Tom shares reflections on his tenure at NCF during his retirement party in March 2024.

NCF is excited to launch the Tom Guettler Cooperative Leaders Fund to honor the legacy of a long-time employee and to support cooperative leaders in their continuing education pursuits.

Tom exemplified the spirit of cooperative leadership during his nearly 15-year tenure at NCF. He served in various capacities, from technical assistance provider to interim Executive Director, always stepping up with a "we can do it!" attitude.

His involvement with the cooperative model dates back to his early days at the Mississippi Market food co-op in St. Paul where he served as a volunteer and spent several years on the board of directors.

In 2002, Tom began his nonprofit career at Northcountry Cooperative Development Foundation (NCDF, now Shared Capital Cooperative) where he secured investments from faith-based and private investors, supervised administrative staff, and implemented regional training workshops for food and housing cooperative members. After a four-year hiatus from NCDF between 2005 and 2010, he returned to NCDF's sister organization, Northcountry Cooperative Foundation (NCF) in 2011. In the twelve years that followed, Tom wore many hats at NCF - he provided direct technical assistance to existing housing cooperatives, helped develop several new cooperatives, and assisted several co-ops refinance and manage infrastructure projects. The last couple years of Tom's tenure he has worked in semi-retirement as NCF's Office Manager.

Much has changed at NCF over the course of Tom’s nearly 15 year tenure. When Tom first started his career at NCF in 2011 the organization had four employees. NCF is now a team of 12. The organization's budget has seen exponential growth, from $450,000 in 2011 to over $3 million today. Tom’s career also spanned huge growth of NCF’s manufactured home community preservation program, Midwest ROCs. 12 of NCF's 16 manufactured home cooperative conversion projects happened during Tom's tenure.

Tom was always learning new skills and taking on new challenges to benefit NCF’s mission of empowering communities through cooperation. The Leaders Fund honors Tom’s legacy by providing a mechanism for leaders of NCF-supported cooperatives to gain new skills that benefit their cooperative. Residents can apply to the Leaders Fund to pursue courses, certificates, or conferences relevant to cooperative management and improvement.

“Education is a cornerstone of the cooperative business model. My hope is that the Leaders Fund will eliminate financial barriers for generations of cooperative leaders who want to grow their skill sets and tackle new challenges. Retiring is bittersweet, but it’s great to be leaving NCF knowing that the mission is in good hands. The best is yet to come for NCF and our network of cooperative leaders,” Tom said.

The inaugural scholarship application for the Leaders Fund is anticipated in early 2025.