Finance Your Own Co op

IF YOU operate a consumer co op or would like to form one, a government funded bank wants to lend you money.

Co ops are hardly new. Farmers have banded together for more than a century to market their crops, and tenants have been forming co ops for years to buy and run apartment buildings in New York City. But they have not caught on in many parts of the country, partly because conventional banks are wary of lending money to them.

The National Cooperative Bank in Washington, however, is eager to finance not only traditional cooperatives but also imaginative new ventures.