Strategic Planning for Cooperative Coffees: Case Study

“If you are winning the race, don't look back”

                                           Fortune Cookie Proverb

A great organization
Cooperative Coffees is a unique organization - a green coffee importing cooperative committed to supporting and partnering with small-scale coffee farmers and their exporting cooperatives. By importing directly from partner-farmers, Cooperative Coffees seeks to creatively foster a more equitable and sustainable system of coffee trade that directly benefits these farmers, their families, and their communities. The cooperative was organized in 1999 and has been steadily growing since.

The challenge

In 2005, Cooperative Coffees decided to develop a strategic plan in order to help shape the growth of the cooperative.  The organization has always been very responsive to the members' ideas, but the membership had grown to the point where not all ideas could be acted upon. There was confusion about the mission and a variety of views about the purpose and future of the cooperative.

Engaging ifPeople for Strategic Planning

ifPeople began working with Cooperative Coffees in November 2005.  During the next 6 months, ifPeople President Tirza Hollenhorst, conducted interviews with membership and did research on the history of the cooperative.  Tirza saw how conflicting aspirations and expectations could drain the organization of energy and resources.  Working closely with, founding Preside Bill Harris, Tirza developed a strategic plan that clarifies the mission and direction of the cooperative. 

At the core of Tirza's plan was an insight that CC had three identities:

• that of a cooperative, a business owned by its members,
• that of an importer with a responsibility to meet the needs of its customers for high quality product, on time and on budget, 
• and that of a Fair Trader, committed to the very highest standards of ethical trade. 

By recognizing and declaring the different roles, independent of their conflicting priorities, Tirza was able to help the cooperative develop a set of goals and strategies that will define its work going forward.  When this understanding and a clarified strategic plan were taken to the members, certain closely held aspirations for the future of the cooperative were put aside because achieving those aspirations would damage the capacity of the cooperative to meet its other obligations.  The plan became a new platform for strengthening the identity and collaboration between members. New strategies were introduced, and because it was easy to understand how these strategies fit into the larger goals of the organization, they were quickly adopted.

The strategic plan has helped Cooperative Coffees develop a strong understanding of itself and its role in the complex and dynamic fair trade coffee industry. Tirza hopes that the plan will assist the cooperative in developing and maintaining its role at the vanguard of the fair trade movement. “It is an honor to work with an organization committed to excellence and mutually beneficial trading relationships,” she said. “Not only is it rewarding to support such honorable organizations, but it is also coherent with our own business.”