Insights About Co-Operatives

Several discussions at the second annual Minnesota Cooperative Summit, held in Duluth in July, brought together groups focused on how to strengthen local economies. Minnesota already leads the nation in numbers and types of co-op enterprises. The summit is designed to create deeper partnerships and strategies. 

Black Collectives Share Blueprint 

A panel of three women working to cooperatively build wealth in Black communities indicated that the larger goal of collaborative work is not simply accessing capital to create businesses but also making co-investments in each other that extend beyond individual success.

“We measure success not just by the amount of businesses we build,” said Nkuli Tabata, community wealth building director at Nexus Community Partners. “We measure success by the leaders who come through our programs and go on to influence the larger co-operative ecosystem.”

She also noted that cooperation is part of Black history. “Mutual aid societies, freedom societies — these were ways our communities rebuilt what had been taken from us.”

At Nexus Community Partners, Tabata leads the North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship, which supports Black entrepreneurs interested in co-operative business ownership. She said the organization’s approach centers relationships and culture before business plans. “Culture is part of the infrastructure,” she said. “It’s about food, storytelling, and relationship-building. Without those things, people can simply walk away when challenges come.”

As a Liberian American, Denise Butler — associate director of economic and community development at African Career, Education & Resource (ACER) — grew up watching community members participate in susus, which are traditional savings groups common across many African countries.

“People put their money together, and members use those funds to buy a car, make a down payment on a house, or start a business,” Butler said. “Our communities have been doing cooperative banking all along.”

Working with African immigrant entrepreneurs in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center, Butler sees that traditional financial institutions don’t easily recognize the thriving nature of cooperative businesses.

During the COVID pandemic, Butler said, a small group of eight women entrepreneurs grew into a WhatsApp network of 60 business owners sharing information about relief programs and resources. Eventually, 28 women formed the Ignite Business Women Investment Group cooperative with an ambitious goal to purchase their own commercial building. The cooperative raised nearly $300,000 but repeatedly encountered resistance from lenders.

“The banks kept asking, ‘Who’s going to be the guarantor?'” Butler recalled. “They couldn’t recognize the collective strength of 28 established business owners.”

Instead of abandoning the effort, ACER stepped in. In 2023, the nonprofit completed a $5.4-million acquisition of Sugar Creek Center in Brooklyn Center, preserving commercial space for 18 predominantly BIPOC-owned businesses, including restaurants, child care providers, grocery stores, and retail shops.

Victoria McWane-Creek, founder of Onyx Collective, described cooperation less as a business strategy than as a way of life. “I’m a co-operator,” she said. “I come from a line of people who get things done together — whether we like each other or not.”

Her work began with a modest $5,000 grant to study safety and belonging for Black residents living in predominantly white rural Minnesota communities. What emerged was Onyx Collective, a statewide network connecting Black Minnesotans through retreats, educational programs, storytelling, and mutual support.

“We discovered that Black people operating businesses in rural communities can reduce many of the racialized experiences they face,” she said.

Rather than simply publishing a report, the group reinvested funding directly into participants by paying facilitators, hiring Black caterers, compensating attendees, and covering barriers that might prevent participation. “We’re going to give you what you need to get where we are,” McWane-Creek said. “Then we can figure out what we can do together.”

Success attracted additional investments from foundations, the University of Minnesota, and state agencies, allowing the organization to expand leadership development, strategic planning, and cooperative purchasing initiatives.

For McWane-Creek, the lesson is clear. “It doesn’t take a lot [of] opportunities for everyone to thrive,” she said. “Everything we need is already here. All we have to do is have the courage to invest in it.”

As Tabata put it, “Community wealth is collective.”

Indigenous Leaders Describe Natural Cooperation

Long before co-operatives were formally organized in 19th-century Europe, Indigenous communities around the world had already developed systems of shared ownership, mutual aid, and communal economics. In one panel discussion, Anishinaabe leaders described a worldview in which collective responsibility is not a modern business model but a way of life. Panelists explained that the Ojibwe clan system has historically assigned roles and responsibilities that strengthen communities through shared labor, stewardship, and mutual care.

Giizh (Sarah) Agaton Howes, whose Heart Berry produces Ojibwe art, blankets, and homewares, said fellow entrepreneurs are not seen as rivals. Collaborative success creates jobs that build stronger communities; she partners with Seattle-based Eighth Generation.

Jeff Savage, a member of the Bear Clan, described how his clan’s role as providers and protectors shaped his family’s traditions. For decades, his family has harvested wild rice, tapped maple trees, gardened, and gathered food as acts of responsibility to relatives and neighbors. 

David Wise recounted that recurring dreams — featuring his ancestor Chief Buffalo — inspired him to bring bison back to his community. With support from family, neighbors, and tribal partners, he transformed that vision into a working ranch. Community members volunteered to build fencing, while tribal partnerships helped establish a herd that now supplies Indigenous-owned restaurants and strengthens economic ties among ranchers.

Panelists spoke of sharing knowledge, food, labor, and mentorship across generations, ensuring that each person receives guidance before being encouraged to lead others.

They also noted that Ojibwe teachings emphasize a “symbiotic relationship” with all living things, including animals, plants, water, air, and the land itself. We are born into a collective that includes the entire natural world, with responsibilities to care for relationships rather than claim ownership over them.

How to Expand Co-op Culture

Several current and former lawmakers, moderated by Jennifer Wickman of Cooperative Network, discussed how government can help communities build more democratic, locally owned economies.

Rep. Paul Anderson, a longtime farmer and legislator from central Minnesota, pointed to agriculture’s long cooperative tradition. “Farmers were one of the first groups to organize together,” he said. “There is power in leverage, in working together, in doing things together.”

Minneapolis City Council member Soren Stevenson indicated that cooperatives can become a powerful tool against housing displacement. He highlighted the potential of Tenant Opportunity to Purchase legislation, which would allow renters the first opportunity to buy their building when it goes up for sale.

Legislators, said State Senator Aric Putnam of Saint Cloud, are “points of articulation” who connect communities with resources rather than dictate solutions. “It’s not my vision of changing the world that’s most important. It’s our vision of how to change the world. I think that approach is really important in governance as well. Sometimes that is challenging because you’re talking to people you disagree with, but that’s also the nature of democracy.”

Former legislator Liz Olson, now working at McKnight Foundation after serving eight years in the Minnesota House, described cooperatives as “schools for democracy.” Borrowing the phrase “civic gyms,” she argued that democratic participation requires practice. “It’s like a muscle,” Olson said. “If we don’t use it, it begins to atrophy.” Whether serving on a co-op board or voting in member elections, cooperative members gain experience making collective decisions and exercising civic responsibility.

Stevenson added that democracy depends on trust between neighbors. “We cannot be democratic citizens if we are alone,” he said. “A democratic citizen has to know their neighbors.”

Panelists also emphasized that policy alone cannot create stronger communities.”We don’t have policy problems,” Olson said. “We have power problems.” Building that power, she argued, begins with people organizing in their neighborhoods, workplaces, and cooperatives long before legislation reaches the Capitol.

Audience members reinforced the urgency of the discussion, particularly around affordable housing and financing for resident-owned communities. Manufactured home co-operative leaders called for stronger tenant protections and better financing tools to help residents purchase their parks before investors acquire them.

As the session concluded, the panel returned to the conference’s central message: cooperation is about more than business. It is about ownership, participation, and shared responsibility.

“We subscribe to stuff. We rent stuff. We don’t own stuff anymore,” said Putnam. “What you’re talking about at this summit is a culture of ownership.”

The discussion ended not with a list of legislative priorities, but with a broader challenge: strengthen democracy by giving more people meaningful opportunities to build, govern, and own together.

 

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