Cooperative Capital Fund

The Cooperative Capital Fund of New England (CCF) is a socially responsible investment fund that invests in cooperative businesses in the form of "patient capital,” or equity-like financing. CCF assists the New England cooperative industry to grow and flourish by providing capital that acts like equity without requiring co-ops to give up control over their own management and destiny, as traditional venture capital might.

To download our brochure click here. To download a prospectus click here

To apply first call our office. You can download an application for funds click here

MISSION

CCF supports new and existing, co-operative and democratically owned and controlled enterprises, with preference to those that serve low-income communities. CCF shall accomplish its mission through:

• the provision of equity-like capital at reasonable rates and terms, with respect for the democratic owners and managers of the enterprise;

• the development of an investment opportunity that promotes cooperative enterprise;

• the creation of a mechanism through which cooperatives can invest in the development and expansion of cooperative business in our region; and

• the creation of an opportunity to Invest for “social return” in addition to economic return

It is the intent of CCF to build a more just economic system by:

• creating the possibility for systemic change that lifts people out of poverty;

• opening up conventional capital markets for cooperative businesses previously left out; and

• supporting and sustaining cooperative businesses that provide environmental, economic and social benefit.

GOALS

The central goals of CCF’s initial fund are as follows:

• To catalyze and deepen the core mission of CFNE by providing much-needed and currently unavailable capital to new and existing cooperative businesses in New England;

• To create a replicable model that can be learned from and repeated in-house as well as applied in other geographic regions and eventually on a national scale;

• To cultivate continued cross-communication, cross-investment and activism within the Cooperative community;

• To provide cooperatives, and other socially responsible investors with the opportunity to earn fixed-rate financial returns while making direct investments in cooperative businesses, and help realize the development and expansion of a cooperative economy; and

• To increase the exposure of CFNE and cooperative businesses within the financial, charitable and cooperative communities, attracting further investments and grants.

OTHER INFORMATION

• Our goal is to raise $1 million of investments in this fund plus 15% first loss money ($1.15 million of capital). Any losses the fund experiences beyond the anticipated loss reserve would be absorbed by the first loss money before impacting the other invested capital. Funds in the first round must be recived by December 31, 2009.

• Investments in the fund come from the coop community and from socially responsible individual,s faith based and institutional investors, and earn 5% interest annually.

• To meet the capital needs of co-ops CCF makes investments in $10,000 to $150,000 in the form of preferred stock, subordinated notes or similar instruments and provide a likely exit for the fund in 5 to 8 years. The cost of funds to the coop is significantly less than traditional venture capital and more than collateralized debt. These funds will have the ability to leverage additional debt for the coops.

• The fund is be a separate organization affiliated with CFNE

• For more information call 1-800-818-7833

To download a prospectus click here

Attachment	Size
CCF Investment Application and intake form.pdf	23.99 KB
CCF PROSPECTUS.pdf	101.5 KB
CCFbrochure.pdf	342.2 KB

Board List

The Cooperative Capital Board includes the following people:

JON CRYSTAL
BRUCE BOARDMAN
ANDREW DANFORTH
REBECCA DUNN
CORY GREENBERG
MARY O'HARA
LJ TAYLOR
ADAM TROTT

BRUCE BOARDMAN – Brattleboro, Vermont. Bruce is the CFO of the Brattleboro Food Coop and spends time consulting to other neighboring food cooperatives. He is a graduate of Bentley College and was employed for several years as a CPA with the national CPA firm of Ernst & Ernst (now Ernst & Young). He has been Treasurer of the Bristol Yacht Company, and served as president of the Kenyon Division and later as a group vice-president for the Outdoor Recreational Products Division of the Brown Group in St. Louis, a company most known for their shoe divisions (Naturalizer, Buster Brown, etc.). In Vermont, he is the town auditor in his town of Jamaica, VT and has served as Chairman of the tax assessors for that town.

JOHN CRYSTAL, Burlington, Vermont. Jon is the Executive Director and a founding Board member of the Vermont Employee Ownership Center. He has worked for the Industrial Cooperative Association (ICA) as a loan officer with the ICA Revolving Loan Fund and as a consultant to the Marianist Sharing Fund, a faith based lender which has supported worker-owned businesses. Jon’s work experience also includes worker-ownership at GardenWay, Inc. as the assistant to the chief financial officer: assistant vice president of the University of Vermont (UVM) and Budget Director of Castleton State College. He has consulted to small businesses and non-profits in organizational planning and finance and taught as adjunct management faculty since 1987 at the graduate level at St. Michael’s College, as well as at UVM. Jon has a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

ANDREW DANFORTH,Clerk, Foxborough, Massachusetts. Andy is Managing Director of Circinus Group, which is as a portfolio social lender and commercial conduit, and provides financial and systemic consulting services to the international residential finance community. He has a quarter century of executive, accounting, technological, entrepreneurial and operational experience in banking and finance, and has held executive finance positions for two public companies. During his career, he has worked with 7 of the 20 largest US banks, several Wall Street brokerage houses, served as a liquidating Officer of the FDIC, as well as assisting local lenders, government agencies, Indian tribes and regional non-profits. Internationally, he has worked on projects in Canada, Australia, the UK, and in South Asia. He currently serves as an adviser to the Mexican National Workers Housing Fund , and to a UN/NGO on the practical application of Shari'ah (Islamic law) to micro lending programmes in Southeast Asia. He has been an organizing member of several charitable and political groups, and is a Director of Boston-based Neighborhood of Affordable Housing (NOAH). Andy is serves as Board President of CFNE.

REBECCA DUNN , Treasurer, Wilmington, North Carolina. Rebecca is the Executive Director of the Cooperative Fund of New England and will serve as Executieve Director for the Cooperative Capital Fund. She manages the Fund from her home office (which moved in April, 1994.) She commutes to New England on an as needed basis and to facilitate tertiary Board and Executive Committee meetings. She has extensive experience as a business consultant and as a commercial loan officer for Barclays American. She was formerly a bank examiner for the State of Connecticut. Rebecca has also worked as a consensus process trainer and non-profit advisor to a number of groups. These include her local food co-op, an urban grocery store project, a symphony orchestra, an artists collective, and Dance New England. She helped the Wilmington Community Coalition, a diverse organization which served low-income city neighborhoods, form a community loan program. She has served on the Board of the National Community Capital Association, Temple of Israel, the Wilmington YWCA, New Hanover County Human Relations Commission, and Tidal Creek Food Coop. She has a BA in economics from Trinity College and an MBA in finance.

CORY GREENBERG, Shutesbury, Massachusetts is Vice-President and a founding board member of the Cooperative Capital Fund. Cory is a financial and management consultant to small businesses and serves is part-time CFO to one of those businesses. He is Treasurer of a movie theater management and investment company in the New York metropolitan area, and is active in various socially responsible and other investments. Cory is a CFNE board member and chair of the Loan Committee, as well as Treasurer and board member of Ten Directions, Inc. He has been CFO at a publicly traded company as well as a financial manager of a worker cooperative, and is a graduate of Hampshire College.

MARY O'HARA, Boston, Massachusetts. Mary is a member of the consulting cooperative, Burlington Associates in Community Development, LLC. She provides organizational development, strategic planning, and market analysis services to CDFI’s, community land trusts, and national non-profit intermediaries. Mary has served as the Director of Lending at the Institute of Community Economics and was a founding board member of the Boston Community Loan Fund. Mary has served as a guest lecturer at the Graduate Program in Community Economic Development at New Hampshire College and as an Instructor at National Community Capital Association’s and the National Community Land Trust annual conferences. The Cooperative Fund of New England has been a retainer client of Mary's for the last 3 years; Mary acts as Outreach Coordinator for CFNE assisting the Executive Director with visiting current and potential borrowers, providing technical assistance, administration of the loan portfolio, and marketing the Fund in Eastern Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. She has a BA in Government and Human Services from Cornell and is a member of Harvest Food Coop and Direct Federal Credit Union.

L.J. TAYLOR, Somerville, Massachusetts. L.J. is President of the CCF baord and a worker-owner and senior sales representative at Equal Exchange, in West Bridgewater, MA a worker-owned co-operative marketing fairly traded coffee, tea and chocolate from small farmer co-ops. He has worked in Bulk Foods at Weaver Street Co-op in Chapel Hill, NC. He has volunteered for the post of Mentor/Buddy coordinator at Equal Exchange to help push the continuing education needed to help cooperatives survive. L.J. helped in the formation of the Independents Coffee Cooperative in Philadelphia, which consists of café owners who support Fair Trade. He has a BA in mathematics from the University of Virginia where he specialized in business development and raised funds through the UVA Development Office.

ADAM TROTT, Florence, Massachusetts. Adam Trott is in his 3rd year as a worker/owner of Collective Copies in Massachusetts. Along with the Cooperative Capital Fund, Adam sits on the board of the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy. He cherishes his participation in the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives, as well as the 4 years he spent at the Fourth Street Food Co-op in Manhattan, with 2 years on their Finance Committee. Adam graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a BA in Theater and a BA in Social Thought and Political Economy.

Board Resources

Board Documents are available by logging into the Web File Manager.

Cooperative Fund of New England

To learn more about the Cooperative Fund of New England please see www.coopfund.coop

Events and Articles

Coopertive Capital Fund is Launched

We’re proud to announce that CCF has reached its minimum level of investment and has begun accepting applications.
CCF’s first investment loan was recently approved and has been placed with Rising Tide Community Market, a 30-year old food co-op based in Damariscotta, ME. The co-op moved to a new location in July and funds from CCF will provide working capital and support cashflow.
“Moving to our new location was a huge leap of faith for everyone involved,” says co-general manger Scott Cooper, pictured above with co-general manager Maryanne Seredynski. “But thanks to the Co-op Capital Fund’s investment, we’re excited about continuing to grow and serve our community better.”

Investors Wanted!
There is still time for you or your organization to become a charter investor in this innovative new fund. Between now and October 31, 2009, CCF is seeking additional investments from individuals, social investors, foundations and co-ops that would like to be part of this innovative new tool for development. Minimum investment is just $1,000 and your co-op or organization will be featured as an initial supporter in press announcements. Organizations already supporting CCF include Berkshire Co-op Market, Cabot Creamery Co-op, Equal Exchange, Hanover Food Co-op, Hunger Mountain Food Co-op, Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op, City Market (Onion River Food Co-op), South Mountain Company, Upper Valley Food Co-op, and Willimantic Food Co-op.

The Fall issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s “Communities and Banking” has an article about eh Cooperative Fund and the Cooperative Capital Fund. There is brief mention in it for a few core borrowers and supporters as well: Deep Root Co-op, Equal Exchange, Collective Copies, Cabot, Oak Street Housing Co-op, etc. You can download a copy at: http://www.bos.frb.org/commdev/c&b/index.htm

Click here for a PDF version of the Federal Reserve Article.

CCF LAUNCH PARTY WAS A GREAT SUCCESS
Click here to read the story

On October 19th Cooperative Fund of New England gathered its friends, board of trustees, borrowers, investors, supporters, and advisors in Boston to launch the Cooperative Capital Fund.

Representatives of the Boston area cooperatives, including housing cooperatives, worker-owned businesses and food cooperatives spoke to the group providing testimonials on how CFNE had helped them and encouraging the creation of the Cooperative Capital Fund. Speakers included Harvest Markets Co-op General Manager Mike St. Clair, Red Sun Press worker-owner Jenny Silverman, and

Boston Community Housing Co-op owner-resident Micha Joshphy.

The event was held at the home of the Episcopal City Mission, a 10 year investor in CFNE and the provider of a catalyst grant that enabled the creation of CCF.

Investors were represented by Randy Rice from Trillium Asset Management and Rob Everts from Equal Exchange announced their support. Cabot Creamery Cooperative provided cheese and financial support.