five-home rural cooperative housing pilot project in central Wisconsin that clusters manufactured homes on land that is cooperatively owned.  The project will provide training and technical assistance to at least ten Wisconsin communities interested in replicating the model.

Minnesota Association of Cooperatives Education Foundation, St. Paul, MN ($14,205) – to expand the Foundation’s existing educational work in senior cooperative housing to include more outreach to rural cooperative housing residents and more programming focused on their special needs.

Senior Cooperative Foundation, St. Paul, MN ($4,600) – to establish rural locations for the Foundation’s educational workshops for senior cooperative housing members, staff and developers that address legal, financial, governance, and management issues associated with a housing cooperative.  The targets for these workshops are the 350 members of 30 senior housing cooperatives in rural Minnesota.

Cooperative Care, Wautoma, WI ($11,977) – to develop a training program to increase worker satisfaction and the quality of client care at Cooperative Care, a worker-owned cooperative of direct care workers who deliver home care and personal care services to the elderly and disabled in Waushara County in central Wisconsin.  In addition to the values-based training program, the grant will fund development and implementation of a values-based performance review system.

Peace United Methodist Church, Pipestone, MN ($20,000) – to support the  merging of at least two parish nursing programs into a cooperative to allow for the governance,  joint administration, and coordinated delivery of educational services in a rural community that has an increasingly elderly population.

2004 – $89,000

The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, East Point, Ga., ($5,000) – to support training for board members of 12 of the cooperatives they have organized in poor rural communities of the South.

Weavers Way Food Cooperative, Philadelphia, Pa., ($7,500) – to expand its Marketplace program that, in cooperation with local schools, helps school children form a student cooperative and works with them to make decisions about product sales, accounting and merchandising.

University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, Madison, Wis., ($5,000) – to support a comprehensive survey of Wisconsin cooperatives that will produce data for the Center’s web site documenting the role cooperatives play in the state’s economy.

North American Student of Cooperation, or NASCO, Ann Arbor, Mich., ($7,500) – for scholarships to allow representatives of student housing cooperatives in mostly rural communities to attend next month’s 28th annual Cooperative Education and Training Institute.

Washington Agriculture and Forestry Education Foundation, Spokane, Wash., ($5,000) – to support the selection and participation of cooperative leaders in the foundation’s leadership development program that is targeted for the state’s natural resource industries and rural communities.

School of Community Economic Development, Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, N.H., ($20,000) – to support development of a case study of the Carpet One business model, a purchasing cooperative with more than 1,000 member stores, for use as a teaching and analytical case study.

WoodWorks and its fiscal agent Keystone Development Center, State College, Pa., ($14,000) – to support a marketing study of how best to engage small farmers and rural landowners in cooperative enterprises to achieve sustainable forestry.

Cooperative Development Services, Madison, Wis., ($10,000) – to support a study that will identify successful models for new food coop development in both rural and urban communities.

Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security, or WAGES, Oakland, Calif., ($10,000) – to support their work to establish successful eco-friendly housecleaning cooperatives that allow immigrant women to achieve financial independence.

NCB Development Corporation, Washington, D.C., ($5,000) – to support  an Affordable Cooperative Housing Roundtable this month that will bring together national and local leaders to examine issues, accomplishments and needs of the affordable cooperative housing industry.