Founded in 1916 as the Cooperative League of America, the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) is a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 membership organization

Cooperative federation

A co-operative federation or secondary co-operative is a co-operative in which all members are, in turn, co-operatives.Historically, co-operative federations have predominantly come in the form of co-operative wholesale societies and co-operative unions...

 for cooperative

Cooperative

A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...

s, businesses that are jointly-owned and democratically-controlled.

The league's founding president was medical doctor James Peter Warbasse

James Peter Warbasse

Dr. James Peter Warbasse was an American surgeon and advocate for cooperatives. He founded the Cooperative League of the United States of America and was its president from 1916 to 1941.-Early life:Warbasse was born on November 22, 1866 in Newton, New Jersey to Joseph Warbasse and...

, who served in that role until 1941.
Thereafter, the league's presidents included Murray B. Lincoln, former U.S. Congressman Jerry Voorhis

Jerry Voorhis

Horace Jeremiah "Jerry" Voorhis was a Democratic politician from California. He served five terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1947, representing the 12th Congressional district in Los Angeles County...

, Stanley Dreyer, Glenn Anderson, Morgan Williams, Bob Scherer, Russell C. Notar, and currently, Paul Hazen.

In its first few decades, it focused on consumer cooperation

Consumers' cooperative

Consumer cooperatives are enterprises owned by consumers and managed democratically which aim at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of their members. They operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit...

, and published a monthly magazine, Co-operation.

In 1922, it originated and trademarked the twin pines symbol used to represent North American cooperatives.

In 2000 the group successfully lobbied the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to establish a new top-level domain

Top-level domain

A top-level domain is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last label of a...

 exclusively for business cooperatives. The domain, .coop

.coop

The domain coop is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for the use of cooperatives, wholly owned subsidiaries, and other organizations that exist to promote or support co-operatives....

, became active in 2002.

NCBA members include some well-known United States consumer brand

Brand

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...

s, such as Ace Hardware

Ace Hardware

Ace Hardware Corporation is a hardware cooperative based in Oak Brook, Illinois, United States. ACE Hardware Corporation, with 4,444 stores, does over $3 billion in retail hardware sales annually down from its peak of $12.5 billion in 2007.-History:...

, Florida's Natural, and Land O'Lakes

Land O'Lakes

Land O'Lakes is a member-owned agricultural cooperative based in Arden Hills, Minnesota, focusing on the dairy industry. The co-op states that it has about 3200 producer-members, 1000 member-cooperatives, and about 9000 employees who process and distribute products for about 300,000 agricultural...

.

External links

• Official site
• Co-operation magazine facsimile archive, 1921–1947