Nearly one billion people around the world belong to cooperatives and producer organizations. Now, a quick diagnosis of their effectiveness and viability is possible with COSA’s POD: Producer Organization Diagnostic tool. The POD is a free, public online self-assessment that gives immediate scoring and benchmarking as well as useful tips and insights about what makes organizations successful.

It was designed with the support of the Ford Foundation and the generous input of more than 30 experts and institutions including FAO, IFAD, USDA, and Wageningen. This brief version offers rapid insights with a short group of questions that most approximate the characteristics of a strong organization or rural enterprise.

The POD is part of a more comprehensive set of tools that includes a tested set of social, environmental and economic indicators and associated survey for in-depth assessments that can serve organizations or those that want to work with them to really understand key weaknesses and target improvements.