DotCoop Announces Winners of 2011 Global Awards

Washington, DC USA - DotCoop,
the sponsor of the .coop domain name, announced the winners of the 2011 dotCoop
Global Awards for Cooperative Excellence.

The awards will be presented on November 18^th
2011 at the International Co-operative
Alliance General Assembly in Cancun, Mexico. The winning cooperatives will
receive funds to assist in their participation in the meeting as part of their
award.

"We received over 50 applications, from around the world
and across cooperative sectors," said Carolyn Hoover, chief executive officer
of dotCoop. "We’re extremely pleased with the turnout of this year’s
competition."

Hoover also expressed her
thanks for the support provided this year by the sponsors of the 2011 Global Awards and
noted that information on the winners will be provided on a weekly basis from
the www.globalawards.coop and www.coop websites and social media leading up to the
presentation of the awards at the beginning of the last day of the ICA General
Assembly.

The dotCoop Global Awards are given to those cooperatives and
cooperative organizations who demonstrate a strong commitment to the
cooperative business model. The DotCoop Global Awards judges also looked for
co-ops whose mission and practices clearly demonstrate cooperative values,
especially on their website.

The four winners are:

• La Equidad Seguros Organismo
  Cooperativo is an insurance cooperative in Colombia formed by two companies
  - La Equidad Seguros Generales and La Equidad Seguros de Vida.  With more than 1,500,000 members, La Equidad
  Seguros OC was the winner in the category of large cooperatives with more than
  US$50 million in revenue or assets.
• The Malaysian National Cooperative Movement
  (ANGKASA) provides services to the members of the over 4,000 Malaysian
  cooperatives including insurance, educational loans and scholarships and an
  Islamic financial cooperative. ANGKASA was the winner in the medium category of
  cooperatives with between US$1 and $50 million in revenue or assets.
• The Co-operative
  Press – s.coop won in the category of small cooperatives with less than $1
  million in revenue or assets. Presented a Special Recognition award in the 2009
  competition, the Cooperative Press is an active participant in promoting
  cooperatives both in the UK
  and globally.  The s.coop application has
  provided more than 162,000 short links which have been accessed by over 2.4
  million people raising the profile of cooperatives around the world.
• In our new category for
  cooperative organizations, the Cooperativa
  Central de Crédito Urbano of Brazil was the winner.  CECRED works to integrate, monitor and
  support the development of credit cooperatives in Brazil as well as to develop
  and improve products and services to meet the needs of its cooperative members.

Because of the number of outstanding entries, the international panel of judges
chose to select the following outstanding cooperatives and cooperative
organizations for Honorable Mention awards:

Large Cooperatives

CAC
Dr. Manuel Zeno Gandia (Puerto Rico)

CROPP
Cooperative (Organic Valley & Organic Prairie brands) (United States)

Medium
Cooperatives

First
Alternative Cooperative (United States)

Rung’eto
Farmers Co-operative Society Limited (Kenya)

Small Cooperatives

Café
l’Artère (Canada)

Atrium
São Paulo Cooperativa de Profissionais de Informática e Assessoria Técnica
(Brazil)

Organizational

Canadian
Co-operative Association (Canada)

Singapore
National Co-operative Federation (Singapore)

The next awards will be presented at the ICA
General Assembly in 2013.