This manual by Minsun Ji of El Centro Humanitario and Tony Robinson of the University of Colorado, Denver, intended for workers (especially immigrant workers) and their advocates, provides detailed information about how to create, finance, manage, and grow worker cooperatives.
Project receives Secretary's Award for Community Foundations
The work of the Cleveland Foundation as a leader of the groundbreaking Evergreen Cooperatives initiative was recently recognized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The new HUD Secretary's Award for Community Foundations, created in partnership with the Council on Foundations, was created to honor the important work being done across the country as foundations and the public sector find innovative strategies to build a more inclusive and sustainable society.
Ted Howard contributed this essay to Investing in What Works for America’s Communities, a book published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Low Income Investment Fund that calls on leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to build on what we know is working to move the needle on poverty.
Founded in 1958, Tots’ Cooperative Nursery School is a nonprofit cooperative program that emphasizes active parental participation in their child’s classroom experience.The co-op requires each parent to volunteer between six and seven times a year in the classroom, as well as participating in fundraising events, assist with evening classroom cleanups, and playground maintenance.The nursery is certified through the Rhode Island Department of Education and all teachers hold degrees in education.
Little City Growers Cooperative is a network of urban farmers, such as Southside Community Land Trust, Scratch Farm, Red Planet Vegetables, and other independent growers providing health food options at affordable prices.All crops are grown chemical free, sold to the public at farmers’ markets, and to restaurants on a wholesale level. As the cooperative expanded to include four urban and two suburban farms and distribution to ten restaurants, the co-op’s profits have seen a steady increase from their 2009 sales of $30,000.
The Alternative Food Cooperative originated in 1970 as a grassroots organization with a dozen families in the Kingston area motivated to provide healthy food to members at affordable prices. With increased participation from the University of Rhode Island’s students, faculty, and other community members, the co-op has expanded to provide healthy food options for the entire community. Annual membership fees are: $36 single, $48 family, $24 seniors and students but membership is not required to shop at the Alternative Food coop. Members that work two hours a month receive a six percent discount and members that work more than two hours a month receive a 12 percent discount.
This report, sponsored by Co-operative Education Trust Scotland, introduces employee ownership and uses case studies to demonstrate how co-operatives have not only survived and performed better than investor-owned businesses in the most recent economic crisis but through the last 200 years of social and economic turbulence.One example, the Co-operative Bank, created in 1872, is Britain’s largest consumer cooperative with over 350 branches, more than six million customers, and operating revenue of £108.6 million in the first half of 2011. The bank continues to increase its profitability, and credits its success to its customer-led ethical policy, which has resulted in the withholding of more than one billion pounds in funding to businesses that violate the policy.
Manufactured Home Parks: Real Assets Real Communities, a 12-minute video by Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund, highlights efforts by manufactured housing residents to own the land their homes sit on by forming resident-owned cooperatives.Read more about Manufactured Housing Co-ops Achieve Scale...
The Democracy Collaborative's Ted Howard was invited to give a presentation about the Evergreen Cooperatives to the Cleveland TEDxCLE conference. The topic: "Owning Your Own Job Is a Beautiful Thing."Read more about Owning Your Own Job Is A Beautiful Thing...
