Frankfurt Cooperative Association
The Genossenschaftsverband Frankfurt eV (GVF) was until its merger with the Genossenschaftsverband Norddeutschland to the Genossenschaftsverband eV in 2008 as a service provider and statutory auditing association for its affiliated member cooperatives . Its catchment area extended over five German federal states: Hesse , Rhineland-Palatinate , Saarland , Saxony and Thuringia .
structure
At the beginning of 2008, GVF employed 611 people at seven locations: Frankfurt am Main , Kassel , Saarbrücken , Erfurt , Baunatal , Bad Münster am Stein and Nossen . The administrative center in Neu-Isenburg was the strategic and operational center of the association . The GVF maintained seminar centers at two locations.
The GVF looked after 192 Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks , 188 Raiffeisen goods and service cooperatives, 73 agricultural cooperatives, 139 commercial cooperatives and 13 housing and construction maintenance companies. The association's Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks had total assets of 94 billion euros. These had 28,000 employees, 6.7 million customers and around 3,000 branches. The goods and services cooperatives generate eight billion euros in sales annually.
The member cooperatives in Hesse , Rhineland-Palatinate , Saarland , Saxony and Thuringia employ a total of around 37,000 people. With more than 2,000 trainees, they are among the most important providers of training positions.
The GVF launched the www.genoportal.de platform for the systematic establishment of new cooperatives in sustainable business areas . This portal will be continued by the cooperative association. Advisors to the association support founders in all tax, legal and business issues.
tasks
- Carrying out examinations of the association members to determine the economic situation and the correctness of the management
- Advice and support for members with services such as corporate, personnel, start-up, tax and legal advice as well as education, training and certification
- Representation of the professional, economic and economic policy interests of the members
- Promotion of the cooperative system
- Planning and implementation of joint marketing measures
- Information for members, benchmarking and the publication of a management magazine for association members
- Development and implementation of services within the scope of the association's range of tasks for the customers of the association members by the institutions and the association.
history
On May 25, 1862, the Association of Acquisitions and Business Cooperatives on the Middle Rhine eV was founded in Wiesbaden . He is one of the legal predecessors of our current association. The Genossenschaftsverband Frankfurt eV is the oldest regional association of the cooperative organization .
Wilhelm Haas , who was born in Darmstadt in 1839 , had a major influence on the development of the cooperative system in Hesse . In contrast to Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen and Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch , Haas was less concerned with establishing cooperatives than with organizing existing cooperatives into associations and thus strengthening the clout of the cooperative system as a whole. The Darmstadt native worked on what is now called the cooperative association. For example, the law graduate was the initiator and president of the 'Association of Hessian Agricultural Consumers' Associations' founded in Mainz in 1873. In 1883 Haas founded the 'Reich Association of Rural Cooperatives'. Schulze-Delitzsch, Raiffeisen and Haas created institutions that were born out of the bitter need of the rural population and the craftsmen and traders in the cities. Hunger, lack of money and powerlessness in the face of the economically powerful was the cradle of the cooperatives. Self-help, self-responsibility and self-administration became the keys that should open the doors to a better future for those affected. This goal was also pursued when the association was founded in Wiesbaden in 1862. The association formulated its tasks as follows: "The establishment of reciprocal business relationships between the associations forming the association" and "the exchange of experience regarding the economic conditions of the association's territory and the needs resulting from it"; finally "the resolution on joint applications at the general association day of the German cooperatives and the prosecution and execution of what was decided there."
In the course of time, comprehensive regional associations emerged, which the cooperatives initially voluntarily joined and voluntarily submitted to the audit. In 1889 the examination became a legal obligation. Since 1934 every cooperative has been required by law to belong to an auditing association.
The most important highlights in recent history were the inclusion of cooperatives from Thuringia in 1990 and the merger with the Genossenschaftsverband Kurhessen-Thüringen e. V., Kassel .
After the Raiffeisen and Schulze-Delitzsch cooperatives were strictly separated from each other in the GDR, the Raiffeisen cooperatives joined the then Raiffeisenverband Kassel, while the Schulze Delitzsch cooperatives and the Volksbanks joined the Frankfurt cooperative association. Around 60 agricultural cooperatives each joined our association and the former Kassel association. In 1992, after more than a year of intensive discussions, the associations in Frankfurt am Main and Kassel were united . The Frankfurt Cooperative Association could already look back on 130 years of history, the Kassel Cooperative Association 110 years.
In 2002 the merger with the Saarland Cooperative Association was registered. At this point in time, the GVF, the world's oldest regional cooperative association, had emerged from 12 predecessor organizations through mergers.
Since January 1, 2004, the association has also included the Saxon credit cooperatives .
In 2008 it was decided to merge with the Genossenschaftsverband Norddeutschland to form Genossenschaftsverband eV. In January 2009 the merger was entered in the register of associations and became legally effective. The merger resulted in an association that extends across 13 federal states and looks after 1,800 cooperatives with 4.2 million members.