In its October 22 Board Blog post, the Board reported that WSM’s Ends have been updated to
“A vibrant sustainable food marketplace defined by shared economics, shared community and shared knowledge for owners and potential owners.”
What’s the best way to measure progress toward the Ends? A recent survey asked consumer owners to rank the importance of various progress indicators on the four 2020 goals and on the co-op difference of shared economics, shared community, and shared knowledge.
1,400 consumer owners responded and provided valuable input on how these progress indicators resonate with the consumer owners. Here are a few preliminary conclusions from the data:
- Local food sales, accessible prices, and the percentage of packaging that can responsibly be disposed of were the most important indicators of progress toward the 2020 goals.
- Consumer owners highly value worker well-being. Three of the six indicators ranked most important by consumer owners related to worker well-being.
- Consumer owners ranked the worker-owner dividend more highly than their own dividend. The consumer owner dividend was ranked lowest of all the shared economics indicators.
- Shared economics in general was more highly ranked than either shared community or shared knowledge, indicating the importance of owners getting an economic benefit from their co-op. (It may also be that the indicators for shared community and shared knowledge were not as well developed.)
Here are the complete results. Each item was ranked on a four-point scale from 1 to 4 with 4 as “utmost important.”
Do you see other conclusions in the data that strike you as significant or surprising? Please write us at Board@weaverstreetmarket.coop or use the form below.