How a Member-Owned Co-op Turned Its Catalog Into One of the Largest Outdoor Publishers in America

In the mid-1930s, a Seattle climber named Lloyd Anderson wanted a good ice axe. The ones sold locally cost around $20. He ordered one directly from Austria for about $3.5, and his friends in The Mountaineers climbing club wanted the same deal. In 1938, Anderson and his wife Mary turned the arrangement into a cooperative. Twenty-three climbers, the Andersons among them, each put in $1 to join, and the Andersons held cards number one and two. By the end of that first year, the co-op had 82 members, $1,361 in sales, and a $212 surplus that the members split. That surplus was the first dividend.

Recreational Equipment Inc. grew into the largest outdoor retailer in the United States and one of the largest outdoor publishers. REI is owned by its members, and member ownership shaped its publishing.

Members Own the Company

A one-time $30 fee makes someone a lifetime member. Members earn an annual reward of roughly 10% on eligible purchases, vote in board elections, and share in the results. By 1983, REI was the largest consumer cooperative in the country, with nearly 500,000 members. By the end of 2025, it had more than 26 million members, having added a million that year, and its early 2026 Member Month distributed around $200 million in rewards. REI's content reaches an audience that already owns the company, so publishing could serve the co-op's stated purpose of awakening a lifelong love of the outdoors. 

It Retired the Catalog

For decades, REI mailed a full-price product catalog. In 2019, the co-op retired it and replaced it with a magazine. Uncommon Path debuted that fall as an 84-page quarterly, built by an in-house team of seven editors, with Hearst Magazines handling advertising, copyediting, and layout. The first issue reached about 700,000 readers through newsstands, stores, and members' mailboxes, carried by a mailing list that had already reached 17 million. Outside magazine's print circulation at the time was roughly 675,000. A retailer's first magazine arrived at the scale of an established outdoor title. 

The Journal and the Podcast

The website came first. REI's editorial team runs the Co-op Journal, now published under the Uncommon Path banner, with stories about people, places, and outdoor skills. REI has said the journal does not cover the co-op the way an outside newsroom would. The audio program is older than the magazine. Wild Ideas Worth Living began in 2016, hosted by adventure journalist Shelby Stanger. By early 2026, it had published more than 400 episodes and was still releasing one most weeks, with guests including Alex Honnold, Cheryl Strayed, Samin Nosrat, Scott Jurek, and Jimmy Chin. The conversations sell nothing directly, but they connect the co-op with a life spent outside.

It Funded Journalism It Did Not Control

The clearest sign of what REI's media optimized for arrived with the magazine. Alongside Uncommon Path, the co-op committed $100,000 through NewsMatch to 10 local nonprofit newsrooms covering environmental and outdoor issues, including InvestigateWest, Carolina Public Press, the Adirondack Explorer, and High Country News. A retailer paid for independent reporting it had no editorial control over. The same logic ran through Opt Outside, the 2015 decision to close every store on Black Friday and pay employees to go outdoors, which REI made permanent in 2022.

Where REI Stands Now

The recent years were hard. Revenue fell 6.2% in 2024 to $3.53 billion, and the co-op posted a $156 million net loss. It cut staff and shut down its Experiences division, which offered guided travel, tours, and classes. Eleven stores unionized, and in 2025 members voted down all three board nominees the co-op put forward. A new chief executive, Mary Beth Laughton, introduced a three-year plan called Peak 28, and the co-op narrowed its 2025 loss to $54 million on net sales of $3.54 billion, with two profitable quarters to close the year.

Through all of it, the publishing continued. Uncommon Path still ships to members. The Co-op Journal still posts. Wild Ideas Worth Living still releases a new episode most weeks. The media held its shape while the business cut elsewhere, because it was built to serve the people who own the company. When the readers own the publisher, the publishing answers to them.

Here is what most founders get backward. They build an audience in order to sell to it, then wonder why the content reads like an ad and dies the moment budgets tighten.

REI never had that problem. When the business hit the wall in 2024, and the co-op started cutting, the magazine, the journal, and the podcast all survived the year that killed off a decades-old travel and classes division. Why? Because none of them were ever on the hook for a sales number. They answered to the 26 million people who own the company.

You probably cannot turn your customers into shareholders with a board vote. But you can steal the move underneath it. The stuff built to convert gets judged on conversions, and in a down year that is a death sentence. The stuff built to be worth reading is still pulling an audience long after the campaign money is gone.

Build the thing people would miss. See you next week.

If you liked this edition of Growth Curve, forward it to a founder or marketer who needs to stop renting their audience — and start owning it.