Minnesota Cooperative Education Foundation

For over 30 years, MCEF has been a non-profit organization working to educate the public about cooperatives.

The Minnesota Cooperative Education Foundation (MCEF) was established in 1986 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation to honor the tireless work of long-time cooperator and former Executive Director of the then-Minnesota Association of Cooperatives (now Cooperative Network), Edward Slettom. For over 30 years, MCEF has been doing important work to help broaden cooperative initiatives and promote understanding of the cooperative business model. The Foundation has supported a number of activities to further the goals of cooperatives and their members, including:

• Creating and distributing general co-op education curriculum and economics-focused lesson plans for Minnesota's teachers to use in high school to teach about cooperatives. 
• Provide the Edward Slettom Cooperative Leadership Scholarship for students pursuing a career in cooperatives. Scholarships are awarded to Minnesota residents with a variety of interests in participating in, and furthering the cooperative industry. As costs of higher education continue to rise, donations to the foundation help to relieve the financial pressure of educational costs for students and their families.
• Worked with Minnesota's higher education institutions, including law and business schools, in creating opportunities to learn about cooperatives.
• Worked with Farm Business Management instructors to build the next generation of farm leaders. 
• Worked with the legal community by surveying law schools to find holes in cooperative legal education and creating new resources for law schools to teach about cooperatives.
• Hosted cooperative Continuing Legal Education (CLE) workshops to ensure that attorneys are briefed on the basics of co-op businesses and new statutes affecting cooperatives.
• Created the first of its kind Co-op Committee of the Business Law Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association.
• Recognize educators by providing funding for service awards at the annual Minnesota Association of Agricultural Educators Conference and encourage cooperative and agricultural education.
• Sponsor the MN Agriculture and Rural Leadership Program and the annual College Conference on Cooperatives held in Minnesota.

Many of you have graciously supported the efforts of our Foundation in the past, and we ask for your continued support!  Thanks to the help of GiveMN, we are able to make giving as easy as the click of a button. Please consider contributing online to help us raise the funds necessary to educate Minnesotans about the cooperative form of business and directly support students who wish to pursue careers in cooperatives!

We thank you in advance for helping us further the efforts of MCEF!

In Cooperation,

--The Minnesota Cooperative Education Foundation