ELIGIBILITY STANDARDS

Program loans of the Cooperative Fund are available only to organizations operated on a cooperative or non-profit basis. Applicants must also be located within the New England states of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island or within the adjacent parts of New York state.

An organization is considered by the Fund to operate on a "cooperative" basis only if it exhibits most of the following characteristics:
  • its purpose is supportive of the common good;
  • its membership is open to persons who will use its services and accept its responsibilities;
  • its membership policies are not applied to discriminate in any arbitrary or prohibited manner;
  • Its activities are broadly participatory by its members;
  • its governance is democratic or based on consensus;
  • its monetary return on invested capital is strictly limited;
  • its earnings are either equitably used with within the organization or distributed on the basis of patronage.
To be considered as operating on a "non-profit" basis an applicant organization must not be controlled by or for persons who merely provide equity capital, nor may investors be permitted to realize more than a limited monetary return for the use of their money. In most cases, these criteria will be automatically satisfied by an organization that meets the above characteristics of a cooperative.

Eligible recipients of the assistance provided by the Cooperative Fund encompass the entire spectrum of cooperatives and non-profits. These include not only the more familiar consumer and farmer co-ops but also, for example, worker-owned businesses, community service organizations, craft marketing co-ops, fishermen's co-ops, day care centers, cooperative charter schools, housing cooperatives and community land trusts. Those who use its services may organize virtually any group on a cooperative basis and it may be operated for purposes other than maximizing investment profits. The function of the Cooperative Fund is to encourage and assist this type of community economic development, particularly for organizations that are resource poor but otherwise sound and promising.