IN THE SPOT LIGHT
Mission to Market Co-ops,
MacDonald, NCBA Marketing Committee work
to expand public understanding of cooperatives
By Lindsay Atwood
USDA Rural Development
rue Value hardware.
Ocean Spray
cranberries. Blue
Diamond almonds.
Land O’ Lakes butter.
Dunkin Donuts. Best Western hotels.
Sunkist oranges. These are all common
brand names known by most
Americans. The fact that they are all
cooperative brands separates these
businesses and their products from
others.
Almost half of Americans are
members of cooperatives, although
many are unaware of it, and almost
everyone in America regularly
purchases products produced by
cooperatives. Co-ops are part of the
basic fabric of our daily lives, but too
many Americans are unaware of this, or
of the major role cooperatives play in
the marketplace.
That is all going to change if
Roberta MacDonald has her way.
MacDonald, senior vice president of
marketing for Cabot Creamery
Cooperative in Vermont (part of the
Agri-Mark dairy co-op), was
instrumental in creating the new
Marketing Committee of the National
Cooperative Business Association
(NCBA). As chair of the committee, her
goal is to combat public ignorance of
co-ops. Helping the public to
understand what co-ops are can give coops
a better edge in the marketplace
and spread this member- and
community-oriented business structure.
Spreading the word
Although she makes her living
promoting farmer-owned Cabot
Cheese, MacDonald is a city kid who
did not have a farming or cooperative
background.
“I come from consumer products,
glitzy D.C., New York and San
Francisco,” says MacDonald. “I was
actually somebody that didn’t even
know where milk came from.”
In the almost 20 years since
MacDonald started working for Cabot,
a few things have changed. She credits
her teammates with helping Cabot
grow from a cooperative with $30
million in annual sales to one with $350
million in sales. During that time, she
has come to truly appreciate and
support the cooperative business model.
“Long before I was a zealot about
co-ops, I was a zealot about farmer
ownership,” she says. “I then came to
appreciate what the cooperative
structure meant.”
Understanding and appreciating the
co-op business structure makes her
position with Cabot more than simply a
job. It may be her job to market Cabot,
but her mission is to advocate Cabot’s
cooperative advantage — and the
advantages of cooperatives in general
— to the nation.
“People don’t get that it’s an
alternative to other business structures,
and it can be just as profitable, just as
effective, but certainly…more
transparent,” she says.
From this dedication, both to Cabot
and to the entire cooperative sector,
MacDonald has poured her efforts into
promoting cooperatives. She is well
aware that what is true for Cabot is true
for other co-ops: that on their own, coops
simply do not have enough money
to do serious consumer marketing.
Joining forces is mutually beneficial to
each and every one of them.
“We represent the largest potential
voting bloc of any group in the United
States,” she says. “We are a political
force to be reckoned with if we ever got
together.”
MacDonald was nominated to the
NCBA board about four years ago,
making her goal of promoting co-op
advantages and forging cross-sector coop
alliances more attainable. She used
her position on the board to advocate
the creation of an NCBA Marketing
Committee open to board members and
any cooperative members’ marketing
team leaders.
“The committee was really her idea,”
NCBA President Paul Hazen says.
“She’s a marketing genius.”
“I thought the marketing committee
was the perfect place for the outgoing
chair [of NCBA] to serve as chair,”
MacDonald says. “Instead, what they
did was to make me chair.”
Marketing the co-op advantage
Since its creation, the NCBA
Marketing Committee has developed
some powerful tools for reaching out to
people and educating them about
cooperatives. These tools, including a
new co-op Web site (www.go.coop), a
new introduction to cooperatives video
and a new Girl Scout “Co-ops for
Community” patch, all tout cooperative
advantages. MacDonald played a part in
each of the projects but credits
teamwork for making them all happen.
“No one person accomplishes anything,
if you ask me,” she says. “It’s always a
team.”
Every member of the NCBA
Marketing Committee, which includes
representatives from several cooperative
associations — including the Credit
Union National Association, the
National Rural Electrical Cooperative
Association and the National Council of
Farmer Cooperatives — was crucial to
the effort, she stresses. Staff from
NCBA, dotCooperation LLC (which
oversees the .coop Web URL domain)
and NCB (formerly National
Cooperative Bank) were especially
helpful to the effort, as was the
National Cooperative Grocers
Association. The grocers association
also played a key part in creation of the
.coop URL. Having researched what
consumers thought of cooperatives with
their members, they landed on the Go
Co-op phrase, which was turned into
the committee’s Web site for the
marketing program.
Many cooperatives are already taking
advantage of the .coop URL, but the
committee appreciates that there has to
be serious marketing on an ongoing
basis to increase public awareness. “Too
few people even realize there’s a .coop
URL,” MacDonald says.
As part of National Co-op Month in
October, the NCBA Marketing
Committee launched a month of
sponsorship announcements on
National Public Radio, promoting the
new co-op Web site. “Two weeks into
the campaign, we had thousands of hits
on our Web site and many stayed to
look through all we had to offer,”
MacDonald says.
The Web site is also home to the
video created to educate people about
what co-ops are, what they do and how
they benefit people. The video
highlights housing, electric, grocery,
healthcare, farm and financial co-ops
across the nation. Cabot, along with
NCBA, also spearheaded the effort to
create the Girl Scouts “Co-ops for
Community” patch program as a part of
the overall co-op awareness campaign.
“Roberta has always wished to do
something to spread
the word on what coops
are,” says Deb
Lowery, the National
Girl Scouts project
coordinator for Cabot
Creamery. This is one
way she has been able
to directly involve coops
in teaching the
next generation about
how they can
personally become
involved.
“I probably
have about 200 orders
[for information
packets on the co-op
merit badge program]
that have come in
from cooperatives,” Lowery says.
“There’s a tremendous amount of
interest. The orders for the booklets are
just coming in hand over foot.”
Although the booklets were created
for Girl Scouts, MacDonald emphasizes
that any children and youth
organizations can use the materials.
“I think once 4-H gets hold of it, it’ll
go a lot of places,” she says. “It’s not
just for Girl Scouts.”
The benefits of this Girl Scouts
patch program are in keeping with
MacDonald’s long-term goals for the
future of cooperatives. She wants to get
young people interested in co-ops,
understanding co-ops and involved in
co-ops.
“When you get kids involved from
an early age in anything, it becomes
second-nature to them,” Lowery says. “The
value is in the education process and
teaching kids these things from the very
beginning. It becomes more natural to
them.”
Just as technology and computers have
become second-nature to America’s
younger generations, they hope that
cooperatives will do the same.
Long-term vision
All of these efforts and accomplishments
by the NCBA Marketing Committee
support MacDonald’s vision for co-ops.
She foresees “wild success” for co-ops in
the future, but says advancing the
cooperative business model must itself be
an exercise in cooperation.
“We did it the first time,” she says of the
committee’s work, “but other people have
to pick up the gauntlet.”
She is convinced that co-ops’ biggest
priority has to be educating the next
generation about co-ops and the power of
what she considers the most democratic
form of business. Perhaps it will give them
a reason to believe that they don’t have to
mistrust business.
All the responsibility should not be laid
on co-ops, though, MacDonald says. Her
greatest hope is that business schools will
start teaching more about cooperatives.
“Cooperatives are the better business
model,” she says. “I see cooperatives as
healing the world, bringing peace,
educating.” Co-ops are typically much
more community oriented than other types
of businesses, some of which are now trying
to emulate the co-op philosophy of “giving
back to the community.”
It is this cooperative difference that
keeps MacDonald going — day after day,
week after week, year after year. “I
absolutely love the people I work with, so I
have this great sense of contribution and
accomplishment,” she says. “It’s very
satisfying to my soul.”
For MacDonald, serving cooperatives is
not about the money; it’s not about the
recognition; it’s not about the status. It is all
about devoting her life to a worthy cause.
It’s a mission you can’t put a price on.
