Critical Issue: Communications
Phil Kenkel
Bill Fitzwater Cooperative Chair
Many of the critical issues identified by the panel of cooperative experts were the “usual suspects”.
Cooperatives continue to face issues involving strategy, finance and governance. Issues that were
farther off our radar screen involved communications. These issues fell into three major categories.
First is the need to educate members so that they understand and are involved in decisions on
retaining funds, managing equity, distributing profits and rationalizing business operations. The
second area is the need to communicate the value of the cooperative to members and potential
members. Cooperative managers and directors appreciate the unique cooperative business model
but tend to do a poor job of communicating that message to others who are less familiar with it. The
final aspect of the communication challenge is sharing our message with the general public in
general and more specifically with younger audiences who are the next generation of members and
employees.
Users of a cooperative are both customers and owners. Ideally, a cooperative’s communication
should cover both relationships. Most cooperatives try to communicate the important fact that they
are a great firm to do business with. They are somewhat less diligent in communicating the unique
value of their business structure. Cooperatives are successfully operating in almost every sector of
American industry. However, we have never developed a simply unified message which
communicates the value package and cuts across all types of cooperatives. Think of the “know
your farmer know your food” message which the local food movement has used to such advantage.
We would reach the cooperative member better if we had a simple unified message and if RECs,
Farm Credit Banks, Credit Unions, telephone cooperatives and cooperative food stores were
echoing the same message.
More about communications next week and I’ll talk about a free national webinar, October 26
which will discuss how cooperatives can improve their communication strategies.
9-29-2011