Common Enterprise Development Corporation

Incorporated in February 2009, Common Enterprise Development Corporation (CEDC) is carrying on the cooperative development work formerly conducted by Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund (NCDF).

CEDC, a North Dakota non-profit development corporation, is focused on the development of community-owned enterprises and cooperatives in all sectors. Led by longtime co-op developer Bill Patrie, CEDC is working with value-added agriculture, housing cooperatives, health services, succession planning and worker cooperatives, natural food co-ops and marketing and consumer co-ops.

“We have interests in wind energy cooperative development, establishing housing finance cooperatives and establishing CSAs (community supported agriculture) and sustainable farming operations primarily in Minnesota and North Dakota,” says Patrie, CEDC’s executive director.

Helping Patrie carry out this work across a six-state region in the Upper Midwest are Susan Davis, a cooperative development/communication specialist, and Sarah Pike, a grants and contract specialist. The corporation is governed by a nine-member board that includes two North Dakota legislators, a Minnesota rural electric cooperative manager and the director of the South Dakota Value-Added Agricultural Development Center.

“This is one of the most experienced, knowledgeable boards I’ve ever worked with,” says Patrie.

CEDC also provides administrative services to the Association of Cooperative Educators (ACE).

Among the many projects to which CEDC offers technical assistance are a rural health care planning cooperative; Native American hoop barn hog producers; a locally-owned wind energy cooperative; a poultry producer cooperative; a member-owned hog packing plant; CSAs; and a home building cooperative and revolving loan fund.

The rural health care planning work has resulted in the newly-incorporated Wilson Health Planning Cooperative. CEDC is an active member and is leading the work to design and implement a new health care delivery plan in an 11-county area in North Dakota that includes the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The two main goals for the 115,000 residents who live in this area are to: 1) Increase the years of healthy life; and 2) end disparities in health care.” And those disparities run deep.

“A White male living in Mountrail County in North Dakota can expect to live to be 77,” Patrie says. “A Native American male living in the same county can expect to die at 66.”

Patrie adds that the high rates of diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses in and around the reservation are a brutal cycle. “Poverty often leads to poor health and poor health often leads to poverty,” he says.

To help discover the health care system already in place, Patrie and Davis helped organize and led site visits to health care facilities on the reservation and throughout the 11 counties. They also led 10 public meetings to gain consumer input into the type of health care system residents want.

“Through an Appreciative Inquiry methodology, we found that the area’s 115,000 residents want what we all want,” Patrie says. “They dream of accessible, affordable local care with high-quality passionate providers.” They also want a diverse array of services that includes preventive care, mental health services, dental care, and home health care and hospice.

The cooperative is named after Dr. Herbert Wilson who practiced family medicine to both Native Americans and Whites on the Fort Berthold Reservation for 43 years. Now 87, is a member of the cooperative and attended most of the tours and public meetings.

“It has long been my dream that one day all people living in this region can have access to quality, affordable, hassle-free health care,” Wilson says. “I hope I live to see it happen.”

CEDC is now helping the Wilson Health Care Cooperative raise close to $800,000 in grant money to help fund a three-year effort to design and implement a new health care delivery plan in the Cooperative’s 11-county area. CEDC will assist the co-op in submitting grant applications. A 10-member board was recently elected and the co-op was incorporated on March 9, 2009.