To Our Fellow Cooperators; 

Anyone who has been part of building a long-term community project can tell you there’s a certain magic that happens when someone joins your endeavor with exactly the leadership skills needed by your project at exactly the right time. That “right person in the right moment” can make all the difference in an organization's trajectory. 

FCI has been so fortunate to have experienced that magic firsthand when Faye Mack joined our small-but-mighty nonprofit in 2022. She brought her extensive experience in the nonprofit sector to strengthen FCI, build systems and craft a clear organizational strategy to serve the future of the startup food co-op movement. In the past two years, she has led us in clarifying our vision, initiated the first steps of a new funding growth era for FCI, and finalized a powerful strategic plan that will guide our leadership of the startup movement through the pivotal years ahead.

For the last several months, the board and staff of FCI have been working together on an important transition for our organization, one we’d now like to share with you  — FCI’s cooperative partners and friends. 

Faye will be moving on from her role as FCI’s Executive Director as of the end of this March. We are so grateful to Faye for having been our ‘right leader in the right moment’, and have great confidence that she will bring the same transformative leadership to her next endeavors. At the same time, we are excited to announce that JQ Hannah, FCI’s Director of Programming for the last decade, will now be stepping up to lead FCI as our interim Executive Director. As many in the startup cooperative space know, FCI has greatly benefited from JQ’s vision and leadership from within our organization for years; having zir now step into the Executive Director role is both a natural step and a very strategic one, as zir’s deep knowledge of the challenges startups face and extensive relationships within the community are more critical to FCI’s work now than ever. 

Faye and JQ have, together, have brought new capacity and expertise to our FCI staff this January by hiring for two new roles that will support JQ’s leadership and our startup movement into the future: Chris Dilley has joined our staff as our Director of Startup Support, and Mercedes Godsby has joined our staff as our Content and Data Manager. We are incredibly excited that these two individuals will be joining JQ in bringing their skills and commitment to the startup movement, and we can’t wait for you to work with them!

We have so much more we are eager to share with you about everything from fully introducing our new team, JQ’s thoughts as ze steps into the interim Executive Director role, Faye’s reflections on her time with FCI, and how our board is utilizing this moment to manifest our new strategic goals through FCI’s leadership structure - more than could reasonably fit into this one announcement email. Please keep an eye out for our February FCI eNews in just a few weeks, where we will more fully introduce you to our new team, share perspectives from our board and staff leadership, as well as talk more about what is next for FCI.

Thank you for your support and your commitment to the cooperative movement and FCI. We welcome any questions or thoughts you want to share with us about this moment of transition for FCI at either faye@fci.coop  or jq@fci.coop. 

In Cooperation, 

The FCI Team

Image Description: Some of FCI's staff and board members together at the 2024 Up & Coming Conference

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