The BC Co-operative Association recently launched a news program to share how co-ops are building a social economy.
 
BCCA Launches News Program to Share Co-op Movement’s Successes
‘Sharing successes is a positive way to engage more people in the effort to bring about social change’

The British Columbia Co-operative Association (BCCA) has a lot of member success stories and important information to share with its members, partners, stakeholders and the public, and the organization, which has more than 80 B.C. member co-ops and credit unions, is launching a news program to aggregate these stories.

BCCA’s mandate is to build and strengthen B.C.’s co-operative economy. BCCA’s mission is to make co-ops the preferred business model for people, whether they’re grocery shopping or trying to start their own business.

Through its news program, BCCA’s goal is to publish news articles highlighting successes and profiling leaders in the co-operative movement. Key themes the news program is to focus on include social issues, community issues, social finance, social enterprise and community economic development.

Carol Murray, BCCA’s director of co-op development, says she hopes the news program will support its drive to bring attention to the great work co-ops are doing and share that information with a broad spectrum of people.

“The co-op sector is very much about connection and co-operation among co-operatives, so (we want to do) anything we can to foster that and create awareness,” Murray adds.

BCCA’s news program will be overseen by Axiom News, a media agency specializing in providing journalistic content on behalf of organizations. Axiom News journalists will interview those involved with the co-op movement to share their stories.

“We’re very pleased to have Axiom on board,” Murray says. “They’re a great catalyst for social change through the strength of storytelling, a mandate that aligns well with what we’re about at BCCA.”

And what would be the best possible long-term result from having the news program?

“Long-term, we’d like these stories stimulate innovation in the co-op movement,” Murray says. “Sharing successes is a positive way to engage more people in the effort to bring about social change.”

As part of the news program, stories will appear on the BCCA website once per week and will be complemented by a monthly newsletter that will include the stories along with other news and information of interest to those involved with the co-op movement.

Murray says Axiom News’ work with another co-operative organization, the Alberta Community Co-operative Association (ACCA), helped inspire BCCA to get its own news program.

She says BCCA noticed how Axiom News was able to help ACCA connect with its members and share its success stories.

“We were looking for a vehicle that would allow us to do that, too.”

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A version of this article was originally written for the British Columbia Co-operative Association (BCCA) news service. This repost, for which we received permission, follows the style guidelines of the original post. To learn more about generative newsroom options for your organization or community, please contact peter(at)axiomnews.ca.