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C) FEDERATION OF SOUTHERN COOPERATIVES/ . — LAND ASSISTANCE FUND STATEMENT OF. HISTORY, BACKGROUND AND COOPERATIVE | PHILOSOPHY ve For over two decades, since 1967, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives has worked at the grassroots level in rural communities around the South. Through community based cooperative economic development efforts, the Federation and - ot its member cooperatives and credit unions have worked to generate new income, jobs, services, training, awareness and a spirit — ef self-help and change for many low income and economically exploited people in some of the most depressed and persistently poverty-stricken rural counties in Ameria. Building .on the work of the Civil Rights MoVement, the Federation over the past twenty years, has organized a community based | cooperative economic development movement among 30,000 low income families working in over 100 communities in the rural South. The Federationis a non~profit, tax exempt (IRS 501c.3 designation) association established to provide services, resources, technical assistance and advocacy to its membership of cooperatives and eredit unions and their individual member families. The Federation works in eleven Southern states, i.e., Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas. .In recent years, funding limitations have forced us to concentrate our resources in four states: Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, : while continuing to maintain contact with the membership in other states. In August 1985, the Federation and Emergency Land Fund officially merged into one organization, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/ Land Assistance Fund. The merger has enhanced our capabilities to work on the problems of land retention for black landowners and family farmers. Although blacks are still loosing land at an alarming rate, in the counties where the Federation/LAF is active, we have reduced the number and amount of losses to individual families and rural communities. The Federation remains. a broad based democratically controlled organization. At every level, members participate in electing their own leaders and managers. The regional Federation/LAF Board of Directors is chosen by the State Associations of Cooperatives in each state where there are active members. Each State Association elects one representative to the Federation's , ‘yard. Three at-large board members are elected by the total dembership. The cooperatives and credit unions in each state jie ye ee ee » on 2 tL ets * . . oy . ae me me de < W we Ve peste ‘. . he Federation working with low income people and through their own self-help organizations, seeks to deal with rural poverty in a regional comprehensive and coordinated" approach. We see “~ “some of the problems of rural people::. substandard housing, , low - ) literacy rate, unemployment and under-employment, idle land holdings, poor health care, hunger and malnutrition, as potential opportunities . for the development of self-help strategies to change and correct these situations. Cooperatives which make productive use of land, grow food, rehabilitate and construct new housing, develop jobs and teach people new skills, are creative people oriented mechanisms, which help grassroots people to find solutions to- their own problems. The cooperative movement teaches people to replace despair and depression with hope and positive accomplish- ments. 4 The Federation has been reluctant to pursue glamorous demonstration projects and other high visibility models, which are often difficult to replicate, do not arise from the expressed real needs of poor people and cannot be managed by local leaders. Often these models achieve success, only through excessive subsidization, while the actual number of poor families they “help is* very small. The Federation's "people oriented-strategy" emphasizes participation as the route to policy changes and capital formulation. By pooling resources and promoting local: leadership, cooperatives are creating change and generating many direct benefits for their members , " as well as making many intangible community contributions. These incremental developments of human capital and community change (are often not fully manifest on any balance sheet but they make : a great difference in peoples lives. ; } It is difficult to measure, the pride of the low income women members of a cooperative, in one'of the poorest counties in America, when their quilts win an award from the Smithsonian Institute, “ for their contribution to the "cultural heritage of America". Similarly, what value do we place on the community leadership training involved when a co-op board member becomes the first Black elected to the School Board in his county; and feels comfortable in his position because he “learned how to make hard decisions and formulate good policies, while serving on the co-~-op's board". One also cannot calculate the impact of the young veterinary student, who explains, "I decided to go to college in agriculture, because my father was a membet of an FSC co-op and he always carried me to meetings with him to read the minutes and other official papers. Through this experience, I came to understand the need for more Black people to take up professional studies’ of agriculture". Or how. do you fully quantify the impact on a 50 year old small Black farmer with a family of 6, of having the Federation/LAF intevene to prevent a Federal agency anda local bank from foreclosing on his 42 acres and allow him to _continueliving and farming as he wishes. These true incidents ‘and many more similar occurences are repeated in countless communities where the Federation/LAF has operated and worked with local people to build their own cooperative organizations.