conclusion: what is a community co-operative?

The examples of community co-operatives show that there are a wide variety of co-operatives that consider themselves to be community co-operatives. The only two characteristics that they all have in common is that all are working do develop their communities socially and economically, and they all have strong community involvement. However, these factors do not necessarily distinguish them from other co-operatives. After all, the seventh co-operative principle is concern for community.

In many ways it would be easiest to simply accept Phyllis Winnington-Ingram's model and decide that community co-operatives are umbrella organisations formed by small geographic communities for their own development. This definition distinguishes them nicely from most other types of co-operatives and provides relatively straightforward examples, particularly the numerous co-operatives in Scotland and the Canadian Arctic. But this tidy definition does not consider the umbrella organisations, like Madison Community Co-operative, that serve a local community by focusing on one specific issue, such as housing. It does not directly deal with community co-operatives that serve a community of interest (often one that is concerned with environmental and/or health issues) within a geographic community. It also excludes many co-operatives, such as the numerous community natural food co-ops, that see themselves as community co-operatives and develop out of a community need, but only officially provide one service. The clear distinction that Winnington-Ingram sees between ends-based and need-based co-operatives does not really exist. Community members may only recognise their needs-or at least realise that they can help to meet these needs-when the opportunity to meet a particular end arises, as it did in the case of the Yeoval community health centre and the Mifflin Street Community Co-op.

In the end, there is no one model of community co-operatives, although they can be loosely broken down into two categories: umbrella organisations and individual projects that serve a community need. This broad view of community co-operatives creates overlap between different categories of co-operative, as a community co-op may also be a forestry co-op or a housing co-op, but this is only a problem for people who want to fit everything into neat little boxes. Generally, a community co-operative is any co-operative that is controlled by, and plays an important role in the development of a community, whether it is a geographic community, a community of interest, or both.

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