Our vision is that the whole world becomes a cooperative

Paul is from the State of Wisconsin, where there are more cooperatives than in any other state, thus he was involved in cooperation from a very tender age, even without being absolutely conscious about it. “I didn’t really understand the significance of cooperatives when I was growing up. It was a part of the daily life and it’s just something you took for granted.”

Later at University, while following an Economics degree from the University of Wisconsin, he understood the true meaning of cooperation and soon became a complete cooperative’s advocator. “I realized that cooperatives not only benefited the community from an economic stand point but from a social stand point. These businesses were there to do more than just benefit their members financially, they were trying to improve the community and help everyone improve their lives. That inspired me and was one of the reasons why I wanted to have a career in cooperatives”.

A lot has been said about the role the cooperative sector is called to play and the importance of joint actions across the movement, but less is known about how to do it. With regard to the Americas, identifying the opportunities for business development for US coops in Latin America as well as opportunities for cooperative development where US organizations could work with local coops in Latin America seems to be a good starting point. “We would access US government money to do this or World Bank money or Inter-American Development Bank money but in order to do that we need to have partners in Latin America, cooperatives in Latin America”, Hazen said.

NCBA is currently investigating a cooperative development project in Colombia and there is another project with Nicaragua and El Salvador. “An effort is being made in order to put together our contacts in Colombia with our folks here and work for opportunities for development. We are also trying to do a link trade between cooperatives in Nicaragua and El Salvador and food cooperatives in the United States”, he stated. Even when there is not so much interaction today, the good thing is that there is a potential to grow globally and to generate business relationships that will benefit cooperatives both in North and Latin America.

During the conversation, he came up with an idea to link coops in Latin America with coops in the US thus, transforming a weakness of the movement into an opportunity. “We are not attracting people who have just arrived to the US to cooperatives and since a lot of our immigrants come from south of our border, maybe there is an opportunity for cooperatives in Latin America when their members come north to get them involved with coops in the US.”

Amidst the capitalist economic crisis we are facing, the cooperative movement enters a more pro-active phase with its message that affirms co-operatives are an alternative to other modes of business and a better business model. After a long wait, cooperatives in the US count with the data to prove it, thanks to the "Research on the Economic Impact of Cooperatives”. Highlighting the importance of this research Hazen declared “We’ve never had a comprehensive study that assessed the economic impact of cooperatives in the United States before. This is the first time, which is significant. It will help us make the case for cooperatives before Congress and the Obama administration and the media. This is very powerful and the next step will be using this data to do research and analysis in cooperatives and its significance from an economic and social basis in the US economy. We are hoping that countries around the world would do similar things.”

Paul explain that despite the fact that there are lots of cooperatives in the United States –some of them very large- they are pretty much ignored because they are relatively a small part in economy and so policy makers and the media do not necessarily recognize cooperatives as having any impact on the national economy. “Hence, the data obtained is fundamental to make the eye that cooperatives are significant.

Co-ops main difference and advantage in coping with the crisis is fundamentally a matter of values and principles. “We are making the same argument, that cooperatives didn’t participate in risk taking and speculations that a lot of other businesses did. Thus, we will be affected by the downturn in the economy but we are not having the same type of financial crisis. We have a couple of our large Credit Unions affected and have been taken over by the government in order to protect their assets. Eventually they will be returned to private cooperative organizations. We are not immune to this at all, but we have a better way to cope with this situation.”

Definitely this is a good time to combat individualism and reassert the message that people working together is the best business model. However, the main weakness of coops in the US is the lack of visibility and understanding of cooperatives. NCBA surveys have revealed that only 40% of the US adult population understands what cooperatives stand for. “But if you explain to them about cooperatives, 66% would rather do business with a cooperative so we have a big gap between those who know about us and those who, if they knew about us, would do business with us, and that’s a weakness but it’s also a great opportunity in the market.”

Adopting the .Coop domain is a way to improve the collective visibility of cooperatives because the more coops use it, the more visible the sector will be. It is a great opportunity for cooperatives to promote their co-operative difference, to differentiate their member owned businesses from a sea of .coms and .orgs. “.Coop is one of the most cost effective ways to market yourself as a cooperative. Right now if you take a look at cooperative addresses at any particular country you’ll find there’s no connection between them. We know that if one person is a member of one type of cooperative they are likely to buy or become a member of another cooperative, but if they don’t know that the other business is a cooperative we are missing an opportunity. This is also a way to promote the global cooperative identity”, Hazen concludes.

Hazen, such a prominent figure in the US cooperative movement, never thought he would have the opportunity to work in cooperatives at a national and international level. “I tell people I am one of the luckiest people in the world for this opportunity that was presented to me”. Aware of the privilege of having been born in a very rich country like the US with plenty of opportunities, he emphasizes people should not take that for granted. “That is one of the reasons why in NCBA we try to have a global view; we try to share cooperatives with people around the world so that everybody has the opportunity to be a member of a cooperative. Our vision is that the whole world becomes a cooperative.”