Week 2

March 30 — April 2, 2026

Monday, March 30, 2026 at 1 PM E / 12 PM C / 11 AM M / 10 AM P 

Public Officials as your Co-op’s Champions 

Faye Mack, Faye Mack Consulting 

Public officials have a lot of power. They can be vital champions for your co-op… or they can throw up roadblocks. From local administrators on up to members of Congress, strong relationships with public officials can open doors to funding, help you navigate government bureaucracy, and bring positive public attention to your co-op. In this session, you will learn about the ways public officials can support your co-op’s development, how to identify officials to focus on, and the importance of actively maintaining those relationships. Drawing from her experience as a co-op board leader during a major expansion project and years cultivating public officials in advocacy campaigns, Faye Mack will share tangible strategies, tips, and lessons learned. You’ll leave feeling more confident and ready to make a plan with your team! 

Register Here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=305

Monday, March 30, 2026 at 3 PM E / 2 PM C / 1 PM M / 12 PM P 

Resilient Digital Infrastructures for Start-Up Co-ops

Ahzjah Simons, Digico; Johnny Chirse and Rickey Bailey, Novaworks Corps

Cooperatives are increasingly recognizing the value and need for digital tools for governance, member engagement, operations, payments, communications, community building and more. Yet many start-up co-ops adopt technology reactively—without a clear digital strategy, shared ownership lens, or basic cybersecurity and resilience framework. This session reframes digital security and resilience not as fear-based compliance, but as a cooperative capacity-building opportunity—one that strengthens trust, protects member data, enables collaboration, and supports long-term sustainability across all cooperative types. Using a Zoom Out → Zoom In structure, presenters will move from ecosystem-level context to actionable steps that co-ops can apply immediately through shared services and platform approaches.

Register here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=315

Monday, March 30, 2026 at 7 PM E / 6 PM C / 5 PM M / 4 PM P 

Anchors in the Storm: Cooperative Grocers Holding Community Through Crisis

Facilitated by Tamah Yisrael, TMH Solutions Hub with Panelists I’Talia McCarthy, Dill Pickle Food Co-op and Raynardo Williams, Seward Community Co-op

When communities face racial trauma, economic pressure, or fear rooted in state violence and immigration enforcement, where do people gather? Who keeps the doors open? Who holds the line? Grocery cooperatives often serve as both food providers and community stabilizers. They are places of employment, ownership, safety, and trust. In this conversation, general managers reflect on what it means to lead community-owned institutions through moments of tension and transformation. From responding to local unrest to supporting immigrant neighbors, these leaders share how cooperative economics becomes a practical tool for care, dignity, and collective power. This panel affirms the cooperative model not just as a business structure—but as an infrastructure for resilience.

Register: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=325

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 at 10 AM E / 9 AM C / 8 AM M / 7AM P 

Need: Food Access. Solution: Grocery Store? 

Anne Misak, Reinvestment Fund 

You know your community, and you know what it needs – access to fresh, high quality food. So how to meet this need? The first answer that comes to most of us is “build a grocery store in our neighborhood.” Yet, there are multiple ways to get the food your community deserves into it, and pros and cons to each. Anne Misak, Program Director of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, leads an organization that has supported and helped fund community-led food access initiatives across the US since 2017, In this session, FCI’s JQ Hannah will talk with Anne about the multiple ways communities can meet this need – a grocery store only being one of them – and examples of each. Both will discuss when a grocery store can be the right, immediate solution and when other initiatives first might be the way to build the strongest cooperative food future for your community.

Registration link: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=326

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 at 1 PM E / 12 PM C / 11 AM M / 10 AM P 

Lessons from a Lifetime in a Food Co-op 

Jan Rasikas, Viroqua Food Co+op

Starting as a passionate, but green, cooperator, Jan Rasikas joined the team just one year after Viroqua Food Co+op opened its doors in 1995. After taking the GM spot in 1999, she has grown her cooperative wisdom while leading the co-op through multiple store expansions and mentoring dozens of cooperators and startup organizers along the way. Having lived both the scrappy early days of the co-op and the long-term realities of operating a thriving, open grocery store, Jan brings a rare, full-arc perspective. She’ll share what she believes organizers should always keep in mind as we build cooperative food futures for our communities.

Register here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=316

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 at 3 PM E / 2 PM C / 1 PM M / 12 PM P 

Grocery Industry Basics for Startups

Jade Barker, Columinate

While opening a food co-op is something to celebrate, it’s only one step in a longer journey. A food co-op can only serve a community as long as it remains open. What challenges does an independent grocery store face, and what makes financial sustainability so challenging? Come learn about the retail grocery landscape and the forces that make “affordable” prices so difficult to achieve. In this workshop, we’ll cover broad national trends and review the co-op budget “pie”—the typical expenses of an operating food co-op. While this workshop will not make you a grocer, it can help you rightsize your expectations of what your co-op can achieve. Knowledge is power. Be prepared.

Register here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=306

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 at 7 PM E / 6 PM C / 5 PM M / 4 PM P

Stage 5: Post-Open Startup Organizing

JQ Hannah, FCI 

Startup organizing doesn’t end at the grand opening of your co-op’s retail grocery store – the Vision wasn’t just to open the doors, but to build a stable, successful business that will be around to serve your community for years to come. This final stage is about the critical work it takes to transform your fledgling store into an established food co-op. There are deeply important roles for the Board, the GM, the member-owners, and trusted advisors in getting to this Stage of development. This session will explore what we know so far about this newly identified, post-open development Stage and how to navigate it. 

Register here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=323

Wednesday, April 1, 2026 at 1 PM E / 12 PM C / 11 AM M / 10 AM P 

Co-op + Non-profit Collaboration 

Facilitation by Nicole Klimek and Heather Lazickas of seven roots, with Panelists: Guy Cousins, Janiqua Jackson, and Byron White from Three Sisters Market and Elliott Royal, West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition 

How Charlotte’s Three Sisters Market and West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition have navigated co-developing physical space and two robust community organizations to support their future food co-op. Working through big changes and growth of their orgs and teams, these cooperators have worked through challenges and pioneered working relationships by prioritizing their mission on behalf of West Charlotte.

Register here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=307

Wednesday, April 1, 2026 at 3 PM E / 2 PM C / 1 PM M / 12 PM P

Don’t Fling Power: the Secret to GM Transition

Bonnie Hudspeth, Firebrand and JQ Hannah, FCI

There are“working” boards and “governing” boards – one is the way startup food co-op boards function before the store is opened, and then a flip at store opening – right? Nope! From studying and working with startup food co-op GM transitions for the last decade, FCI has identified a unique and critical stage of governance between being a working board and a governing board that spans from when the opening GM is hired to when a startup graduates from Stage 5 organizing. In this session, we’ll review what the transitional governance stage is and what it means to transition “operations” to a GM effectively, rather than fling responsibility at a brand new GM that sets both your GM relationship and possibly your co-op’s entire future on a rocky path.

Register here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=308

Wednesday, April 1, 2026 at 7 PM E / 6 PM C / 5 PM M / 4 PM P 

Leading through the Co-op’s Toughest Year 

Facilitated by Hether Jonna of Columinate with Panelists: Leslee Keri & Nina Arora Rowland from Prairie Food Co-op, and Scott Brix from Food Shed Co-op

Board members from Food Shed Co-op (opened summer 2024) and Prairie Food Co-op (opened summer 2025) will come together for a facilitated, candid conversation reflecting on what it’s really been like to govern during the first year of their stores being open —when expectations are high, resources are stretched, and the learning curve is steep. Opening a grocery store sometimes includes missing one or more important operational mark, followed by gradual improvement as operations improve, systems stabilize, and customer habits begin to form. Assumptions carried into opening—about sales ramp-up, member engagement, pricing tolerance, community awareness, marketing effectiveness, staffing, and operational readiness – will be discussed. Speakers will reflect on how they adjusted thinking and priorities and how governance dynamics shifted under pressure.

Register here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=317

Thursday, April 2, 2026 at 1 PM E / 12 PM C / 11 AM M / 10 AM P

Foundations for Effective Store Openings

Andy Huth, Sara Fulton-Koerbling, and Angela Bozo, INFRA
Join INFRA for a high-level exploration of both strategies and tactics to ensure a smooth and successful store opening. Topics include customer first impressions, opening promotional strategies, events at multiple scales and an opening sales primer for sales planning. Although the content is intentionally broad so ideas can be leveraged to highlight specific store attributes, much of the foundation is a playbook that can be used to fit your unique store’s needs.

Register here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=309

Thursday, April 2, 2026 at 3 PM E / 2 PM C / 1 PM M / 12 PM P 

AI and a Cooperative Future: Values, Voice, and Choice 

Facilitator Ahzjah Simons, DigiCo, with panelists Ray Simpkins, Outpost Natural Foods; Johnny Chirse, Novaworks Corps; Amber Jones, Namberjo Consulting; Allanah Hines, NCG; Arda Ungun, Start.coop

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how businesses operate — and cooperatives are asking important questions about where they fit in this new landscape. In this FCI Live panel, we’ll explore AI through a cooperative lens, creating space for curiosity, caution, and possibility. Rather than debating about AI or the use of it,” this conversation invites panelists and attendees to consider how cooperative values like transparency, democratic governance, equity, and shared ownership can guide responsible exploration of emerging technologies. 

Panelists will discuss how startup co-ops and small businesses can approach AI thoughtfully, from governance and decision-making to cybersecurity and the future of work. We’ll also explore how cooperatives might lead in shaping people-centered innovation and reimagining new economic opportunities in an AI-driven world.

Whether you’re excited, skeptical, or simply curious, this session is designed to meet you where you are and assist our co-op community think forward together.

Register: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=327

Thursday, April 2, 2026 at 7 PM E / 6 PM C / 5 PM M / 4 PM P

Effective GM/Board Relationship: Building and Transition

Sam McCormick & Leah Ciappenelli, Assabet Co-op Market

The shift from startup board to GM-led operations is one of the most critical, and most fragile, phases in a food co-op’s development. Across the country, many startups are struggling with unclear roles, leadership turnover, and governance growing pains during this transition.  In this practical and interactive session, leadership from Assabet Co-op Market will share their real-world experience navigating the GM/Board transition from pre-opening through post-launch growth. Together, the Board Chair and General Manager will highlight three important anchors for a healthy transition: clarifying roles early (and often), investing in the relationship before tension arises, and recognizing that governance maturity is an ongoing evolution, not a single handoff moment.  The goal is for you to leave with concrete tools and reflection prompts to strengthen your own GM/Board partnerships.

Register here: https://crm.fci.coop/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=318