Partners in Cooperative Development

The Securities and Exchange Commission oversees when a company raises money by selling securities to investors. Many of these securities sales must go through a costly registration process with the SEC, but certain sales are exempt from registration. The SEC Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation helps small businesses, particularly those in rural areas and in places where natural disasters have occurred as well as businesses that are owned by minorities and women. The Office provides tools, technical assistance, information, education, and outreach so that small businesses and their investors can raise capital.

The Small Business Administration provides technical assistance to cooperatives through its Small Business Development Centers. In some limited instances SBA may provide financial assistance through its 7(a) loan program, microloans, 504 loans, and disaster loans. SBA also provides general technical assistance to businesses. SBA has programs directed toward minority, women, LGBT, veteran, and Native American business owners. Additional SBA partner organizations that cooperatives may benefit from include Veterans Business Outreach Centers, Score Business Mentors, and Women’s Business Centers. SBA provides information to businesses interested in contracting with the Federal government. Through its 8(a) Business Development program, it aims to award at least 5% of all federal contracting dollars to small disadvantaged businesses each year.

The Department of Transportation has opportunities that cooperatives can access, generally by reaching out to an intermediary governmental entity or nonprofit that has been awarded DoT funds. The Thriving Communities Program provides funding to disadvantaged communities adversely affected by environmental, climate, and human health policy outcomes. The Reconnecting Communities Program provides planning grants, capital construction grants, and technical assistance to reconnect communities that were previously cut off from economic opportunities by transportation infrastructure. The Rural Opportunities to Use Transportation for Economic Success program addresses disparities in rural transportation infrastructure. The Rural EV Infrastructure Toolkit helps rural communities plan and fund electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

The Treasury Department’s Financial Institutions Office oversees the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund including the New Market Tax Credit Program. CDFIs are banks, credit unions, loan funds, or venture capital providers that have been certified by Treasury and receive assistance from the CDFI fund to invest in low-income communities and broaden access to financial products and services. Through the NMTC Program, the CDFI Fund allocates authority to certified Community Development Entities to offer tax credits to investors in exchange for equity in the CDE. Using the capital from these equity investments, CDEs make loans and investments to businesses operating in low-income communities on better-then-market terms. Cooperatives may benefit by borrowing from CDFIs or from loans or investments by CDEs.

USAID supports overseas cooperative development through partnerships with U.S.-based cooperative development organizations under the Cooperative Development Program. CDP partners are strengthening cooperative businesses and credit unions abroad in several ways, including: governance, member equity and capitalization, financial management, market performance, legal and regulatory reform, gender inclusion, and youth engagement.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is made up of 29 agencies and offices with nearly 100,000 employees who serve the American people at 4,500 locations across the country and abroad. USDA has authority over food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues. Agencies not mentioned elsewhere on this website include the Foreign Agricultural Service, the Agricultural Research Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Economic Research Service, the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Forest Service, the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Risk Management Agency.

The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) administers programs that assist cooperatives and other agricultural producers with marketing foods to consumers across the country and internationally. AMS also purchases (https://www.ams.usda.gov/selling-food) food from agricultural producers for distribution through the USDA Food and Nutrition Service programs for schools, food banks and households as part of the nation’s food safety net. The Farmers Market Promotion Program increases the availability of locally and regionally produced agricultural products by providing outreach, training, and technical assistance to domestic farmers markets, community-supported agriculture programs, and other direct producer-to-consumer market opportunities. Related programs include the Regional Food System Partnerships program and the Local Food Promotion Program. Additional AMS programs may support cooperatives and their members in the dairy, maple syrup, meat and poultry, and sheep husbandry industries. Cooperatives looking for support need to check each program to see whether the cooperative accesses the program or whether they need to access support from an intermediary applicant (state or local government, tribe, or nonprofit).

The Farm Service Agency offers a number of programs that may help cooperatives and their members including:

1. Farm loan programs
2. Conservation reserve programs that pay farmers to take their land out of production
3. Biomass Crop Assistance Program for forest owners that produce biomass
4. Dairy programs 
5. Farmers disaster assistance programs 
6. Commodity loans providing interim financing at harvest time to meet cash flow needs 
7. Facility loan programs that help producers build or upgrade farm storage and handling facilities 
8. Assistance to producers with commodities impacted by retaliatory tariffs 
9. Organic Certification Cost Share Program that provides cost share assistance to agricultural producers who are obtaining or renewing their certification under the National Organic Program 
10. Commodity price support programs

USDA Food and Nutrition Service administers a variety of programs that purchase food for low-income individuals from agricultural producers and works with states and territories that authorize groceries, farmers markets, and Community Supported Agriculture programs to accept food vouchers from low-income individuals. Cooperatives and cooperative members may become vendors through FNS programs.

Cooperatives that contract with Veterans Affairs can provide home health services to disabled veterans.