Get Ready for A Year of Cooperation!

Cooperatives are community. Are you ready to tell your community’s co-op story in 2025?

Last week delegates from credit unions, agriculture, marketing and other types of co-ops gathered in India for the International Cooperative Alliance Global Cooperative Conference, marking the start of the United Nations’ 2025 the International Year of Cooperatives.

Are you ready? As your communications co-op, Pioneer built a one-page guide, Making Co-ops Part of Your Story, and paired it with a feature, leadership column and presentation.

Enter your email address to get these storytelling tools:

Why Celebrate Co-ops for a Year?

With 3 million cooperatives around the world and 10% of the world’s population working for a co-op, the business model should be easily

understood. But Utility Pioneers often talk about the need to improve staff and member understanding of the co-op network and why it matters.

According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the year-long celebration is meant to:

• Raise awareness about the impact of cooperatives on sustainable development.
• Support knowledge-sharing and partnerships to foster growth in the cooperative sector.
• Advocate for policies and legal frameworks that support cooperatives as key drivers of inclusive economic development.
• Inspire youth to join the co-op movement and amplify the positive impact co-ops have on communities

How to Celebrate

Ready to engage your community in a year of co-op celebrations? We’ve got free resources and ideas to help you kick off the 2025 International Year of Cooperatives.

1. Use the Global Logo and Tagline

The UN’s Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives unveiled a logo and tagline, Cooperatives Build a Better World, in October.

The logo, available in English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic and Russian is a way for co-ops across the globe to show a united front.

The logo’s design features:

• Forms of people curve and are interconnected, reflecting co-ops uniting people for positive change.
• The colors (red, green, blue) reflect the impact co-ops have on people, the planet and prosperity. They also pair with the UN’s visual identity guide for these efforts.
• Get the IYC25 Brand Identity Guidelines (PDF)

Three social frames are part of the United Nations’ support materials:

Pioneer got permission for our co-op members to use the logo online and in print to educate their communities about cooperatives. All you need to do is ask your editor or account manager to include the logo in your marketing materials next year.

2. Learn More Co-op Stories

Do you know what kinds of co-ops support your community? According to the World Cooperative Monitor, utilities are only 3% of the top 300 types of cooperatives globally.

• Agriculture and food cooperatives are the largest sector at 35%. In the United States alone, 2 million farmers are members of 2,100 co-ops (including Land O’Lakes, Ocean Spray, Organic Valley and Blue Diamond).
• Insurance co-ops add up to 32% of co-ops globally (Nationwide, State Farm and Liberty Mutual are all co-ops).
• Wholesale and retail trade co-ops check out 19% of co-ops globally.
• Credit unions bank 9% of the co-op sector globally, and are a strong force in the United States, with 7,000 credit unions in the nation serving 100 million members.

To raise awareness of co-op stories, the International Cooperative Alliance brought back stories.coop, a web-based storytelling database. Any co-op can submit a story for a chance to be featured globally.

You can also find co-op stories from the National Cooperative Business Association. Their quarterly magazine, The Cooperative Business Journal, is a free and easy way to learn about cooperatives thriving across the nation.

3. Build Co-op Culture

Want to celebrate cooperation in 2025? Start with your team. Stock your break rooms with cooperatively sourced snacks, coffee and tea. Use Pioneer’s Co-op Shopping List to start; some of our favorite co-op food brands are:

• Equal Exchange (chocolate, coffee, tea)
• Tillamook Creamery (cheese, ice cream, yogurt)
• Cabot Creamery (cheese, butter)
• Blue Diamond (almonds, crackers, milk)
• Ocean Spray (cranberry juice, sauce and fruit)
• Welch Foods Inc. (grape juice, spreads, snacks)
• SunMaid (raisins, apricots, prunes, yogurt-covered raisins, bread)

Once staff know cooperation tastes good, consider adding the co-op story to your onboarding process.

We’ve interviewed several Utility Pioneers on “The StoryConnect Podcast” about how to connect staff to their co-op roots.

• Episode 258: “How Can You Introduce New Employees to Your Co-op Story?” At Southern Rivers Energy, new staff are introduced to “That Co-op Life” with an onboarding kit leveraging the co-op stories for staff retention. Kathryn Green shares her co-op’s onboarding process, which turns the first few days on the job into memorable moments.
• Episode 209: “Leveraging Your Co-op Identity.” Sylandi Brown, now working internationally to champion cooperation, talks about how to use your co-op identity to attract talent.

4. Celebrate Cooperatively

One of the best parts about a year of cooperation is you’re not celebrating alone. Do you work with other co-ops in your community? If not, now is the perfect time to start. Find co-op partners in your region and meet with them now to brainstorm how you can celebrate cooperatively.

Cooperative Storytelling Ideas:

• Find community events in 2025—anything from a chamber of commerce breakfast to a community fair—and co-sponsor with your local credit union, food co-op and other types of local co-ops.
• Cross-cooperative storytelling: Ask other types of co-ops for stories about your members that you can share on social media and in your magazine and offer them stories about members you share.
• Co-host a chamber of commerce lunch and learn. Get a head start on content with Pioneer’s Why Co-ops Are Cool presentation.
• Coordinate cross-cooperative sector storytelling and staffing at community events.
• Give co-op gifts at community events and at your member meeting(s).

Pioneer’s presentation, Why Co-ops are Cool, is easy to customize and includes:

• Impact of co-ops
• Types of co-ops
• Shared principles
• Co-op stories

As a bonus, you can share this presentation with community groups throughout the 2025 International Year of Co-ops. 

Ready, Set, Cooperate!

To get you started, we have a feature story, leadership column and community or staff presentation you can use to kick off your celebration. Enter your email address and we’ll send you the storytelling tools:

We’re sending Pioneer’s members an email with a link to download all of this plus the logos and social frames (we only have permission to redistribute the logos to our members). Didn’t get it? Reach out to your editor or account manager, or email hello@pioneer.coop.

Not a member yet? These resources are one of many great reasons to join. Learn how to be part of our co-op family at pioneer.coop/join.