International Day of Cooperatives
Next: July 3, 2027
Owned together, run together.
The story
Where it comes from
A cooperative is a business owned and run by its own members, who share its decisions on the principle of one member, one vote. The International Cooperative Alliance, founded in 1895, first held an International Co-operative Day in 1923. On 16 December 1992 the UN General Assembly proclaimed the first Saturday of July 1995 the International Day of Cooperatives, to mark the Alliance's hundredth year. Since then the UN and the Alliance have celebrated it together on the first Saturday of every July.
How it's celebrated
Cooperatives of every kind, from farm and fishing co-ops to credit unions, housing groups and shops, hold open days, markets and gatherings to show what working together can do. The UN and the Alliance agree on a shared theme every year. For everyone else it is a good day to shop at a co-op, thank the volunteers who run one, or find out which of the services you use are owned by their members.
Did you know
- The earliest record of a cooperative comes from Scotland, on 14 March 1761; in 1844 a group of 28 artisans in the north of England founded the first modern cooperative business.
- More than 12 per cent of humanity belongs to one of the world's 3 million cooperatives.
- Singapore's FairPrice supermarkets are run by a cooperative, NTUC FairPrice Co-operative.
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