As Idaho communities face growing pressures around housing, childcare, food security, workforce shortages, and nonprofit sustainability, no single organization can solve these challenges alone. The future belongs to communities that learn how to work together differently.
Join Idaho Partners for Good for an interactive Nonprofit Success Lab exploring cooperative models and shared-service approaches that help organizations, businesses, and communities achieve more together while preserving local control and independence.
In alignment with Our Idaho: Neighbor to Neighbor, this lab includes tangible opportunities to see how cooperatives can:
Make It Visible – Learn how cooperative models are addressing community challenges across the country.
Mobilize Idahoans – Discover practical ways residents, nonprofits, businesses, and local leaders can work together to strengthen communities.
Cross-Sector Collaboration – Explore real-world examples of organizations sharing resources, reducing duplication, and increasing impact.
Incentivize Strategic Partnerships – Understand how shared-service cooperatives, housing cooperatives, worker-owned enterprises, and multi-stakeholder models can create long-term sustainability and community resilience.
Key Takeaways:
What are co-ops?
How can co-op models package mission-driven nonprofits?
The 7 co-op principles.
Idaho laws that co-ops fall under
What membership structures look like with co-ops.
The governance of co-ops.
Learn how considering a co-op model could cut down on the “crying hours” nonprofit leaders spend every week on admin, compliance, fundraising, and more!
We can’t wait to learn more about the Co-Op advantage!
*Charlie Best is a Cooperative Development Specialist with the Northwest Cooperative Development Center (NWCDC), where he provides training and technical assistance on cooperative governance, leadership, and business development. With a background in education and community development, Charlie is passionate about helping mission-driven organizations build economic resilience through democratic ownership and shared decision-making.
*John McNamara joined the Northwest Cooperative Development Center (NWCDC) in the Spring of 2014 and became Co-Executive Director in January 2023. Prior to joining NWCDC, John has 26 years of practical experience in the worker cooperative world with Union Cab of Madison. John holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration and a Masters in Management: Cooperative and Credit Unions from Saint Mary’s University (Halifax) and now teaches in the Master’s program as part-time faculty. John participated in developing the Co-op Index Tool and has taught at The Evergreen State College and Presidio Graduate School. He co-edited a collection of essays titled Co-operatives for Sustainable Communities (2015) with a chapter on Social Auditing and wrote a chapter in Humanistic Governance in Democratic Organizations (2022). John serves as Vice-Chair of the Washington State Employee Ownership Commission and Co-Chair of the Washington State Center for Employee Ownership and serves on Executive Committees of the Union-Coops Council and the Policy and Advocacy Council of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. As co-director of NWCDC, John heads the education and general cooperative development programs and the communications and networking teams for NWCDC.