There are any milestones in the life of any business: the
first (and 1,000th?) customer, the opening of new sites, and the length of
time that the venture has continued to trade (this is no mean feat given that
most fail within the first 3 years...)
Many ventures mark their trading histories with parties and
such like at 25, 50, and 100 years (although there’s not many of that last
group!). And as a supporter of various types of enterprise, it’s always
gratifying to see how some business forms seem to survive the ‘test of time’
better than others – I’m not sure the empirical data has been collected to
prove it beyond shadow of doubt, but my hunch is that proportionately speaking,
co-ops tend to last a lot longer than any other form of business model.
And that’s important, because it shows there’s recognisable value
and merit in specific types of business over others that make it easier to argue
for them on the groups of sustainability, long-term impact and benefit, etc...
But – that might cause a problem for some co-ops.
Co-ops are created by groups of people to meet common shared
aims or addressed shared needs, (rather
than the ‘traditional’ motivation of private businesses which is to keep making
money for as long as possible...) Once those aims have been achieved, or needs
have been met, is there a benefit to it being continued?
Some aims and needs will always be ongoing (creating
opportunities for employment, ensuring access to healthcare, or supply of
energy), but what of those that can potentially be ‘fixed’ within a given time
(supporting each other gain access to financial services through rebuilding
credit ratings, or building members’ profiles in their respective marketplaces)?
As well as supporting them to start-up, I’ve also been
involved with supporting co-ops wind-up because they were so successful in
addressing the needs that they were created to address, that their members
agreed there was no point in continuing it for the sake of it.
So while a long-standing business may be a cause to
celebrate on the face of it, it might also suggest it’s been very ineffectual
in achieving what it was set up to do: let’s therefore start to celebrate the
impacts that co-ops create rather than how long they might have been trading
for.
