The cooperatives played a major role in the social and economic mobilization of the Ukrainian people, most of whom were peasants.
Initially, the Ukrainian Prosvita society which had been dedicated to educational and cultural efforts attempted to organize credit unions, stores and warehouses.
The need for an experienced organizer was fulfilled by Vasyl Nahirny (Ukrainian Galician architect and public figure, one of the "parents" of the cooperative movement in Galicia), who had spent a decade in Switzerland studying that nation's well-developed cooperative systems.
In 1883 he organized Narodna Torhivlia ("People's Trade"), whose goal was to buy and sell products in large quantities, eliminate middlemen, and pass the savings on to the Ukrainian villagers.
Typically charging approximately 10% interest for loans, hundreds of credit unions sprung up throughout Austrian-ruled Ukraine.
[1] The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and its clergy were heavily involved in the cooperative movement, and an association of priests formed whose focus was on improving the peasants' socioeconomic conditions.
[1] After Austria-Hungary collapsed following the first world war, in 1918 western Ukrainians declared an independent state that was conquered and absorbed by Poland in 1919.
Many western Ukrainian veterans took part in the movement, claiming that "by working in the cooperatives we are once again the nation's soldiers.
Credit unions served the purpose of offering personal and business loans that Ukrainian immigrants would have otherwise have had difficulty obtaining from other financial institutions.
[5] Ten years later, this had grown to 2.146 billion dollars in assets held by 17 Ukrainian American Credit Unions.
[6] In 2006, 10 Ukrainian credit unions in Canada reported assets of 1.2 billion dollars CDN.