For Partners
Projects with real-world outcomes hold some of the greatest potential for helping students become driven, empathetic and engaged citizens. As a co-operative and credit union partner, you will introduce co-operative principles and values to our future leaders, while providing them with a meaningful problem to solve, along with a team of volunteer staff mentors to engage and inspire them.
As co-operative businesses and credit unions looking to inspire and engage the next generation of members, staff and board members, you are the key to creating a co-operative learning path for young people. Our goal is to facilitate partnerships that create opportunities for young people to engage with co-operatives in their communities, help them develop transferable skills, and gain a deeper understanding and awareness of co-operatives. Mentor participation is a way to engage staff in volunteering, professional development, while increasing knowledge about co-operatives and how they benefit your members and the larger community.
We also offer corporate level, facilitated options for our partners interested in running the Co-operative Minds program internally as a team-building exercise. If you are looking for a tool to increase collaboration and creative problem-solving within your organization, please contact our.team@cooperativeminds.ca
What does a Co-operative Minds partnership look like?
There is no fee to register as a co-operative partner. Once registered, you will be featured as a participating partner on our website, and will be included in program promotion.
As a registered partner you will have full access to our Partner Dashboard page where you can submit fee-based challenges at any time, view and manage your challenges, and manage your partner profile.
Included in your registration:
- Access to a suite of resources including packages for Team Leads, Staff Mentors and Challenge Selection.
- Free virtual orientation and one-on-one training sessions for participating staff.
- Creation of a customized challenge toolkit branded with your organizations name and logo.
Our team can work with you to determine a challenge that will be relevant to teachers and engaging for students, and to maximize the benefit for your organization. You can also use the tools provided to work with your team to select a challenge that is important to your organization.
Challenges can be linked to curriculum in business, math, social studies, family studies, economics and more. Click here for a more complete list of curriculum streams.
Participation fees are attached to each challenge that you submit and are tiered based on the size and reach of your co-operative or credit union. Each submitted challenge will be fully accessible to all educators in your region for a period of 12 months.
Examples of challenge questions.
- "How can budgeting help our members be more financially successful?"
- "How can we help to increase food security in our community?"
- "What improvements could we make to most improve visitor experience?"
- "What is the most effective way to increase awareness of our organization through the use of social media?"
Co-operative learning made easy.
- No extensive staff training is required.
- We work with you to promote Co-operative Minds to educators in your region.
- You come up with a challenge for students to solve as well as a team of mentors, and we provide a step-by-step guide to participate.
- Our team is here to help with one-on-one training and support.
Partner Benefits.
- Increase brand recognition
- Provide professional development opportunities
- Build relationships within your community
- Gain valuable insight from youth ages 12 - 17
Our Co-operative Partners
Building cooperative leaders through real-world problem solving.
Contacts
30 Douglas St., Guelph, Ontario N1H 2S9
Phone: 519.763.8271 ext. 29
Toll-free: 1.888.745.5521
Email: mchristmann@ontario.coop
Website: www.ontario.coop