John B. Gauci

Inducted: 2001

John B. Gauci is the rare individual who has devoted his life to helping people improve their lives through cooperatives. For more than forty years he has been a proactive and positive leader, who has never been afraid to take a risk to achieve lasting change. His reach has been far and wide. He helped develop cooperatives and credit unions in India, inner-city neighborhoods in New York, the rural midwest, and poor areas in the rural south.

Gauci served as executive director of the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) for eight years, growing it into a national foundation with tremendous impact. He was instrumental in creating CDF’s rural development program and the United Co-op Appeal, both of which have blossomed into important co-op development funding initiatives.

Gauci’s biggest legacy is cooperatives and senior services. Under his leadership, CDF provided seed capital to build more than 1,000 units of senior co-op housing. He also laid the groundwork for addressing social services including health care for seniors through cooperatives.

Throughout his career, Gauci’s strong leadership and innovative vision has garnered positive results, and has inspired and persuaded others to advance cooperatives.