Capital

=Local Businesses= We will be drawing support from Whatcom County businesses in terms of both finance and knowledge. Possible partners include the Terra Organica, Sustainable Connections, the Co-op, Nimbus, Village Books, WECU, etc...

=Grants= The Howard Bowers Fund gives grants to fund co-op development projects. We plan to apply for this grant for $3,000 by the 15th of January. The Patagonia Company funds non-profit organizations doing environmental work. We may apply for a Patagonia grant in the spring. Several other organizations (such as the Organic Farming Research Foundation) fund specific projects in sustainable food efforts. We'll also be in touch with the Co-op about receiving capital through their farm fund in the spring. We hope to work with the Institute for Global and Community Resilience of Western to find grant money. One of our advisers, Nicole Brown, teaches grant writing at Western. She will offer grant writing internships in the spring and be a great resource for our grant writing team.

http://www.rsfsocialfinance.org/ http://slowfoodnation.org/partners/foundations/ http://www.sustainableventures.us/ http://www.wkkf.org/default.aspx?tabid=75&CID=19&NID=61&LanguageID=0 Here is a bunch of resources/funding sources. http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/farmtoschool.pdf http://www.tilth.org/advocacy

=Alumni/ donations= We will ask for donations from alumni of Western Washington University.

=T-shirt sales= We plan on paying $1,000 in expenses for the t-shirts, and expect $2,000 income from t-shirt sales. We aim to partner with 25 groups to have their names on our tee-shirts. We are requesting a minimum contribution of $50 each partner, for a total of $1,250. All together we expect raise a minimum of $2,250 through the tee-shirts.

=Membership= There are a number of ways to raise capital and structure membership in the Co-op.

o We could pass a quarterly voluntary fee through the AS. This would be similar to the current request that asks for $2 to support the student lobby. This fee would be someone's quarterly membership. We could put it $2. One could pay the quarterly membership in person, or as they register for classes. One could also choose to contribute $20 for a lifetime membership.
 * The Co-op could be a place of voluntary member. All people who use Western's campus are welcome to be members for a life-time payment of $20. All people would be accepted and encouraged to come to the Co-op. The benefits of membership are that one could vote for the board, have a greater say in day to day operations, and receive either a 5% discount, routine discounts, or a annual rebate.
 * We could pass an initiative through the AS. The initiative could be for a one-time fee to raise capital. This could be a tricky because there is currently a hold on new mandatory fees. We could either have an exception or we could take our fee that passes as a one-time addition to a current fee. The fee would follow the general structure of the fee passed by the Flaming Eggplant Cafe at Evergreen. We could have a one-time $.80-2 per credit fee. We do not really want to do this.

=WECU= If we pass a one-time start-up fee, we would not be able to get the money until Fall 09'. The non-profit could take a loan from WECU or another bank for start-up cost and we could pay them back once we receive the loan in the fall. This would allow us to start-up by fall 09'. We will meet the remaining need with a loan to be repaid in the fall with our membership dues.