DotCoop has announced the winners of this year’s dotCoop Global Awards for Cooperative Excellence. The Awards were presented on 4 November at the General Assembly of the International Co-operative Alliance in Cape Town.
The accolades were designed to enable all co-operatives, no matter their size to have the opportunity to win. Coop Zeno Candia, a credit union from Puerto Rico, took the award for the large co-operative category. The co-operative provides cutting-edge technology that enables its 35,000 members to use the Internet and mobile services. This approach helped it attract more young members.
The award for the medium category co-operatives went to The First Alternative Cooperative, a US retailer with more than 7,000 members. A business focused on its members’ needs, First Alternative Cooperative provides natural and organic food to local communities in Oregon. Through its website, the co-operative is engaging its customers while informing them about buying local and wellness.
Another co-operative awarded by dotCoop was Cooperativa Orientación y Seguridad of Colombia, in the category for small co-operatives. The co-op, which has less than USD $5 million in revenues, provides monitoring, private security and investigations for hospitals and is based in Bogota, Colombia.
The Canadian Co-operative Association is the 2013 winner in the category for co-operative organisations. As the national association for co-operatives, the CCA represents over nine million co-operative and credit union members from over 2,000 organisations.
As part of the awards, the winning co-operatives and co-operative organisations received funds to enable them to participate in ICA’s Global Conference and General Assembly.
“We received applications from co-ops around the world and across cooperative sectors,” said Carolyn Hoover, chief executive officer of dotCoop. “We’re extremely pleased with the turnout of this year’s competition and the quality of the entries,” she said, thanking the sponsors of the awards for their support.
The awards are given every two years to co-operatives who have shown a great commitment to promoting co-operative values and principles. This year the awards sought to recognise the contribution of some co-operatives and co-operative organisations to making the case for the International Year of Co-operatives.
DotCooperation LLC (dotCoop) is the sponsor of the .coop domain and responsible for management of the .coop registry and verification of registrants. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International, the US-based apex organisation for co-operative businesses and an international development agency, with projects in 15 countries around the world.
