A New Season for CPA Massachusetts

Announcing Nathan's transition & our search for a new Co-op Director

A Letter from Nathan Davis Hunt

Dear CPA MA Community,

With deep gratitude and a tinge of sadness, I am announcing my upcoming transition as Director of the Community Purchasing Alliance of Massachusetts. Led by our incredible Board of Directors — along with the stalwart support of the broader CPA Network team — we are launching a search for a new CPA Massachusetts Co-op Director (see the posting here!). I will continue in my role through the end of July and support the onboarding of the new director. This fall I am thrilled to begin the next chapter of my career at Boston University where I will enter the PhD in Theology program focused on Social Ethics — investigating the intersection of movements (particularly the Solidarity Economy movement) with liberation theology, the Black radical tradition, and spiritual practices. You can continue to follow me here.

Since my first conversations four years ago with Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and the Community Purchasing Alliance in Washington D.C. about building a cooperative that could organize the economic power of community institutions for their own resiliency and for racial justice, I’ve welcomed two children, survived a pandemic, and witnessed all of you embrace this idea and transform it into a reality. What an adventure! 

We began with an audacious and multi-level vision. We needed a business that could become self-sufficient through its own revenue. It needed to offer concrete value to community organizations: save you money, improve your operations, relieve administrative burdens, solve information gaps, and, bottom-line, consistently deliver excellent services. We also believed it must be more than a traditional private business. We wanted to build a new kind of institution rooted in community ownership and democratic decision-making. We had to figure out how to design a cooperative that you could take ownership of so that it would serve you, serve workers, and serve our community. Foundationally, we knew that anything built in the 2020s must be anti-racist. It must weave racial equity and justice into its own DNA and it must pursue a powerful strategy, following the leadership of BIPOC community members and organizations, for closing the racial wealth gap in our cities and state. We took inspiration from the long legacy of Black-led cooperatives in the past and present. And we set this course based on conversation after conversation with all of you.

This vision still has a long way to go, but I’m proud of how far we have come. I will always be grateful for the opportunity I was given to work with each of you during this stretch of CPA MA’s journey. It’s been an enormous honor. I look forward to continuing to be a friend and partner to this cooperative, and to all of you personally. 

CPA Massachusetts is in good hands. Our board is brilliant, visionary, and devoted. Our team of program directors are ready to continue serving your needs and making an impact for our community. And I am so excited to find the next leader who can take our work into the future.

In solidarity,
Nathan

A Letter from the Community Purchasing Alliance of Massachusetts Board of Directors

Dear Friends of CPA MA,

In his accompanying letter, you will read of our Coop Director Nathan Davis Hunt’s decision to leave us to pursue a Theology PhD at Boston University this fall.  

In four fast-moving years with us, Nathan has successfully launched CPA MA - shepherding us through our first rounds of contracting, expanding our service offerings, growing our relationships, recruiting coop members, and connecting us with allied organizations. 

We truly celebrate Nathan Hunt, whose leadership presence at CPA MA was strong and deeply felt. His instrumental role in getting us to where we are today, his guidance through a myriad of hopeful possibilities, his dedication to listening to and activating participants and members toward meaningful collaboration, and his help in carving out a solid foundation for CPA MA's development of more equitable solutions, are all deeply appreciated.  Several coop members were not only served by the considerable work of the collective campaigns offered but also by the deep and meaningful relational value Nathan brought to his role.  His heart for justice and solidarity will no doubt expand as he transitions into his Theology program at BU.  We bless his journey and wish him great success.    

Though saddened to see Nathan go, we are enthusiastic about the search for our new Coop Director. We believe this is an opportunity for the Community Purchasing Alliance of MA to take a step forward and find a leader able to build on our strong foundation and take us to the next level.

Nathan’s letter frames our CPA MA vision beautifully. The Board remains firmly focused on delivering economic and social value to our purchasing partners and members; growing our operations for greater purchasing scale and impact; and strengthening our foundations to enable further growth and innovation. As a board and as community leaders, we believe CPA MA is positioned to become a transformative player in our region strengthening the community sector, building a more democratic society, and advancing racial equity. Our job posting encapsulates what we are looking for in our next leader. We urge you to take a few moments to read the posting and follow the link within it to learn more about who we are as an organization.

As we begin the search process, we invite you to spread the word and share the posting through your organizations and through your professional and personal networks.  In the meantime, if you have any questions or inputs to this process, please do not hesitate to contact Nathan, who will be with us through the end of July, or me (bberke@gmail.com, 617-877-5376).

Thank you for your continued support of our cooperative venture.  We, like Nathan, are proud of how far we have come.  And we are deeply committed to serving and strengthening the faith and non-profit community and to growing its power for good through thoughtful cooperative purchasing.

Sincerely,

Barbara Berke, Chair
on behalf of all the CPA MA Board Members

You will find our Job Posting here: