Session materials from “Cooperatives Investing in Cooperatives,” presented by Maggie Cohn and Mark Fick at NASCO Institute 2016.
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Cooperative businesses in the US control $3 trillion in assets and create $500 billion in revenue annually. But most of these assets are lost to the extractive economy rather than being reinvested into cooperative enterprises. This session will offer examples of how cooperatives and individuals are investing their financial resources directly into the cooperative economy using loan funds and community development financial institutions. We will talk about balancing our requirements as cooperative lenders with our needs as cooperative borrowers and explore how concepts of debt and credit can work within the cooperative principles.
