Food Co-op Initiative

Join us for a one-of-a-kind conversation to learn more about and celebrate two powerful years of leadership at FCI! Faye Mack, brought to FCI her passion for the cooperative movement and food justice in November of 2022 when she stepped into the role of FCI’s Executive Director. From day 1, Faye started making an impact not just on how FCI operates, but on the success of the startup food co-op movement. Our new Interim Executive Director, JQ Hannah, (previously FCI’s Director of Programming for a decade) will be interviewing Faye about her time with FCI, her accomplishments, and her insights into the startup food co-op movement. ?Tuesday, March 18th at 4p eastern/3p central/2p mountain/1p pacific and share with us in this warm and informal opportunity to learn from Faye’s experience! Join the event at this link:? https://lnkd.in/dKVMJvVn If you’d like to receive a calendar invite to the event with the Zoom link, email us at [email protected]

Registration is NOW OPEN for our FCI Live 2025 virtual conference: * Twenty total sessions, all NEW topics! * all sessions FREE with registration! Q: It says this event is focused on the needs of startup food co-ops, can others attend? A: We absolutely welcome technical assistance providers, funders, and established food co-op leaders that support the startup food co-op movement to join us for these sessions - just keep in mind startups organizers will be prioritized in the Q&A portion of sessions! Find the entire line up HERE: www.fci.coop/FCIlive/ The goals of FCI Live are: to make needed startup expertise and surfacing trends in the movement rapidly accessible to as many startup organizers as possible; to create a space for important movement conversations; to amplify the voices of current and emerging leaders of the startup food co-op movement

Our 2nd annual Black Food Co-op Futures series has continued with the thoughts of some of the current creators of Black-led food co-op history. We are honored to have featured Korita Steverson, Darnell Adams, Bahni Turpin, and Eric Simpson in our second week of celebration and to be kicking off our third week of celebration with the words of Anthony Goodwin, Ph.D - you can read some of what they had to say here, in the images below, and read more about them on our Facebook/Instagram posts. We'll be featuring over half a dozen more current Black food co-op history makers in our series before Black History Month ends, we hope you enjoy the series and welcome your feedback/ideas for next year's celebratory series!

The feedback to our 2nd annual Black Food Co-op Futures series has been incredible already! We love hearing that you are as excited about this look into the current and future history-makers of food cooperation as we are. Thank you to all the food cooperators - both GMs and staff of established food co-ops, and boards and organizers of startup food co-ops - who have reached out to let us know how much this series means to you and that you want us to keep it coming! We are honored to have featured Gabrielle Davis and Erica H. in the second half of our first week of celebration, you can read some of what they had to say here, in the images below, and read more about them on our Facebook/Instagram posts. There are many more to come in the series!

We are announcing the beginning of a new chapter for Food Co-op Initiative! For the last several months, the board and staff of FCI have been working together on an important leadership transition for our organization, one we’d now like to share with you — FCI’s cooperative partners and friends. We can't sum up this transition in just a sentence or two, so we hope you'll read our letter at the link below: https://lnkd.in/grJSUwjt Thank you for your on-going support of FCI and the startup food co-op movement! The FCI Team

We asked Allanah Hines, a food cooperative movement leader for over a decade, what the words, "Black food co-op futures" mean to her: "Black food co-op futures are a powerful continuation of the Black food cooperative movement—an unbroken legacy of resilience, innovation, and mutual aid that has endured since our African American ancestors first set foot on this land. This future is a vibrant, self-sustaining ecosystem where Black communities own the means of food production and distribution, where prosperity is shared, and where food justice is not an aspiration but a reality. This future is not distant—it is being built now, woven with the same threads of solidarity and liberation that have always sustained us." Allanah was the first-ever Diversity and Inclusion Manager at Weaver Street Market and rose to lead as the co-op's board chair as well, where she worked directly with startup food co-ops in her region; Hines is now putting her passion and expertise for the food co-op movement to work as an independent consultant in community food strategy and cooperative thought leadership. Thank you for being such a constant advocate for startup food co-ops, Allanah!

Food Co-op Initiative will again be celebrating Black History Month by celebrating Black Food Co-op *FUTURES* - we'll be sharing (via our Facebook and Instagram pages) thoughts from living food co-op history-makers who are right now creating the history that future generations will build from. We hope you will join us for the series, and if there's someone who is a current startup food co-op leader/champion that you'd love to see featured in the series (including yourself, don't be shy!) please let us know at [email protected]

Michigan is ALL IN for supporting the startup food co-op movement! Not only was PFC Natural Grocery & Deli in Kalamazoo, MI the 2024 local host co-op of the Up & Coming Conference, *the* national conference of the startup food co-op movement, but they have doubled down on their support and will return as our 2025 Up & Coming local host co-op! Aaaaand we'll be back in the mitten for 2026 with the Detroit People's Food Co-op as our local host, the *first startup food co-op* to ever host the conference after opening their doors! Thank you, Michigan food co-ops!

We are excited to announce that Food Co-op Initiative is looking to grow our staff team! We are now hiring for the new role of: Startup Support Manager Location: Remote/National? Supervisor: Director of Programming? Exempt / Full-time As the Startup Support Manager, you will play a crucial role in FCI’s technical assistance for startup food co-ops. Organizing and opening a food co-op is multi-faceted and FCI’s technical assistance programs help startups navigate all aspects of their development, from community organizing to business planning to fundraising. You will build your expertise on startup food co-op development, and will help startups utilize emerging and best practices to make decisions that will be right for their co-op and their community. Applications are due Wednesday, December 4th, 2024 The job description, compensation, and benefits information for this position can be found our website at www.fci.coop/employment/