Margaret Bau

Cooperative Development Specialist, retired

USDA Rural Development

Over her decades-long career with USDA Rural Development, Margaret Bau helped establish and strengthen dozens of cooperatives throughout rural America. Her work empowered communities to create locally owned solutions that increased economic opportunity and strengthened rural resilience.

Congratulatory Listings

Arts & Science of Cooperative Development Alumni

Generations of Art & Science alumni have benefited from your remarkable ability to make cooperative development both understandable and human. You taught us the theory, shared the lessons learned from practice, answered our questions, and reminded us to listen to the people doing the work. We’re thrilled to see our teacher and mentor enter the Cooperative Hall of Fame. Congratulations!

Congratulations, Margaret, on your induction into the Cooperative Hall of Fame. Your decades of leadership, education, and development have strengthened cooperative communities nationwide. Through humility, vision, and service, you have inspired generations and created lasting impact for us all.

Worker Co-ops Congratulate Margaret Bau

Congratulations, Margaret! You helped make space for worker cooperatives within USDA and spent decades connecting worker-owners and developers to knowledge, resources, and one another. More importantly, you approached every cooperative with humility and a belief that people could lead their own solutions. The worker co-op community is proud to celebrate your induction into the Cooperative Hall of Fame!

Apis & Heritage

Democracy at Work Institute

U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives

Home Care Cooperatives Congratulate Margaret Bau

Congratulations on your induction into the Cooperative Hall of Fame! From helping launch Cooperative Care in rural Wisconsin to championing worker-owned home care across the country, you believed in this model—and in us—long before it became a national movement. Your patience, persistence, and willingness to always answer the call helped plant seeds that continue to grow.

Cooperative Home Care Associates
Home Care Associates
Cooperative Care
Peninsula Homecare Cooperative
Ridgeline Homecare Cooperative
Capital Homecare Cooperative

Washington Homecare Cooperatives
Neighborhood Nursing Cooperative Corporation
Minnesota Lifestyle Solutions

Republican River Valley Homecare

Heart is Home Cooperative Care

CW is ecstatic to celebrate Margaret's induction into the Co-op Hall of Fame. Her passion, kindness, knowledge, and curiosity have earned her the well deserved title of "Co-op Goddess." Tonight, we celebrate with the many hundreds of people who've been impacted by her work.

Alex Stone

California Center for Cooperative Development

Char Vrieze

Diane Gasaway

Juliette Jack Banerjee

Kevin Edberg

Keystone Development Center

Steve Dubb

Thomas Beckett

William J. Nelson

Wisconsin Cooperators Congratulate Margaret Bau

From your small office in Stevens Point, your impact reached across Wisconsin and far beyond. Whether helping launch a new co-op, guiding one through a difficult moment, mentoring a colleague, or simply answering the phone when someone needed help, you have been a constant friend to Wisconsin cooperators. We’re so proud to see one of our own welcomed into the Cooperative Hall of Fame!

Anne Reynolds

Courtney Berner

CROPP Cooperative

Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association

Isthmus Engineering & Manufacturing

Kristin Forde Hurckes

Mari Barry

Megan Webster

The Ralph K. Morris Foundation recognizes Margaret Bau’s significant contributions
to cooperative education and development. Margaret’s work in building home
care worker cooperatives and multi-stakeholder food system cooperatives, among
many other projects, has contributed to rural sustainability across the Midwest
and beyond. We are grateful for her gracious tenacity, and congratulate her on this
outstanding achievement.

Friends of Margaret Bau

Alex Stone

Ann Fedorchak

Casey Fannon

Cathy Statz

Dami Odetola

David Lidz

E. Kim Coontz

Ellen Quinn

John Dunn

John Holdsclaw IV

Julie Bosland

Karen Zimbelman

Kirstie Boyette

Leslie Mead

Margaret Lund

Mary Griffin

Mary Alex Blanton

Melissa Hoover

Michelle L. Schry

Rosemary Mahoney

Where Community Took Root

Margaret’s story begins in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, where community wasn’t just a concept—it was a way of life. Growing up surrounded by generations of family, on land once part of her great-grandparents’ farm, she learned early what it meant to belong to something bigger than yourself.

That same young girl was also finding her voice—literally. By 7th grade, she was competing in speech contests, building the confidence that would later allow her to teach, inspire, and connect with thousands across the cooperative movement.

Long before she ever used the word “cooperative,” Margaret understood the power of people showing up for each other.

A Moment That Changed Everything

In a remote mountain village in Costa Rica, Margaret Bau’s life took a defining turn.

As a Peace Corps volunteer, she worked alongside women forming a small knitwear enterprise—helping families earn income while strengthening their community. Hiking between villages, she began asking a simple but powerful question: how can people build economic strength together instead of competing?

She didn’t yet know the term “cooperative,” but she had already discovered its essence.

Years later, she still returns to that same village—maintaining lifelong relationships, speaking Spanish, eating her fill of rice and beans, and staying connected to the people and place that helped shape her purpose.

A Calling, Not Just a Career

Margaret Bau didn’t start out on a straight path to cooperative development. In college, she began as a pre-med student before pivoting to psychology, sociology, and religion—graduating magna cum laude with a deep curiosity about people and communities.

That curiosity, combined with one powerful lecture on cooperatives, led her to USDA in 1998.

What followed wasn’t just a career—it was a calling. As one supporter put it: “I do not believe that Margaret has ever had a job as a cooperative specialist… she had a calling.”

And she answered it for the next 27 years.

Building More Than Cooperatives

Margaret Bau’s impact is often measured in numbers—more than 40 cooperatives formed, over 500 developers trained, and thousands reached through her teaching.

But her ability to connect with people started long before USDA. In high school, she performed in musicals, sang in a swing choir, and served as co-editor of her school newspaper—experiences that shaped her voice as both a communicator and educator.

“She sets the bar for others in the profession,” one colleague shared.

Because Margaret didn’t just build co-ops—she built understanding, confidence, and community.

From One Co-op to a National Movement

In 2001, Margaret Bau helped launch Cooperative Care, a worker-owned home care cooperative in rural Wisconsin—at a time when few believed the model could scale.

But Margaret saw what others didn’t.

As one leader reflected: “This is not merely a local success story; it is a national landmark…”

Today, that vision has grown into a nationwide network of home care cooperatives—transforming an industry and empowering workers across the country.

Leadership That Stays with You

Margaret’s leadership isn’t defined by titles—it’s defined by how she shows up.

Whether mentoring new developers or guiding co-ops through crisis, she has always been present.

“She always answered our call.”

That same steadiness shows up in her personal life too—from decades of singing in a 60-voice chorale to her commitment to meditation and community service. She brings intention, care, and presence into everything she does.

And that’s exactly why her leadership leaves such a lasting impression.

A Bridge Between Worlds

Inside the federal government, Margaret Bau became something rare: a bridge between grassroots communities and national systems.
Colleagues describe her as “the ‘glue’ that has kept things together” across decades of change.

She connected people to resources, ideas to action, and communities to opportunity.

And while she was doing that work nationally, she was also the kind of person who would pick up the phone for anyone—whether they were launching their first co-op or navigating their toughest challenge.

A Legacy That Grows

Margaret Bau often says the strongest movements grow from the grassroots—and her life reflects that truth.

Outside of her professional work, she’s an award-winning gardener, known for nurturing vibrant, thriving spaces that bring people together. It’s not hard to see the parallel.

As one colleague shared: “Above all, Margaret is an absolute gem of a human… dependable, warm, and wise.”

Like a garden, her impact continues to grow—through the people she’s inspired, the communities she’s strengthened, and the cooperative movement she’s helped flourish.

For all those reasons, Margaret Bau will be honored with induction into the Cooperative Hall of Fame. Join us in Washington, DC on October 8 as we celebrate Margaret and her contributions to the cooperative business community.

Honoring and Planning Committee

Alex Stone . Courtney Berner
Leslie Mead . Margaret Lund

Nominated by:

CooperationWorks!