Cooperative Living Magazine

What Cooperative Living Magazine does

Cooperative Living Magazine is a print and digital lifestyle publication serving members of 16 electric cooperatives across Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Founded in 1946 and published by the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives (VMDAEC), the magazine delivers content across multiple editorial verticals including energy efficiency and grid reliability, home and garden, community stories, cooperative focus, adventures, and recipes (via the Cooperative Kitchen section), as well as a Kids Korner and Member FYI section covering cooperative news, outage restoration, and scam alerts. The magazine is complemented by a Digital Edition hosted on mydigitalpublication.com and a browsable Magazine Archive on bluetoad.com, with engagement features such as the Whatzit, Wherezit, and Super Sleuth contest programs.

The product is structured as a unified print and digital lifestyle magazine, with no proprietary technology stack or software platform of its own; digital distribution relies on third-party hosting services (mydigitalpublication.com, bluetoad.com) and a Constant Contact email newsletter. The magazine's business model combines subscription revenue (print and digital editions, with pricing not publicly disclosed) with advertising sales aimed at businesses targeting the cooperative membership demographic, including energy-related products, home services, and local advertisers. Distribution is primarily through the captive electric cooperative network — produced by VMDAEC and reaching the members of its 16 member co-ops — with secondary reach through social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) and email newsletters.

The entity is structured as a nonprofit association publication rather than a commercial enterprise, headquartered in Glen Allen, Virginia, with 11-50 employees. Revenue is not publicly disclosed. The company's competitive position is anchored entirely in its structural integration with the cooperative utility ecosystem and its 80-year brand history within that community, rather than in technology differentiation or scale economics.

Name

Cooperative Living Magazine

Legal name

Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives

Website

https://co-opliving.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1946

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Cooperative Living Magazine is a print and digital lifestyle publication serving members of 16 electric cooperatives across Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Published by VMDAEC since 1946, it delivers energy, home, garden, and community content via subscription and advertising.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Consumer Media

NAICS

Periodical Publishers (51312)

SIC

Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721), Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Home, Garden & DIY Magazines (MPAJAEAG)

akta.pro secondary industry

Electric Cooperatives (Rural/Member-Owned Utilities) (EUADABAC)

Keywords

• Cooperative member magazine
• Electric cooperative publishing
• Lifestyle magazine subscription
• Energy utility communications
• Regional print and digital magazine

Headquarters

HQ city

Glen Allen

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Magazine Subscriptions: The magazine generates revenue through subscriptions to its print and digital editions, distributed to members of electric cooperatives across Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.
2. Advertising: The magazine sells advertising space to businesses targeting the cooperative membership demographic, including energy-related products, home services, and local businesses.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Cooperative Living Magazine is a print and digital lifestyle publication that delivers energy-efficiency, home and garden, community-story, and cooperative-news content to members of 16 electric cooperatives across Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. The magazine is published by the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives (VMDAEC) and is supported by subscription fees and advertising sold to businesses targeting cooperative members.

Product overview

Cooperative Living Magazine is a unified print and digital publication serving members of electric cooperatives across Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. The magazine is published by the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives and features multiple content sections including Smart Connect (technology and energy efficiency), Member FYI (cooperative news and resources), Cooperative Kitchen (recipes and cooking), and Kids Korner (youth education). The publication offers a Digital Edition for online reading and maintains a Magazine Archive of past issues. The magazine also engages readers through contest programs like Whatzit, Wherezit, and Super Sleuth, while providing advertising and subscription services to cooperative members and local businesses.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Cooperative Living Magazine (Print Edition) A print lifestyle magazine covering energy efficiency, home and garden, community stories, cooperative news, and local content for members of electric cooperatives in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.
• Digital Edition Online digital version of Cooperative Living Magazine accessible through mydigitalpublication.com, allowing members to read current and past issues in an interactive digital format.
• Magazine Archive Digital archive of past Cooperative Living Magazine issues accessible through bluetoad.com, allowing subscribers to access historical content from the publication.
• Print and Digital Magazine Subscription Subscription product providing print and/or digital access to Cooperative Living Magazine for electric cooperative members and the public, with billing on a recurring cadence.
• Magazine Advertising Space Advertising space sold in Cooperative Living Magazine to businesses targeting the electric cooperative membership demographic, including energy-related products, home services, and local businesses.

Named customers16 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives (VMDAEC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives is the parent organization that publishes Cooperative Living Magazine. VMDAEC coordinates the 16 member electric cooperatives across the three-state region and oversees the magazine's content direction, distribution, and strategic alignment with cooperative principles.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Country Living: Country Living is a national Hearst lifestyle magazine focused on rural living, home, garden, and country-style content. It competes for the same rural/homestead audience mindshare that Cooperative Living cultivates within its cooperative base, but operates at national scale with broader advertiser reach.
• Better Homes & Gardens: Better Homes & Gardens is a Meredith/Dotdash national home, garden, and lifestyle brand spanning print magazine and digital channels. It overlaps directly with Cooperative Living's home & garden and recipe content categories and represents the dominant scaled competitor in that editorial space.
• Southern Living: Southern Living is a Time-published regional lifestyle magazine covering food, home, garden, and travel across the American South—including Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. It overlaps with Cooperative Living's regional, home-and-garden, and recipe content but competes for advertising dollars at a much larger scale.

Others

• The American Farm Bureau Federation publications: The American Farm Bureau Federation produces member-facing publications and content for rural American farm families. While it serves a broader agricultural membership (not electric co-ops), it shares the member-association distribution model and rural-household audience that Cooperative Living relies on, making it a comparable adjacent ecosystem.

Direct peers

• Tennessee Living: Tennessee Living is published by the Tennessee Valley Electric Cooperative Association for member electric cooperatives. It shares Cooperative Living's mission of providing lifestyle and energy content to cooperative members across a defined multi-county region.
• Ruralite: Ruralite is published for electric cooperatives across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, and Hawaii. Like Cooperative Living, it is an association-backed magazine focused on rural electric cooperative members with home, garden, energy, and community content.
• Carolina Country: Carolina Country is published by the North Carolina Association of Electric Cooperatives for members across North Carolina. It is structurally the closest analog to Cooperative Living—a state/regional electric cooperative association magazine with home, garden, energy, and community content distributed via member co-ops.
• Texas Co-op Power: Texas Co-op Power is a magazine published by Texas Electric Cooperatives serving member-owned electric cooperatives across Texas. It mirrors Cooperative Living's model—association-published, member-distributed lifestyle/energy publication serving electric cooperative households—with comparable content mix and revenue approach.
• Electric Consumer (Indiana): Electric Consumer is published by the Indiana Statewide Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives for member electric co-ops in Indiana. It is a direct peer—an electric cooperative association magazine serving rural cooperative members with comparable lifestyle and energy content.

Regional players

• Yankee Magazine: Yankee Magazine is a New England-focused regional lifestyle publication covering home, food, travel, and New England culture. Like Cooperative Living it serves a defined regional audience with home-and-garden and lifestyle content, making it a strong structural analog even though it operates in a different geography.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/cooperativeliving
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/cooperative-living-magazine
• Instagraminstagram.com/cooperativelivingmagazine

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Cooperative Living Magazine