Co-Op Conundrum Article in Wednesday's Columbian
Rory Bowman
which may be viewed at http://www.columbian.com/article/20090121/COMMUNITY03/701219996/-1/COMMUNITY
Titled "Co-Op Conundrum: Vancouver Food Cooperative's founders believe
west Vancouver needs and can support a store, but feasibility study,
economy complicate efforts" by Laura McVicker, it appeared on page D1
of the "Life" section for January 21, 2009.
Folks who wish to may view the article online and (after registering)
make their own comments, as both Heather Lehman and I have done. The
gist of my take on the article and events it describes are as follows.
It is my considered judgement that Vancouver Food Cooperative has been
destroyed by poor leadership, and that any objective view of its
progress indicates a deeply-troubled organization with a long history
of failing to deliver on what few promises it makes. Under the
leadership of Sunrise O'Mahoney and a few key personal friends, it has
shown a total inability to productively work with volunteers, convey
any specific vision, communicate with the public or owners and
organize toward any clearly-defined goal on any sort of schedule. It
is my personal judgement that Lehman and O'Mahoney meant well in the
beginning, but that both of them have been over their heads for years
now, primarily using the organization as a high-status hobby, which
happens to pad their resumes.
Rah-rah support of the good-hearted is a noble habit, but by failing
to provide a clear plan or maintain transparency and accountability,
VFC as an organization has lost its vision and literally dozens of key
volunteers. Although they have the support of many good people who are
extremely charitable and forgiving, charity and naivete alone will
never open a sustainable store. O'Mahoney and Lehman have approached
this project from the beginning as if it were a charitable non-profit,
but that will not work. Cooperatives that survive are businesses, and
most businesses (cooperative or not) fail. To quote Phil Kreitner from
the 1977 "winds through the pines" symposium in Texas, "A co-op that
is not run first and foremost as a business won't be around long
enough to start any kind of revolution." Any strategy that relies on
grants and charity for more than incidental support will fail.
VFC, as an organization, suffers from an odd contradiction: it wants
to listen to some experts but ignore others, without acknowledging the
selectivity and arbitrary nature of its ignorance. Much is made of
support from the Food Co-Op 500, but most of their advice (dispensed
through webinars) is ignored. It accepts grant money and uses the
service of Cooperative Development Services, but does not study other
operating co-ops closer to home, such as the three different co-ops in
Portland or small-scale success stories such as the Yelm Cooperative.
The CDS consultants have suggested a 6000-square-foot store and
provided clear benchmarks towards such an effort. VFC accepts the
size, for example, but ignores the benchmarks. The problem with things
in the physical world is that they must be built in the physical
world, where money and time and momentum matter. What few timelines
and goals that VFC shares, it consistently misses and then ignores.
VFC cannot even feel on schedule.
The goal to "open big" with such a large store is a bold one, and to
the best of my knowledge has only happened twice in recent memory:
with Just Foods in Minnesota under Stuart Reid and with the River
Valley Market in Northampton, Massachusetts, under Rochelle Prunty.
Techniques and lessons from these projects are frequently cited by
Cooperative Development Services consultants, but almost no one within
VFC is even aware of these projects, or the obstacles and problems
they encountered under the expert guidance of cooperators with a
life's worth of real-world food co-op experience. This "open big"
model is clearly a difficult one, and by every reasonable measure, VFC
has utterly failed to make progress toward it in time, money or owner
numbers. Such failure does not bring improvements, but only more of
the same behaviors that failed before.
A much more logical strategy for a cooperative in Vancouver is to open
small and then expand over a period of decades. This was the strategy
that worked for People's Food Co-op in Portland, as well as Food
Front. Food Front did not open with 6000 square feet but moved four
times over twenty years: from 1500 square feet to 2500, then to 4000,
then to 6000. After over a decade in their largest space, they were
able to open a second store of a similar size. Alberta Cooperative
Grocery in NE Portland has opened within the past few years at 3000
square feet, and is something similar to what CDS suggests, but on a
modest scale that might actually work for west Vancouver. A 1000-
square-foot store such as that in Yelm could be opened within a few
months and operated for a full year for less than $100,000. The
numbers and expertise are clearly present for Vancouver, but it is my
belief that the corporation known as Vancouver Food Cooperative cannot
do it.
I encourage everyone who is concerned about a food co-op in Vancouver
to visit and comment on The Columbian article, so that discussion
about a food co-op in Vancouver can occur at a larger level than VFC
has been able to achieve. I don't think that VFC can do it, but I
firmly believe that Vancouver can.
Please visit and weigh in at http://www.columbian.com/article/20090121/COMMUNITY03/701219996/-1/COMMUNITY