Founded in 2005, FCI’s 1st major milestone came in 2010 when the Blooming Prairie Foundation committed $1 million in grant funding to enable FCI to incorporate as a 501c3 non-profit development center that would have the skills and capacity to serve dozens of communities working to open their own food co-ops annually. And we have been successful!
In recognition of Stuart’s contributions and our success furthering our mission, we are announcing the creation of the FCI Cooperative Futures Fund. We are asking the co-op community to come together to build a $1 million fund to ensure FCI can continue its successful work supporting the creation of new food co-ops across the country.
The FCI Cooperative Futures Fund will be utilized to:
Establish a reserves fund: For our first 12 years, FCI has relied entirely on annual grants and donations. This leaves our work vulnerable to any shift in support from our annual funders — we operate year-to-year without significant reserves. The Fund will provide those reserves, ensuring our mission can continue even when grant funds aren’t reliable, guaranteeing a financial runway that will allow us to pivot and find new resources.
Build the movement: There is an increasing demand for more of these resources as well for new resources to meet the quickly-changing landscape of grocery co-op organizing, but our staff capacity is at its limits. We have the knowledge and the plans to meet these needs, but we must build our organization’s capacity to take our work to the next level. The Fund will support our ability to build new ways forward and unleash new programs for the startup food co-op movement, purposefully and strategically.
Right now we have a record-number of new inquiries coming in from communities across the country that want to learn how to start their own food cooperatives, and the majority of these inquiries are coming from long underserved communities in rural areas and/or in BIPOC communities. These are the communities that the cooperative model above all exists to empower, and we need to be ready to meet the need.
Can you be part of FCI’s future success and give generously?