NCBA helps co-ops compete in time of change
he National Cooperative
Business Association
(NCBA) is a national
membership organization
representing cooperatives
of all types and in all industries. Its
members operate in areas including
agricultural supply and marketing, childcare,
energy, financial services, health
care, housing, insurance, telecommunications,
purchasing and shared services,
and food distribution and retailing.
Through its education, co-op development,
public policy and international
development programs, NCBA
helps co-ops compete in a changing
economic and political environment. It
also provides a strong, unified voice for
co-ops on Capitol Hill.
Founded in 1916, the National
Cooperative Business Association was
known as the Cooperative League of
the USA until 1985. It was the first
national organization for cooperatives.
Although NCBA’s name has changed
over the years, its primary mission
never has. For nearly 90 years it has
been dedicated to developing, advancing
and protecting cooperatives.
In the United States, NCBA has
played a key role in creating many new
self-help organizations to support the
cooperative sector. It helped form
North American Students of
Cooperation in 1946, the National
Association of Housing Cooperatives
in 1950, Parent Cooperative
Preschools International in 1960,
Cooperative Business International in
1984, and both Cooperation Works!
and the Cooperative Grocers
Information Network in 1999. In the
1970s, NCBA lobbied Congress to
create the federally chartered National
Cooperative Bank.
In the 1990s, NCBA played a leading
role in convincing Congress to
establish the USDA’s Rural Cooperative
Development Grants program as
a new source of funding for cooperatives
in rural areas. The program has
since provided more than $35 million
to a network of centers nationwide that
help develop cooperatives that enhance
farmers’ income and boost rural
economies. Today, NCBA remains a
strong advocate for increased funding
for the program.
In 2000, NCBA brought co-ops to
the cutting edge of technology by winning
approval for a new top-level
Internet domain exclusively for cooperatives.
The new domain, .coop, joins
.com and .org at the end of web and email
addresses. The .coop registry,
launched in January 2002, has registered
more than 8,000 .coop Internet
addresses.
Over the past half century, NCBA
has also played a prominent role in
making cooperatives a key component
of international development policy.
In 1944, it formed the Freedom Fund
to help cooperatives recover in wartorn
Europe. The following year, it
played an integral role in creating the
Cooperative for American
Remittances to Europe, which provided
economic relief to war-torn
Europe. Today we all know this organization
as CARE.
Since the 1950s, in partnership with
the U.S. Agency for International
Development, NCBA’s CLUSA
International Program has managed
more than 200 long-term international
development projects in 53 countries.
Today, NCBA is using its development
expertise to help troubled inner
cities. Its new Urban Cooperative
Development Initiative seeks to expand
the role of cooperatives in creating
economic opportunity in inner cities,
both through self-help and legislative
solutions.
As it looks to the future, NCBA
continues to address the challenges
facing cooperatives and to identify
solutions that will help co-ops overcome
those challenges. Its current
agenda includes countering efforts to
limit or repeal cooperative tax exemptions
and studying the conversion of
co-ops to other business structures. In
addition, in recent months, NCBA has
organized opposition to a ruling by a
national accounting standards board
that threatens to throw the balance
sheets of thousands of co-ops into
chaos by reclassifying member equity
as debt.
With these and other issues in
mind, in early 2004 the NCBA board
approved formation of a Cooperative
Tax and Finance Council that will
focus on key cross-sector legal, financial
and tax issues.
Contact information: website:
www.ncba.coop; Phone: (202) 638-6222.
Address: 1401 New York Ave. NW,
Suite 1100, Washington, D.C. 20005.
President and CEO: Paul Hazen; Board
Chair: Ann Hoyt.
