The world is full of bad things. Shockingly, bad things don’t tend to coöperate, as you may have noticed. Cooperatives are good things. Get some goodness:

Co-ops have been working for a sustainable world long before “green” was used to market everything from game shows to gasoline.

Co-ops fight for social justice all over the planet, as is evident by movements such as Fair Trade.

Co-ops are so cool the United Nations established 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives.

There are more than 29,000 co-ops in the United States with Americans holding 350 million co-op memberships.

U.S. co-ops provide over 850 thousand jobs and create more than $74 billion in annual wages with revenue of nearly $500 billion.

The majority of our country’s 2 million farmers are members of the nearly 3,000 farmer-owned cooperatives. They provide over 250 thousand jobs and annual wages of over $8 billion.

Over 8,300 credit unions provide financial services to nearly 100 million members.

More than 900 rural electric co-ops deliver electricity to more than 42 million people in 47 states. This makes up 42% of the nation’s electric distribution lines and covers 75% of our country’s land mass.

Approximately 233 million people are served by insurance companies owned by or closely affiliated with co-ops.

Food co-ops have been innovators in the areas of unit pricing, consumer protection, organic and bulk foods, and nutritional labeling.

More than 50,000 families in the U.S. use cooperative day care centers, giving co-ops a crucial role in the care of our children.

About 1.2 million rural Americans in 31 states are served by the 260 telephone cooperatives.

More than 6,400 housing cooperatives exist in the U.S., providing 1.5 million homes.

Our utmost thanks to our friends at go.coop for helping provide fodder for the list above.