The purpose of the Founding Membership Drive is to build a voting membership and to raise our venture equity, but there are many benefits to NOFC Founding Members:

You benefit by becoming a Founding Member

• This is a socially-conscious business investment.
• You become a part-owner of the New Orleans Food Community.
• You become part of the democratic process involved in starting a cooperative grocery store.
• You get to decide how your store should look and operate.
• You will have one vote in board elections and other special elections and be eligible to run for a board position.
• You will be able to participate in determining where your cooperative grocery will be located.

The NOFC benefits from your founding membership:

• Funds collected from membership are the primary way that co-ops raise the money to open a grocery store. By becoming a founding member you are helping to make the dream of opening a cooperative grocery store a reality.
• Opening a grocery store requires a lot of money. We will need money to purchase equipment, hire a staff, stock the shelves, pay our lease, utilities, insurance, etc.
• If we estimate that we need $200,000 of equity to open, this money could be acquired by collecting memberships from 2000 people.
• The more people who become members of the NOFC the more of a representative and diverse community we have operating our co-op.

You should not wait to become a Founding Member

• Founding equity will allow us to negotiate favorable lending terms and accounts with suppliers, and we could open our store sooner!
• If you wait until the store opens to become a member, you will have to go where the Founding Members have decided the store is best situated.