shops. Each one tells you about what it does and what it can offer through its
entry in the Directory. Entries also feature full contact details and you can
download a map for most entries on request. The Co-op Directory is fully
searchable, so you can find the co-op to meet your needs. You can search it:
by goods/services, name, area or type of enterprise."
In the UK, cooperatives are also represented at the governmental level. For example, the
South East Regional Co-operative Council (SERCC) represents the views of worker
coops, consumer coops, credit unions, housing coops, agricultural coops, coop support
organizations, and "any other organisation subscribing to co-operative principles." (OSG
undated-a) Altogether, over 250 organizations make up the cooperative sector in the
South East, ranging from smaller ones such as childcare coops, to high tech coops in the
IT sector, and large consumer co-ops with over half a million registered members (OSG
undated-a). SERCC represents the sector's views to regional government structures. For
example, it participates in developing the regional economic strategy with the regional
development agency, and it advocates for appropriate business support services. SERCC
also works in partnership with other "social enterprise organizations," (OSG undated-a)
for example implementing training and promotional projects for social enterprises.
Similarly, the Mutual Aid Network of Sussex Cooperatives has made an online directory
available, with over 100 listings of retail, agriculture, community, housing, education,
arts/media, IT, services, and other cooperatives, as well as LETS trading systems and
credit unions. (Mutual Aid 2004a) The organization hopes that the directory will further
several of the network's goals: establishing a newsletter, helping cooperatives share
resources and skills, promoting inter-cooperative trading, making development, training
and management expertise available, informing and influencing policy-makers, creating a
loan stock for new cooperative start-ups, coordinating large-scale funding applications,
and developing bottom-up decision making structures. (Mutual Aid 2004b)
One of the more established support networks for cooperatives in the UK is Radical
Routes (described in Douthwaite 1996). Radical Routes is a form of structured mutual
aid. Member housing and worker coops gather to attend workshops, network, give and
get advice, and vote on loans to member coops. (Radical Routes undated) Radical Routes
established Rootstock, a parallel investment society that takes outside investment money
and buys nonvoting shares of Radical Routes. The most common type of loan made by
Radical Routes is gap financing for real estate purchases; smaller loans are made for
equipment purchases and cash flow management. (Radical Routes undated)
There are many examples in the UK of cooperation among cooperatives and other "social
enterprises," but in the U.S. cooperation tends to take place mostly within certain types of
cooperative, such as agriculture, consumer, or housing, and not across coop sectors (see
Giszpenc 2003). Only a few organizations in the U.S. represent the efforts of coops to
come together and work across sectors; these include the National Cooperative Business
Association (NCBA) and the National Cooperative Bank (NCB). But as Davidmann
(1996) writes, "Co-ops need to co-operate with co-ops... This applies to all, to those