In 2015 Frank Cetera, then at the Onondaga SBDC, wrote Bringing the Cooperation Upstate, a plan for regional cooperative development in upstate New York published by Grassroots Economic Organizing:
…the challenge of organizing across great distances are relevant (upstate NY is 42,067 square miles out of 47,100 square miles that make up the full state – and extends approximately 425 miles at its widest point latitudinally, 347 miles at its longest point longitudinally, and 450 miles diagonally from Chautauqua County in the SW to Clinton County in the NE). Ron Ehrenreich, in the context of organizing with the NY Federation of Cooperatives, stressed keeping in mind that in the 1980s and 1990s it was “before email and internet, and that long distance phone charges, particularly in-state were very expensive’” Email, the Internet, and inexpensive long-distance make a big difference in the 2010s, but travelling between locations for person-to-person meetings and organizing is still a challenge. Interestingly, from Syracuse NY, it is less of a distance to travel to the home of the Cooperative Development institute in Massachusetts (214 miles and 3 hours 54 minutes according to Google Maps), than it is to visit our in-state neighbors downstate at the NY City Network of Worker Cooperatives (248 miles and 4 hours 4 minutes)
The article describes the origins of the the New York Cooperative Summit:
With an eye towards the solidarity economy, I presented a plan in 2011 to use a portion of a green business-oriented Kauffman grant from Syracuse University to hold an Upstate NY Cooperative Business Summit in Syracuse. With assistance from various cooperators across upstate, we pulled off a very successful effort that attracted over 100 participants, included workshops, educational panels, and keynote speaker Steve Dubb of The Democracy Collaborative. With our success and increased interest regionally, we were able to repeat our Summit efforts 18 months later in 2013 with keynote Speaker Richard D. Wolff of Democracy at Work and Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Dr. Wolffe is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City, and columnist for Monthly Review magazine writing about the expanding global capitalist crisis. We had garnered the attention of the industry, and done so at a serendipitous time for the National Cooperative Business Association to notice as well, due to their initiative to seed Cooperative Business Associations nationally. The first step of this for us was the final session of the 2013 Summit which was a Cross-Sector Cooperative Organizing round-table in New York State, hosted by Tom Decker, former Director of Cooperative Development with the NCBA.
New York Cooperative Summit 
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