Apply for Membership

Category I - Non-membership organisations

These are organisations that are not answerable to or representing members but whose organisational governance is based on its own primacy. They may have clients, partners, shareholders and/or funders and are normally profit-making entities but may also have societal goals. Examples are companies (includingworker cooperatives), consultancies, certification bodies. Also included are research institutes, foundations and non-profit organisations not based on membership. Also included are membership based organisations with local or regional scope which is part of an overlying national structure or only existing in one out of several regions.

Category II - member-based organisations

Membership based organisations where the members are (predominantly) consumers or farmers, such as, consumer associations, farmer associations, cooperatives and federations, membership charities and campaigningorganisations. Also, all other umbrella organisations and trade/professional associations, and all other member based organisation that are not included by b) and c).

Umbrella organisations are defined as those with a membership consisting of at least 51% of membership based organisations or whose organisational governance is based at least on 51% membership based organisations.

Membership based organisations where membership consists of at least 60% of processing/distribution companies, certification bodies, other business, consultancies, etc. (but excluding farmers associations), also all trading cooperatives (but not worker cooperatives).
NB: In order to assess the type of member based organisations with regional chapters and similar divisional structures (e.g federations) the underlying membership of the organisations and its divisional structure will be evaluated. Therefore, a federation is not automatically an umbrella organisation but can belong to any of the three sub-divisions, depending on its underlying membership and structure.