COOPERATIVE PURCHASING
About Us
The Minnesota Service Cooperatives’ (MSC) Cooperative Purchasing Connection is designed to help you fulfill your purchasing needs while making your buying process more efficient. The Minnesota Service Cooperatives is a Joint Powers organization comprised of eight regional Service Cooperatives providing programs and services through collaborative partnerships.
All of our vendor agreements are the result of formal bids or negotiated contracts. By partnering with reputable vendors and combining the purchasing power of the service cooperative members, you receive a wide variety of high quality products and services with excellent volume discounts.
For more information about the Cooperative Purchasing Connection, contact us at info@purchasingconnection.org or 888-739-3289.
Legal Authority
Service Cooperatives are public, non-profit membership-based
organizations dedicated to providing services that help make our
members successful.
Minnesota Statute §123A.2 is the enabling legislation of the service cooperatives. It defines that the service cooperative role is to provide programs and services that meet the needs of members. Cooperative purchasing is one of those programs. Membership is open to schools, cities, counties, governmental agencies, non-profit organizations and other partnership agencies.
Minnesota Statute §471.345 Subdivision 15 defines how our members can purchase from the contracted vendors while staying in compliance with the competitive bidding requirements. This statute states:
“A Municipality may contract for the purchase of supplies, materials, or equipment without regard to the competitive bidding requirements of this section if the purchase is through a national municipal association’s purchasing alliance or cooperative created by a joint powers agreement that purchases items from more than one source on the basis of competitive bids or competitive quotation.”
The combination of these two statutes gives service cooperative members the ability to purchase from our contracted vendors while staying in compliance with the Minnesota competitive bidding requirements.
Why Participate in the Cooperative Purchasing Connection?
We’ve already done the research and we’ll be with you every step of the way to help increase buying efficiencies and maximize your budget. The Cooperative Purchasing Connection team is dedicated to providing you with the best price, quality and service available!
Direct ship and pay programs! You can order what you need when you need it. This eliminates warehousing, stockpiling, old inventory, over purchasing, etc.
Access to larger purchasing opportunities! The Minnesota Service Cooperatives are a member of the Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA), a 23 state purchasing group that bids annually for large commodity contracts such as carpet, roofing, furniture, technology supplies, and more.
Use the contracts you need! We have a broad selection of contracts from which to choose. Use them all or just a few to fill your needs!
Savings on “soft costs”! We save you the time expended to shop, call for quotes, research vendors, bid, or deal with vendor issues.
Support after the purchase! We work for you! We’re here after the sale to ensure you have the best possible experience and make the most of your purchases.
