Abstract: Poverty has for long been recognized as a major factor impeding the process of growth and development in African nations Sweetman Various governments in Nigeria has come up with one policy/programme or the other to reduce poverty among the citizenry Anyanwu. For sometime now, government had adopted the co-operative societies as one of the tools for poverty alleviation Olaleye. This study examines the effectiveness of the strategies adopted by co-operative societies to alleviate poverty among their members. The variables considered in the study include strategies adopted by co-operative societies for poverty alleviation and effectiveness of the strategies adopted by the co-operative societies. The expost-facto method was used for this study. The population comprised of the 2128 members of three co-operative societies under study. From this population, the multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select a sample of 1276. The instrument used for the study was a structured questionnaire tagged Co-operator and Co-operative Officer Questionnaire (CCOQ). Findings from the study revealed that co-operative societies in Nigeria urban communities adopt twelve main strategies to fight poverty among their members. The findings also revealed that 4 of these strategies are not effective, while three are very effective. This study therefore recommended that, for improved performance of co-operative societies in poverty alleviation, there is the need for a reduction in the number of strategies being used; so that they can remain focused.