Black-Led Day 1
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Mix and Mingle
Location - Kalamazoo 1-2
6:30pm - 8:00pm
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ERACCE
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Mix and Mingle
Location - Kalamazoo 1-2
6:30pm - 8:00pm
admin
Conference Tours
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Mix and Mingle
Location - Kalamazoo 1-2
6:30pm - 8:00pm
admin
Indigenous Space
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Mix and Mingle
Location - Kalamazoo 1-2
6:30pm - 8:00pm
admin
Black-Led Day 2
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Mix and Mingle
Location - Kalamazoo 1-2
6:30pm - 8:00pm
admin
Speaker(s) – Jeanie Wells, Columinate
Making it to opening day has been the organizational focus for so long that it can feel like the finish line, but once we cut the ribbons and open our doors, we start out on a whole new organizational journey. The first years of a new co-op can feel like a roller coaster. In this session we will talk about strategies to navigate that roller coaster and inoculate your co-op from typical pitfalls and challenges. This session is for any board members or newly hired GMs who want to strengthen your pre-opening oversight systems and ensure the organization has what it needs to assess and adjust performance and engagement strategies to meet its short-term and long-term impact goals.
With big grocery chains growing and economic and environmental pressures mounting, food co-ops are facing some tough choices. How can we work together to build a future where people and the planet come first—without losing the strength and stability needed to succeed right now?
In this closing session, inspiring leaders from across the co-op community will come together for an honest, practical conversation about how to put people at the heart of our movement. We’ll share real ideas for:
Speaker(s) – Chris Dilley, Facilitator; Panelist, Rusty Foszcz, Kim Brix, and Scott Brix
The Food Shed Co-op in Woodstock, IL opened its doors to the public in May of 2024 and everything has been coming up roses ever since . . . right? Right?! Join three Food Shed board members to learn what it was like both to open their store and what’s happened since. They are on a mission to share their experience, the good and the challenging, with other startups in this session to help others prepare for what their post-open experience might actually be like. They will share what their co-op did that they recommend repeating, as well as what they would have done differently knowing what they know now. Come get an honest picture of what the first year “post-open” has been like for a peer co-op and learn from their experience!
Speaker(s) – Brittany Jones and Lisanetta McDade, MPA, Central Kinsman Wellness Collective, Residents; Hugh Farrell, Indiana Cooperative Development Center
This discussion is designed for emerging food communities at the forefront of change. Together, we’ll unpack the lasting impact of redlining on food access, economic opportunity, and neighborhood health—and explore how residents, urban growers, and local changemakers are turning disinvestment into innovation. Learn how communities are building neighborhood-based food systems, creating pathways for entrepreneurship,ownership, and addressing social determinants of health from the ground up. Brittany Jones and Lisanetta McDade, representatives from Cleveland, Ohio, the Central Kinsman Wellness Collective, will share the work they began out of necessity to be the change they want to see within their community. Hugh Farrell will draw on this history and his own experiences organizing to address disinvestment to think about how co-ops can contribute to community resilience as tariffs and social welfare cuts undermine working class purchasing power. Come ready to connect, reflect, and gain actionable ideas for growing food justice and community wealth in your own community.
Speaker(s) – Jade Barker, Columinate
While opening a food co-op is something to celebrate, it’s only the first 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 some broad national trends and review the co-op budget “pie” — the typical expenses of an operating food co-op. Knowledge is power. Be prepared.
Speaker(s) – Dr. Angela Sayles
Building a food co-op is about more than opening a grocery store, it’s about creating a shared vision, mobilizing community power, and building something that lasts. Launching the Future: An Introduction to the Food Co-op Development Framework offers an accessible roadmap for groups starting or supporting new food co-ops. Together we’ll explore the four key parts of the Framework – Vision, Resources, Areas of Work, and Stages – and learn how they guide communities through the complex but rewarding journey of co-op development.
Speaker(s) – Siobain Mitchell
Hiring and onboarding a General Manager is one of the most important tasks a start-up co-op Board will ever do. In this Session, Siobain will share the many different ways that Assabet Co-op Market prepared to hire and onboard its GM, how that hiring and onboarding actually unfolded, and what lessons we learned in the process. This interactive session is designed to not only share Assabet’s story, but also to give you concrete tools and advice to help you prepare for your own GM Transition
Speaker(s) – Heather Lazickas, facilitator, Janiqua Jackson + Guy Cousins, Three Sisters Market, Korita Steverson, Front Porch Grocery Co-op
Communities with low food access do it differently. This superstar panel of food co-op organizers share their experiences organizing co-ops in areas where fresh foods are scarce. Join us for an inspiring, enlightening conversation about what’s resonating, and how to learn from the experience of folks in the trenches!
Speaker(s) – Bonnie Hudspeth of Firebrand Cooperative is facilitating this panel of rock star Bronzeville Food Co-op organizers Eric Hutchison, Tifani Kendrick, David Harvan, and Adrienne Williams
Building a food co-op that truly reflects and serves its community requires intentional engagement from the start. In this session, we’ll share how the Bronzeville Food Co-op built a strong foundation by crafting a vision and values statement that shaped outreach strategies, guided a highly successful community survey with over 950 responses, and positioned a website, tabling events, social media, and newsletter as central engagement tools.
Through insights from key contributors – including community leaders, design experts, and public health professionals – we’ll explore practical steps for creating inclusive outreach, designing an effective survey, and leveraging digital tools to build early trust and enthusiasm. Whether you’re launching a co-op or refining your engagement strategies, you’ll leave with actionable tools and inspiration to strengthen community connections and drive buy-in for your project. The session will include a panel discussion, real-world examples, and a Q&A to address your co-op’s specific challenges.
Speaker(s) – Facilitated by Dr. Angela Sayles with panelists Malik Yakini, Erica Hardison, Linda Jones
The co-op is incorporated, you’ve got your leadership team together, you feel like you are doing all the right things – but where are the owners? Join us for a peer panel on a common startup food co-op struggle: lack of ownership growth. Skipping building an ownership base can lead to disastrous outcomes later in a co-op’s development, but sometimes it feels like the hardest part in the earlier stages of startup development. There will be three startups on this panel, designed and facilitated by Dr. Angela Sayels, sharing their stories. Each will offer the chance to learn from their co-op’s story of lack of ownership growth in their early stages, all the things they tried that didn’t work, what eventually turned around their “ownership momentum” to get them to the ownership success they are having today, and what advice they would offer their fellow startups. Each startup’s struggle ended up rooted in different issues, and each of their solutions that turn it all around have different flavors, which will give you a broad view of what could be going on and what might work at your co-op to get that missing ownership growth momentum!
Speaker(s) -Facilitated by amaha sellassie of Gem City Market with additional panelists Lanay Gilbert (Detroit People’s Food Co-op) and Melanie Shellito (Green Top Grocery)
When organizing a new co-op grocery, we are walking with our communities – developing our vision for the co-op with them, engaging them in every step of the development process, and showing them how their fledgling co-op is manifesting their values – is a hallmark of startup food co-ops that successfully get to the opening day for their dreamed-of store. Historically, though, during the actual opening of the retail business, there starts a transition into doing for our community – staff/board making all the decisions, not engaging owners in the co-op’s work, not manifesting the owners values on and within the walls of the store in visible, accountable ways – that then results in a weakening of the co-op’s vital connection to its base. This has very real and tangible impacts not only on the co-op community, but the co-op’s success as a business. So how can we better ride the wave of walking with our owners and community through the opening of our stores. instead of letting it come crashing down? Cooperators from the Detroit People’s Food Co-op, the Gem City Market, and Green Top Grocery will explore lessons learned from the real experiences of their startup food co-ops. We’ll hear about how well they were able to maintain (or bring back) that with energy to their co-op after opening, the impacts of it, and gather their insights about how to continue the co-creative, owner-engaged culture past store opening.
Speaker(s) – Don Moffitt, Columinate
The goal for this workshop is that you leave with a better understanding of the many types of funding you might include in your co-op’s funding plan. Organizing, building, and opening a new food co-op grocery store takes a lot of financial resources. While all startup food co-op organizers are generally aware of this from the start, figuring out where to get it all is a major challenge. Funding to get the doors open might come from a number of sources and each can have very different impacts on your co-op’s financial feasibility and long-term sustainability. During this session we’ll talk about equity, grants, preferred shares, loans from your co-op’s owners, institutional loans, landlord financing, local government support and new market tax credits. We’ll talk about the long-term financial impacts of each type of funding and scratch the surface on how to pursue sources.
Speaker(s) – John Guerra
For those of you who missed this exciting session last year, we’re doing it again! When you are ready to search for a site, how do you get started? What do you need to know about securing a site with a lease or purchase agreement? Who should be on the team? How will you know if it’s the right site? So many questions during this exciting phase!
We’ll walk through real estate and site search basics, and build an understanding of how to look at a site as a customer, an operator, and a budget-conscious builder. Finally, we’ll workshop a site to practice evaluating and negotiating to improve site access, visibility, and parking.
Speaker(s) – Chris Gilbert
If your co-op is in Stage 2 or 3 development, you may not feel like Stage 4 is right around the corner, but trust Chris Gilbert, experienced food co-op general manager and project manager who has lead multiple startups through the building and opening work of stage 4 – the decisions your board has to make in these earlier stages can either smooth the path to opening or complicate it when the pressure’s highest. In this session, Chris will walk attendees through the key stage 2 – 3 choices that have the biggest impact on your co-op once the construction starts. This session will look at decisions startup boards often have to make long before a GM or PM is hired and how those choices will either support or strain your co-op’s ability to get open and stay open.
Speaker(s) – Katie Novak, Cooperative Coaching
Not every capital campaign meets its goal—but that doesn’t mean you haven’t made meaningful progress. Every dollar raised reflects trust, and every “no” is a step toward deeper clarity and connection. This session explores how co-ops can move forward when the numbers fall short—by celebrating what has been accomplished, evaluating next steps with transparency, and strengthening relationships with member-owners along the way. Through real-life examples and lived experience, you’ll learn how to navigate funding gaps with resilience.
Speaker(s) – Darnell Adams, with Siobhan DuPont of Kingston Food Co-op, Bertha Thomas of Winchester Food Co-op, and Tamika Evans of Third Ward People’s Co-op
Emerging leaders share what they’ve learned about leadership while organizing food co-ops in their communities. What do they wish they had understood before they started? What challenges have shaped their approach? Hear how they’ve managed the ups and downs of organizing—turning setbacks into lessons, and small victories into momentum for lasting change. Join us for candid stories, practical insights, and inspiration from those navigating the rewards and realities of cooperative leadership—and leave with ideas you can take back to your own community.
Speaker(s) – Laura Matney and Casey Miller of Argus Farm Stop, joined by organizers from Kennett Community Grocery
Farm Stops are streamlined retail experiences that prioritize locally grown and produced items, and prioritize the grower, often through a consignment system. Join seasoned Farm Stop manager, Laura Matney, and Farm Stop trainer, Casey Miller, of Argus Farm Stop in Ann Arbor, MI, for a look at the farm stop model. Joining them will be peer co-op organizers from Kennett Community Grocery (Kennett Square, PA) to share their recent experience working toward opening their co-op as a Farm Stop.
Speaker(s) – Joel Kopischke, Heather Lazickas, seven roots group
In this interactive session, we’ll look at best practices to help build functional working boards that don’t do it all. We’ll focus on developing committees that get their jobs done, and how to engage and empower volunteers to provide value and share the load. We’ll hear from the group and work together to workshop some solutions in real-time!
Speaker(s) – JQ Hannah, FCI
Vision is one of the big four areas of the Food Co-op Development Framework, and it’s at the very top of that big four in the “Framework” graphic for a reason – because it drives every other part of developing your food co-op and must blaze bright and clear to activate your community and open a successful food co-op!
In this session, we’ll start with what the Vision is in food co-op development and its role, but will quickly then dive into how you actively engage your community and owners with the Vision and use it as a tool to drive engagement. Practical techniques for engaging your community in creating the Vision as well as tools to keep your co-op’s Vision a living, evolving, dynamic force in your co-op organizing will be shared and you will walk away with both core knowledge around this piece of the Framework as well as hands-on ideas for connecting your owners to the Vision at every stage of development.
Speaker(s) – Jessica Buttimer, CoApp
Strong owner engagement isn’t just a byproduct of a successful co-op—it’s the foundation. Whether you’re in the early planning stages or growing your established co-op, understanding how your owners think, feel, and act is critical to building a thriving, resilient community.
This session will introduce a user research approach to co-op development, showing how listening deeply to owners—through surveys, interviews, observation, and data—can shape smarter decisions, stronger participation, and lasting trust.
The session will start with fundamentals like: what is owner engagement, and why it matters at every stage of a co-op’s life cycle; what traditional tools have startup co-ops used to foster engagement; and the common gaps and missed opportunities. The session will then take a dive into practical, modern strategies your startup co-op can start using right away like: how to apply user research principles to understand owner needs; how to design better surveys and interviews for real insights; how to use simple data tools to surface patterns and pain points; and how to turn your research into deeper engagement. If you are new to all of these concepts, don’t be intimidated – this session will be at an accessible level for those new to using data for engagement!
Whether you’re trying to recruit your first 100 owners or re-energize an existing base, this session will equip you with a toolkit for co-creating your co-op with your community, not just for them.
Speaker(s) – Darnell Adams and Bonnie Hudspeth, Firebrand Cooperative
Does your co-op have an intentionally stated culture that your organizing team is actively working to build? If not, you are not alone! If we are not deliberately building the culture we dream of as we organize, the default mainstream culture starts kicking in, taking over, and kicking our @$$es! Come explore how to define, understand, and build a thriving organizational culture at your co-op.
Speaker(s) – Katie Novak, Cooperative Coaching
The moment someone becomes a member-owner is full of energy—but too often, that excitement fades without meaningful next steps. This session offers a roadmap for the critical first 100 days after someone joins your co-op. We’ll explore how to design intentional, welcoming experiences that deepen connection, build engagement, and inspire continued participation—whether your new member-owner wants to volunteer, share their story, or simply feel part of something bigger. You’ll leave with tools to create an onboarding journey that turns signups into lasting relationships.
Speaker(s) – Sam McCormick, Assabet Co-op Market
This session will explore how food co-op boards and General Managers can foster a productive, trusting relationship that balances GM autonomy with board accountability. Drawing on real-world examples and start-up insights, we’ll cover practical tools for defining roles, setting realistic reporting expectations, and supporting the GM’s strengths while addressing operational gaps. The goal is for attendees to leave with ideas and approaches they can adapt to build a collaborative partnership—one that keeps the co-op mission-driven, financially sound, and connected to the community, even in the challenging start-up phase.
Speaker(s) – Heather Lazickas, seven roots group and James Morrell, Columinate
A clear business concept can build alignment amongst the team, attract talent and potential resources, and strengthen your organization’s community appeal. In this session participants will explore the role of the “business concept” as a key element of the co-op startup framework. Participants will discuss the definition of the startup co-op business concept, how it may be different from a business plan, and why it is important. Join us as we break down what it is, how to use it, and how to develop or articulate yours!
Speaker(s) – JQ Hannah, FCI and Michelle Schry, NCG
The Food Co-op Development Framework received an update last year with the addition of a new stage to the development journey. Based on reviews of start-up co-op experiences and early performance post-opening, recognition emerged that the collective lift to bring a new food co-op grocery store to life extends far beyond opening day. From the experiences of actual startups that lived the post-open experience and experts that have supported dozens of startups through it, it became clear that there was a need to name this unique and critical stage of a startup’s journey so both startups and their support partners can be prepared to successfully move through it. This session will examine “Stage 5”, what it is, what work needs to be done during this part of the startup food co-op journey, as well as share some true startup experiences from this stage.
Speaker(s) – Chris Dilley, FCI
In Stage 2 the goal is to find a viable business concept that is rooted in your core values, and realizes your purpose through a viable and sustainable business model. We will cover all four areas of feasibility: community, market, site and financial, so you can take stock of your path and know what’s next.
Speaker(s) -Patrice Lockert Anthony, Black Soil Media
Food Co-ops can be more than grocery stores – they can be spaces of collective power. In this 65 minute workshop; we’ll dig into how co-ops often replicate harm, practice redistributing resources with justice, and leave with one concrete action to grow liberation in our own communities. Come ready to plant the seeds of change.
Speaker(s) – Allanah Hines
The legacy of food and agricultural cooperation among people of the global majority throughout U.S. history is often overlooked. From mutual aid networks and land trusts to farming cooperatives and community-owned grocery stores, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and immigrant communities have long used cooperative strategies to reclaim food sovereignty, resist economic exclusion, and build collective resilience.
This session will trace this deep-rooted history beyond the modern food co-op movement, highlighting examples of agricultural cooperatives, community kitchens, and mutual aid food systems shaped by the lived experience and leadership of marginalized communities. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of the power of cooperation as a tool for liberation, survival, and inspiration to carry this work forward.
Speaker(s) – Gabby Davis, NCG
Speaker(s) – ERACCE
Speaker(s): Chris Dilley, FCI
Speaker(s) – Jimmy Wright, IGA
The purpose of this session with ERACCE is to provide an introductory process for participants to explore and deepen their understanding of systemic racism and to begin to investigate ways to more effectively dismantle and eliminate racism within food co-ops and the broader food system. ERACCE exists to eliminate structural racism and create a network of equitable Antiracist institutions and communities. Join us to explore common language, definitions, and tools to understand the continuing issue of racism throughout the United States.
Speaker(s) – Assata Richards, We Are the Ones Solidarity Cooperative and Rev Bernadine Hardin
This dual-part closing plenary will feature both a Q+A session on lessons learned as well as small group discussion sharing insights across co-op stages.
We got everything we need to make a Black-Led co-op future possible. In groups, attendees will share of that knowledge, brainstorm, and collaborate in a working session.
Feel free to bring information on a co-op event you’re hosting, a roadblock you’re facing, or a recent success to co-create solutions with those at your table.
Speaker(s) – Gabrielle (Gabby) Davis, NCG
Black-led Day is a space for us, by us—where Black food cooperators gather in strength, vision, and truth. In the spirit of collective care and liberation, this session honors the real and often unseen weight we carry—burnout and compassion fatigue. The pandemic, racism, misogynoir, capitalism and white supremacy culture has only magnified these burdens, yet we are more than our exhaustion. Together, we’ll move beyond naming the problem toward reclaiming wellness on our own terms. This session will offer space for reflection, tools for restoration, and tangible practices for sustaining ourselves and each other in our co-ops, our homes, and our communities. By shifting from surviving to thriving, this session helps participants imagine a future where Black-led co-ops are not just economically viable but also emotionally nourishing and sustainable—an act of radical care and resistance to grind culture. This session emphasizes that rest, care, and boundaries are not luxuries—they are strategies for building lasting, Black-led cooperative futures.
Speaker(s) – Rae Gomes, amaha sellessie
Grounded in an analysis of the 4th wave of coop development, we demonstrate the historical conditions for previous iterations of Black-led coops, and discuss the conditions for coop creation today. How do we utilize the learnings in the past waves, and this current one to create the culture and pathways to ground us in this work sustainability? The larger thesis we will build towards is that Black coops develop for fundamentally distinct reasons from white led coops, and therefore, need distinct and specific ways of organizing and support systems. We will work with participants to co-create our own 7 principles of coop development.
Speaker(s) – Erica “Zenzele” Hardison
This interactive follow-up session builds on the foundational insights from Part One (at BLD 2024) by shifting the focus from awareness to action. With an emphasis on co-creating solutions, attendees will explore a range of restorative practices and organizational strategies that help individuals and collectives move beyond burnout and into sustained, thriving leadership.
Drawing on culturally rooted healing traditions, mental wellness frameworks, and cooperative values, this workshop will guide participants through practical tools to recognize early signs of compassion fatigue, implement recovery practices, and re-center their purpose. Together, we will build personalized “Co-op Care Plans” that include rest strategies, boundary-setting techniques, debrief rituals, affirming peer support models, and systems for shared leadership.
Participants will also review organizational culture and policies through a lens of emotional sustainability. Case studies and co-facilitated breakout exercises will surface real-world methods used by other Black-led cooperatives and grassroots networks. Attendees will co-create a “Black Co-Op Wellness Toolkit” that can be brought back and tailored to their teams and communities.
This session invites attendees to imagine and build future-forward co-op ecosystems where emotional resilience is not an afterthought but a core design principle. Black-led cooperatives deserve wellness infrastructures that honor our labor, center our joy, and protect our leaders. This workshop is about making that future now.
Speaker(s) – Keyona Hough
Ready to transform the way you communicate? This dynamic and interactive session blends real-world scenarios with engaging discussion and role-play to help you become a stronger listener, more impactful speaker, and confident leader. Learn how to navigate “disrespectful” conversations with clarity, communicate across differences, and show up fully whether you’re serving your community, growing personally, or leading an organization. Walk away with tools you can use immediately to be heard and to truly hear others.
This session equips Black leaders, advocates, and community builders with the communication tools needed to lead with clarity, compassion, and accountability. By exploring how we listen, respond, and repair in difficult conversations, this workshop helps us co-create spaces where Black voices are not only heard—but honored and centered. It affirms that the future we’re building is one where communication is not a barrier, but a bridge to justice, collective healing, and sustainable leadership within our communities.
