voice of bainbridge

How many people are members of REI Coop in early 2025

Here is the number published on the REI website (scroll down): over 24 million.

Here is a March 7 article in the Seattle Times by Alex Halverson about the ongoing 2025 election for 3 members of the Board. None of them agreed to talk with the Times nor did REI. Why not?

Now my question is: how many members voted in the previous elections? I am very curious about the participation rate. I have emailed this request to the board, at [email protected] on friday March 14:

Hello,

While the 2025 elections for the REI board of directors have started I am interested in finding out what were the numbers of votes expressed the previous 3 years.

Are those numbers available to the public and coop members? I did not find any document about it but I assume you have to publish those numbers each year?

I also wonder about the organizing of the elections considering the potential number of voters (24 million now?)

Or maybe only a very small percentage of those 24 million members do vote?

I hope you can provide me with some precise answers to those questions.

Thank you in advance

Philippe Boucher

Spouse of a REI Coop member

 

Do you think I'll receive an answer?

Sierra Club, REI

Found this article about REI (of November 2016) when googling Sierra Club and REI. Googling REI Coop on Bluesky after visiting Jason Mark's account.

About the elections for the board of directors of REI Coop

REI Coop is an iconic entity in our region. My late brother in law, Bob Erskine, brought them back his worn out shoes after he hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. I learned very recently about the ongoing 2025 election for the board of directors. Now, how many people do you think are members of REI? I asked people in my family this question and none came close to the present number as published on REI website. I won't tell you so you can first try your 3 guesses. At this point I'll just let you wonder and ponder. I'd be interested to hear from you if you are a member of the Coop.

Now, after you tried to guess the number of REI members, go here for the answer :) and more questions related to the elections.