How Buying Cooperatives Are Innovating Through Higher Ed Institutions

Procurement and finance teams in higher education are dealing with greater challenges than ever before. This includes ensuring the needs of their institutions are being met while balancing budget constraints and rising costs. Often, they’re functioning with smaller staff and less time.

A higher ed cooperative buying group can help in many ways, but it needs to go beyond just purchasing. Here are some of the key ways that a higher ed cooperative buying group is providing innovative solutions to help solve these challenges.

Sourcing and Cooperative Contracts

To understand the impact, it’s helpful to start with a cooperative buying definition: a collaborative purchasing model where organizations combine their purchasing power to negotiate favorable purchasing contracts. Buying cooperatives brings value through these cooperative contracts, simplifying procurement by providing pre-negotiated agreements across various sectors.

Category Expertise

Category experts take the time to know industry sectors deeply. Their knowledge enables them to uncover innovative solutions tailored to specific university needs, ensuring institutions receive the best products at competitive prices.

Fostering relationships with others that work in certain product categories allows cooperatives to stay on top of industry trends and ensure suppliers understand the evolving needs of colleges and universities.

In many cases, this approach helps shape future contract development. For example, recent concerns about evolving Title IX requirements led E&I Cooperative Services to enter into cooperative contracts for Title IX services, including:

  • Training
  • Compliance Audits
  • Case Management and Adjudication
  • Collegiate Athletics Compliance
  • Monitoring and Reporting
  • Policy and Program Review

Meeting Sustainability Goals

Cooperatives prioritize sustainable procurement by soliciting eco-friendly products and services and working with suppliers that share these values. From energy-efficient equipment to recyclable materials, these cooperatives support colleges in reducing their carbon footprint and advancing long-term sustainability.

By negotiating contracts with sustainability-focused suppliers, buying cooperatives make it easier for you to meet your environmental goals, promoting eco-friendly solutions across campus operations.

Sourcing Diverse Suppliers

Through sourcing diverse suppliers, a higher ed cooperative buying group can connect you with a wider range of vendors, including minority-owned, women-owned, and other underrepresented businesses. This diversity enriches universities supply chains, creating a more inclusive environment while helping institutions meet diversity targets.

Driving Cost Savings Through Volume-Based Discounts

The cooperative buying model focuses on cost savings. Aggregating buying power across multiple institutions drives significant volume discounts. You benefit from increased purchasing power, allowing you to achieve discounts you likely could not achieve on your own.

This enables you to allocate available dollars to be spent more strategically to innovate across campus.

Beyond Contracts: Value-Added Services

When you partner with E&I Cooperative Services, the only member-owned, non-profit cooperative focusing exclusively on education, you get access to a wide variety of services that help schools innovate.

Strategic Spend Assessments

E&I Cooperative Services offers no-cost Strategic Spend Assessments (SSAs) to help colleges and universities understand and maximize their spending.

SSAs take a deep dive into spend data, comparing institutional spending to cooperative contract opportunities to identify areas for potential savings and consolidation. This data-driven approach allows you to streamline your budget, reduce redundancies, and bring more spend under contract.

Leveraging Technology for Streamlined Procurement

eProcurement solutions help schools simplify purchasing, reduce paperwork, and improve tracking and reporting. You can also streamline approval workflows, automate order processing, and get real-time visibility into spending.

E&I Cooperative Services offers a variety of options, including:

  • No-cost, P-card marketplace
  • eProcurement platforms
  • Catalog enablement
  • Consulting and implementation

Community Engagement and Education

E&I Cooperative Services recently launched a Community Engagement and Education Division focused on professional development, leadership training, and increased collaboration in the educational procurement sector. This initiative aims to create opportunities for procurement professionals to share knowledge, build relationships, and collaborate on industry-wide challenges.

Resources include:

  • EdPro NextGen Leadership Program for procurement professionals in collaboration with Cornell University
  • EdPro NextGen Leadership Summit
  • EdPro Hub, powered by E&I, a digital network to connect, collaborate, and share resources


Engaging with the broader community allows you to access the collective knowledge of more than 6,000+ member institutions aligned with E&I Cooperative Services—fostering a collaborative environment where institutions can learn from one another.

Adapting to Changing Environments

Buying cooperatives are reshaping the way higher education institutions approach procurement by providing much more than contracts. As you continue to adapt to changing demands and tight budgets, buying cooperatives will play an essential role in supporting your goals and innovative solutions.

Contact E&I Cooperative today to learn more about the benefits of membership. Membership is free for higher education institutions, and there are no minimum purchasing requirements to participate.

WE USE COOKIES

We use cookies to make your experience better!

Skip to content