This week, Megan McGee profiles a new media cooperative that's operating under an old name. When the writers for the newly reborn Gourmet Magazine noticed that publishing conglomerate Condé Nast had let the trademark on the shuttered masthead expire, they snapped it up and restarted the storied publication as a worker cooperative.

Then, Luis Razeto thinks through what would be required to achieve a democratic transformation of the market, and analyzes the theoretical and practical obstacles to that goal that cooperators will need to overcome.

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A Gourmet for the People

by Megan McGee
On choosing the co-op model for their startup, Dean says, “It was both ideological in that we believe in co-ops as a good thing to do in the world, and also functionally, it doesn't seem like there is any other way to make things work.” The outside-investor profit motive, he says, has made newspapers into little more than capitalist products of profit generation, and the business model of trying to extract extra money through things like ad revenue seems to him “destructive to the creation of information.

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Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 18

by Luis Razeto Migliaro; transl. by Matt Noyes
Even in capitalism, other categories are economically active: the State, cooperatives, unions, etc., just as in socialism there remain cooperative enterprises and spaces of private property. The decisive thing, though, is that in capitalism the ruling economic category is capital and in socialism it is the State, while the other factors remain subordinated, and it is this difference that defines them as distinct and opposed economic systems.)

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Women-owned co-op works to bring good food to all with pay-as-you-can model

City Beat — Big Table Farm Cooperative today announced its official formation as a producer co-op, a move designed to strengthen local agriculture through farm businesses banding together. Founded by a group of three women farmers, the co-op aims to offer fresh, seasonal local produce to its Cincinnati area farm subscription members through a democratically run, producer-owned business model, according to a press release...

Topia Coffee Co-Op Rebrands as Radical Bean Cooperative

Cincinnati Magazine — “We were changing the vision a little bit,” says Kennelly-Gaither. “The prices of the old pour-overs were too expensive for the area. Our focus being more community-driven, we felt that rebranding would help the community be reintroduced to us.”...“What we’re trying to do is create a third space that is realistically meeting the needs of the community as well as an affordable place,” Kennelly-Gaither says...

Building a solidarity economy, even in authoritarian times

Laura Flanders — The People’s Network for Land & Liberation consortium includes six community-based organizations that are doing politics and economics differently. That looks like a Black cooperatively-owned sea moss business in Atlanta, or a digital fabrication lab where people can 3-D print the things they need. “We can stop feeding the monster that’s consuming us, and actually disconnect from that process and use what we have,” says PNLL Network Member Blair Evans...

Review of 'Cooperatives in the Global Economy'

Academia.edu — After a foundational chapter on the meaning of cooperative enterprise and its distinction among the endless models and forms of economic activity, the rest of the book essentially looks at geographic profiles. Readers learn about the thriving cooperative movement in Tanzania, India, Philippines, Argentina, South Africa, Armenia, ‘Post-Yugoslav Space’ and others. Some of the chapter contributions are historical and qualitative, while others implement fresh quantitative research on a particular aspect of cooperative economics...

Co-ops: Pledge your commitment to labor neutrality

USFWC —  In 2025, the USFWC membership voted unanimously to endorse labor neutrality as a standard for the cooperative sector...Labor neutrality is when an employer commits to taking no position for or against their workers organizing and to voluntary recognize a labor union without requiring an election facilitated by a third party (commonly through a “card check” process)....We are now calling on USFWC members and the broader cooperative sector to take the next step and make a public commitment to labor neutrality in their organization. This is a call to action for all types of co-op businesses, nonprofits, support organizations, and networks alike. Pledges will be made publicly and listed on the USFWC’s website. By publicly committing to respect workers’ rights, we are proudly demonstrating the cooperative difference to workers and leaders across the US...

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P.O. Box 115
Riverdale MD 20738-0115

This week, Nidheesh Villatt and Vijoo Krishnan write about the Sahya Tea Cooperative, which was formed by the All India Farmer's Union (AIKS) in 2017 to provide better prices for tea farmers in the Idduki region than those paid by the "Big Tea" companies. With a factory and brand of their own, the workers and farmers of Sahya Tea have not only improved their own financial and working conditions, but also forced corporate tea buyers to increase their rates to compete with the co-op. 

Then, the Punchcard Podcast interviews Rupay Dahm, a German employment lawyer who co-founded a worker cooperative for immigrants in the cleaning sector. After helping numerous co-ops get started, and seeing a need for co-ops in the cleaning sector, Rupay co-founded a cleaning co-op with a fellow union member. Rupay has written a book based on his experiences (currently only available in German) A Practical Guide to Democratising Companies.

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The Sahya Tea Cooperative

by Nidheesh J Villatt & Vijoo Krishnan
The cooperative’s leadership convened peasants and workers to brainstorm how to improve their financial situation. Since Big Tea companies dominated the market with their packaged tea products, they decided to improve their marketing strategy and launch an effort to make inroads into the market. KS Chithra, a popular singer known as the ‘Nightingale of Kerala’, became the Sahya Tea Cooperative’s brand ambassador and helped popularise its brand, refusing to take any payment for her work. 

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Berlin’s Worker Co-op for Migrants & Cleaners

by PUNCHCARD
Rupay is an employment lawyer in Germany, fighting for workers’ rights. Frustrated, working in a system rigged against workers, he sought out more empowering alternatives and discovered worker cooperatives...In this episode of Punchcard, Rupay shares his experience incubating the cleaning cooperative and the importance that trust and social connections played within that. 

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Financing freedom: how we funded our co-op

Ray's Blog — In simple terms we are a fully mutual housing co-operative. This means that all of our tenants are members, and all of our members are directors/decision-makers. So while we do all pay rent, we also get a say in what the rent is set at (in our case Local Housing Allowance level) and how that rent is used. At the moment, because we have bought the property thanks to loans from individuals, most of our rent goes towards repaying those individuals over-time - much like you would a mortgage but with much lower interest rates, and in my opinion, less risk (which I’ll come back to later in the power of community)...

India’s co-ops minister officially launches driver-owned Bharat Taxi

Co-op News — Bharat Taxi, a platform co-op designed as a driver-owned alternative to capital-extractive models like Uber, was launched this month in New Delhi by India’s Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah. The platform is run as a multi-state co-op, with drivers, known as Sarathis, joining as members, shareholders and co-owners. Shah said the co-op will share 80% of its profits among its drivers based on kilometres travelled, while the remaining 20% will be used to build co-operative capital...

CDF introduces new catalog of shared equity models

NCBA CLUSA — How do you make limited‑equity housing co‑ops work on a community land trust? What does it take to convert a manufactured home community into resident ownership? And what exactly is a permanent real estate co‑op? If you’ve ever wished for clear, practical explanations of the shared equity models helping communities secure permanently affordable housing, this webinar is for you...

Washington House Committee Approves Bill to Allow Licensed Marijuana Producers to Form Cooperatives

The Marijuana Herald — If enacted, the legislation would explicitly allow licensed marijuana producers to organize and operate as agricultural cooperatives under state law. The change would place marijuana alongside other agricultural products already eligible for cooperative formation, while leaving the state’s existing marijuana licensing and regulatory framework intact. Supporters of the bill say cooperative authorization could provide meaningful relief for small and mid-sized producers facing rising costs and consolidation within Washington’s regulated marijuana market...

Other Tech Worlds are Possible

DigiLabour — In this first volume, we explore how the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) in Brazil has embraced technology both as a tool for organizing and as a practice rooted in territory. The story follows Carolina, an activist who finds work through Hire Those Who Struggle (Contrate Quem Luta), a worker-led platform that helps generate income for workers from the Homeless Workers’ Movement...

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P.O. Box 115
Riverdale MD 20738-0115

This week, we start a series on the impressive cooperative movement in the Indian state of Kerala. With a history extending back to 1957, the thriving co-op movement now counts over 12,000 active co-ops of one variety or another, including the Kudumbashree women's co-op with 4.8 million members (one in four women in Kerala are members). The co-ops of Kerala may not be nearly as well known in the US as the co-op complexes of Mondragon or Emilia-Romagna, but they are just as worthy of study and emulation.

Then, Luis Razeto continues his examination of the practice of cooperativism in the market economy, and how the poor and marginalized groups in society manage to "make a way out of no way" by using whatever is available to them to create the wide range of activities and organizations that Razeto refers to as the popular economy.

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The Cooperative Movement in Kerala, India

by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research & Uralungal Labour Contract Co-operative Society Research Centre
There are, of course, challenges and contradictions, and these are discussed with clarity: there is no sense in exaggerating the possibilities presented by cooperatives that must struggle to survive in a world where the capitalist law of value is the law of the land. Nor is there sense in minimising these cooperatives’ important contributions to the people who live in Kerala – both in material and spiritual terms. These cooperatives are not merely a source of inspiration: they provide a blueprint for cooperatives around the world as seeds of a just future that exist within the confines of capitalism today.

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Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 17

by Luis Razeto Migliaro, translated by Matt Noyes
Historical analysis shows that the cooperative phenomenon is not born of particular cultural and political conditions, nor is it based on social conditions generically defined in terms of poverty, misery and social injustice. Rather it arises in response to the particular process of reorganization of the economy and of commerce that was seen with industrialization and the capitalist organization of the market. The cooperative phenomenon is, then, a specific fact of the modern world, an organizing process that accompanies, and is a consequence of, the emergence and growth of the capitalist economy and of industrialism.

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What we’ve learned from the past year of building the cooperative movement

TESA Collective — Over the past 12 months, we at TESA have been focused on helping to build the cooperative economy in concrete, practical ways.And we have to recognize that work hasn’t happened in a vacuum. We’ve been operating amid deepening global instability, widening inequality, and the steady normalization of authoritarian politics. At times, it has felt like pushing against systems designed to exhaust people who are trying to build something different. But if anything, that context has made the work feel more urgent...

Business NOT as Usual

Each for All — Corinne Remple, Executive Director of the Alberta Community Co-op Association, decided that the story of co-ops needed to be told differently, especially to Gen Z and Millennials.So she collaborated with provincial and national partners to help launch Business NOT as Usual, a campaign that highlights how co-ops are an alternative way of doing business built on shared ownership, sustainability, collective impact and driven by values...

Grit and Dedication in Caring

Equal Care Cooperative —Typically, after heavy snowfall, care agencies face nightmare scenarios as workers struggle to reach individuals scheduled for care. A flurry of panicked phone calls and message exchanges follows as agencies attempt the near-impossible task of meeting all care needs with an already-stretched workforce that has been reduced overnight due to snowbound homes and cars. At Equal Care, however, the story is very different...

Union Co-op PSA

Sieze the Means Video Co-op (YouTube) — A PSA about worker co-ops and the Union Co-ops Council...

 

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Riverdale MD 20738-0115

This week, Joseph Cureton and Jim Johnson of the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy (BRED) go over the basics of starting a worker-owned business, and then answer questions about everything from membership criteria to tax implications. 

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A Guide to Starting Your Worker-Owned Business

by Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy
Are you co-op curious? Come join Baltimore Roundtable for economic Democracy for a fun filled hour full of conversations about legal structures and capital! We will be discussing the pro's and con's, the differences between these flexible forms of doing business, and how you can put what you learn to work.

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La Siembra and Equal Exchange Integrate

Equal Exchange — The worker-owners of La Siembra Cooperative and the members of Equal Exchange Worker Cooperative have merged, creating a unique model of international worker cooperation. This integration follows the path set by global cooperative networks like Mondragon, which has led the way in cross-border worker ownership and democratic governance. It also builds on the 10-year MOU between the two cooperatives, which have shared a long-standing commercial and solidarity relationship as fair trade worker co-ops...

Inside Cleveland’s pay-as-you-can plumbing co-op

Signal Cleveland — People’s Plumbing is a worker-owned cooperative based in Cleveland that offers plumbing and home repair services through a gift economy model. Founded by longtime plumber and community organizer Cristobal Van Breen in 2023, the co-op grew out of a belief that access to clean water and safe housing are human rights...Cristobal and co-op member Wren Fiocco talked to Signal Cleveland about how People’s Plumbing began and how gift economics and cooperative ownership shape their work...

Report Back: The 2025 Union Co-op Symposium

Industrial Worker — Much of the information provided on the matter of the union contract came from one of the sponsors of the event, the United Steelworkers (USW). While advocating for an atypical collective bargaining agreement, where worker owners are distinguished from an often elected management of some kind, the main reason for sourcing these contracts with unions like USW came down to 2 main reasons. One was to speak plainly, healthcare. USW has a healthcare network attached to many of their current shops, funded through the union itself. The second, however, is something less capital-intensive, a cooperative council...

Solidarity Economies and the Unmaking of Racial Capitalism

University of Minnesota Press — Two large, painted signs sit at the entrance to the César Andreu Iglesias Community Garden, a large community garden roughly the size of a city block located in North Philadelphia. “WELCOME. BIENVENIDOS. GROW SHARE GATHER,” reads the first in lavender and green. Beside it, in yellow and red, a second sign declares, “ESTE TERRENO NO ESTA EN VENTA” (this land is not for sale). A raised fist—the universal symbol of solidarity—is painted beneath the text. Together, the two signs convey complementary messages about the garden...

Webinar: Cooperative Legal Framework Analysis

International Cooperative Alliance — Wednesday, 25 February 2026 | 14:00–15:30 CET...Building on 79 national reports and 4 regional reports, the LFA maps and analyses cooperative legal environments across regions, identifying strengths, gaps and reform needs. This webinar marks the public unveiling of the LFA as a coordinated, regionally implemented activity of the ICA, providing a shared platform for ICA members, lawmakers, policy professionals, civil society partners and private sector actors to engage with its first global findings...

Seize the Means: A Leftist Television Collective

This is Revolution Podcast (YouTube) — Means TV is a subscription-based video on demand streaming service owned and managed by The Means Cooperative. The service features films, documentaries, television series, an original news program called Means Morning News, and independent creators from YouTube and Twitch. The cooperative raised nearly $200,000 in its crowdfunding campaign. The full streaming service launched February 26, 2020.

 

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Grassroots Economic Organizing
P.O. Box 115
Riverdale MD 20738-0115

This week, we have a webinar from the Interagency Working Group on Cooperative Development looking at the potential for cooperatives to assist people returning from incarceration.

Then, Ella Fassler writes about how the new generation of digital time banking applications is helping spread the solidarity, and some of the road blocks to wider adoption that still remain.

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Co-ops After Incarceration

by NCBA CLUSA
This webinar focuses on how cooperatives can help those returning from incarceration to re-integrate into their communities. After an introduction by Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, case studies of two such co-ops are presented — The Compost Cooperative in Greenfield, MA, and Collective Remake in Los Angeles, CA. 

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Digital Tools Are Fueling the Rise of New “Time Exchange” Solidarity Economies

by Ella Fassler
“The time bank usually has a need for healthy young men,” laughed Dawn Albright, president of the Kent Community Time Bank’s board of directors. “I would say, 70 percent of the members are older women.” Younger immigrant members of the time bank often offer assistance with household tasks, like carrying heavy things up the stairs. She recalled a story of members rallying to help a woman in her 50s who had to leave her home on short notice. They moved boxes, painted walls and stripped floors to make her fixer-upper livable. In return, Albright said, immigrants often request help with navigating challenging systems, like health care appointments.

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New loan product expands credit access for Brooklyn worker co-ops

Next City — Brooklyn Cooperative has long punched far above its weight as one of the most active small business lenders in Brooklyn. Now it’s simply applying that same cash flow-based small business underwriting expertise to worker-owned cooperatives. The credit union rolled out its loan product for worker-owned cooperatives in late 2024, offering term loans and lines of credit up to $100,000 without the need for a personal guarantee...

Local governments tap worker cooperatives for services in depopulated areas

The Japan Times — These enterprises are more likely to employ young people, reach underserved populations and reinvest their profits locally. Across Africa, social enterprises are already operating at scale and delivering measurable outcomes. Babban Gona, in Nigeria, is a farmer-owned cooperative model serving more than 38,000 smallholders, has doubled yields, tripled incomes and created over 82,000 jobs – 69% for youth. Its 98% loan repayment rate outperforms most banks...

Canadian Worker Co-op Federation ED Retires After 30 Years

Canadian Worker Co-op Federation — After 30 years as CWCF’s Executive Director and involvement from its early beginnings in 1991, I have decided to retire from CWCF at the end of 2026.  It’s an emotional decision, but it also feels very right.   With a new cycle of Strategic Planning beginning, it’s the right time for new leadership...

What’s It Like to Coordinate a Mutual-Aid Network in Minneapolis?

Harper's Bazaar — These enterprises are more likely to employ young people, reach underserved populations and reinvest their profits locally. Across Africa, social enterprises are already operating at scale and delivering measurable outcomes. Babban Gona, in Nigeria, is a farmer-owned cooperative model serving more than 38,000 smallholders, has doubled yields, tripled incomes and created over 82,000 jobs – 69% for youth. Its 98% loan repayment rate outperforms most banks...

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Our mailing address is:

Grassroots Economic Organizing
P.O. Box 115
Riverdale MD 20738-0115

This week, Corinna O'Brien joins the Punchcard podcast to tell the story of how the Unicorn Grocery worker co-op went from a tiny shop to a thriving grocery co-op with 50 members. 

Then, Luis Razeto considers the historical theory and practice of cooperativism and argues the need for a scientific theory of the cooperative phenomenon in chapter 16 of Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy.

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The Growth of Unicorn Grocery Worker Co-op

by Punchcard
Starting off as a small shop operating out of a loading bay to a thriving worker co-op that owns its own the entire building, has around 50 dedicated members, and is a shining example of what worker cooperatives can accomplish. In this episode of Punchcard, Corrina and I talk about how Unicorn has become such a success and how they plan to develop further. 

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Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 16

by Luis Razeto Migliaro, translated by Matt Noyes
What, then, has been the function of doctrines in the origins of the cooperative movement? What is the predominant valence of the relation of theory and practice in the cooperative phenomenon, theory → practice, or practice → theory? Is cooperativism predominantly a response to economic-social needs or a project of economic-social transformation?

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GEO Merch Store

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Prepare to File 2025 Taxes as Worker Co-op LLC

USFWC (YouTube) — Daniella Preisler, co-founder of Colmenar Cooperative Consulting and USFWC Co-op Clinic peer Advisor reviews the forms that need to be completed to file taxes as an LLC cooperative business, answers common questions and give tips on how to avoid problems with the IRS...

How Africa's social economy is shaping its development

The Guardian — These enterprises are more likely to employ young people, reach underserved populations and reinvest their profits locally. Across Africa, social enterprises are already operating at scale and delivering measurable outcomes. Babban Gona, in Nigeria, is a farmer-owned cooperative model serving more than 38,000 smallholders, has doubled yields, tripled incomes and created over 82,000 jobs – 69% for youth. Its 98% loan repayment rate outperforms most banks...

On Treasure Island, One Grocer and a Patchwork of Neighbors Keep People Fed

San Francisco Public Press — On a Saturday morning in 2019, Sara Rosencrans was walking to Treasure Island Cove for her weekly groceries when she noticed a small group of people working in a garden. Intrigued by the idea of connecting with the community and wanting to further develop a green thumb, she approached the group. These plants and people would become Indigenous Permaculture, a group dedicated to revitalizing native and local communities at a grassroots level.

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Our mailing address is:

Grassroots Economic Organizing
P.O. Box 115
Riverdale MD 20738-0115

This week, Megan McGee writes about the 2025 Union Co-op Symposium, hosted by Co-op Cincy, that attracted cooperators from across the US for workshops and panel discussions about how the labor and cooperative movements can work together to build a democratic economy.

Then, Steve and Josh talk about GEO's recent foray back into the world of print publishing with the GEO Journal. We're excited to be working with Levellers Press to create what we hope will become a mainstay of the US worker co-op movement.

And we're excited to announce the arrival of the GEO Merch Store, thanks to our friends at WorX Printing. Show your support for GEO and spread the word about grassroots economics with hoodies, t-shirts and ball caps featuring our lovely new logo!

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From Breakdown to Breakthough: Reflections on The 2025 Union Co-op Symposium

by Megan McGee
The proven power of collaboration between unions and worker co-ops has guided Co-op Cincy since its founding in 2011. Dedicated to building and supporting Greater Cincinnati’s growing network of worker-owned businesses, their work is inspired by the business model of Mondragon International, the world’s largest federation of worker cooperatives.

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Announcing the GEO Journal

by GEO Collective
GEO is back in print after 19 years of online only!

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Celebrating King, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the Art of Organizing

Dispatches from the Whirlwind — But one thing that is so valuable about MLK Day is that it provides an opportunity to reflect not only on the legacy of King himself, but also to hold up other heroes of the civil rights movement. There are countless leaders in the movement who helped bend the moral arc of the universe a bit closer towards justice, and this holiday is theirs, too. Here at the Whirlwind Institute, Mark and I have each written about movement leaders who, though less widely known as King, are icons in their own right. Two that we would like to shine light on today are Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer...

Gourmet Magazine Re-Launches as a Worker Co-op

Gourmet — Gourmet is a food magazine. And famously was a food magazine, but a certain media empire failed to maintain the trademark, and so it is our food magazine now—yours, too, if you want...A big part of our deal is that we’re a co-op. The five worker-owners share proceeds (and losses) equally, and we pay contributors both a standard rate for their work and a cut of those proceeds on the back end. We’re building this together...

Prepare to File 2025 Taxes as as Worker-Owned Cooperative

USFWC (YouTube) — In this video Andrea Roldan, Certified Public Accountant with more than 10 years of experience providing tax, bookkeeping, and consulting services, joins the USFWC Co-op Clinic to help prepare worker cooperative businesses to file their 2025 taxes. She reviews forms your co-op should fill out to be in tax compliance based on your legal entity and options and considerations for patronage allocation, all in clear, practical terms...

Cooperative Economics for a Just Transition

Research Institute for Sustainability — The panel’s final takeaway was that true citizenship must include economic empowerment alongside political rights. Ensuring a just transformation demands that democratically-driven economic activities be integrated into modern public services and efforts to build resilience on the ground through cooperation and a focus on effective results...

Washington Bill to Allow Marijuana Producer Cooperatives Set for Committee Vote

The Marijuana Herald — If approved, the legislation would explicitly authorize licensed marijuana producers to organize and operate as agricultural cooperatives under state law, placing marijuana alongside other recognized agricultural products for cooperative purposes. Supporters say the change would allow smaller and mid-sized producers to collaborate on processing, marketing, and distribution, potentially improving efficiency and competitiveness within Washington’s regulated marijuana market...

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Let us know. Send your comments, suggestions, rants and article submissions to editors@geo.coop.

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Our mailing address is:

Grassroots Economic Organizing
P.O. Box 115
Riverdale MD 20738-0115

This week, Luis Razeto takes on the concept of the market and attempts to provide a reformulation that is more suitable for the understanding of co-ops and the cooperative movement, in chapter 15 of Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy.

Then, Marie J. Bouchard gives a presentation and answers questions on the current state of social and solidarity economy research, in her address to the Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives for the 11th Annual MacPherson Talk.

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Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 15

by Luis Razeto Migliaro; translated by Matt Noyes
The market does not present itself solely as the organization of exchange relations between business owners and consumers, nor simply as the “mechanism” by which resources are allocated, revenues distributed, and economic decisions coordinated. Rather, and more concretely, it appears as a complex system of interrelations and relations of force among all the individual and collective subjects...that occupy different places in the social-economic structure. 

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Social and Solidarity Economy Research: Where We Are and Where We’re Going

by Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives
The 11th Annual MacPherson Talk featured Dr. Marie J. Bouchard—whose distinguished career has significantly shaped the fields of social and solidarity economy (SSE) research and social innovation and co-operative studies—sharing observations concerning the state of scientific research on the SSE and suggesting how research could contribute to consolidating and shoring up the SSE field. 

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Worker Co-op Wraith Games Celebrates 20 Years

Wraith Games — 2025 is wrapping up and as many of you know, not only is it the UN’s “International Year of the Co-op” but it’s also Wraith’s 20th anniversary! 20 years. Wow. Twenty… Years... It hardly seems real...

US credit unions welcome restored federal funding for CDFIs

Co-op News —Credit unions in the US have welcomed the news that lawmakers are planning to appropriate $324m for the federal Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Fund for the coming financial year. This is a welcome reversal for the sector after the fund, which supports credit unions serving low-income and underserved areas through grants, certifications, and access to capital, was axed during last year’s federal shutdown, sparking an outcry from the credit union movement...

Rethinking Home Care: New Models to Sustain Aging in Place

Governing — But the nation will need about 740,000 additional home care workers over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and recruiting them won’t be easy. Costs to consumers are high — the median hourly rate for a home health aide in 2024 was $34, the annual Genworth/CareScout survey shows, with big geographic variations. But an aide’s median hourly wage was less than $17...

Grace Corbin on Leading Casa Nueva's Worker-Owned Cooperative Restaurant

Inspired Stories Podcast (YouTube) — In this inspiring episode, Grace Corbin, co-owner and vice president of the board of directors at Casa Nueva in Athens, Ohio, shares her remarkable journey from getting hired at age 15 when restaurant owner responded "when can you start?" to managing Bagel Street Deli's legendary Picklefest (13 pickles in 10 minutes record), then joining Athens' worker-owned cooperative Mexican restaurant in 2009...

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This week, David Bollier talks with Stephanie Rearick of the Madison Mutual Aid Network and the Dane County Timebank about how mutual aid networks strengthen communities by creating the "real wealth" of social connections.

Then, Sandra Larson writes about community real estate cooperatives across the US, from San Francisco to Atlanta, and Massachusetts to Michigan, that are using collective ownership models to create and maintain affordable housing, community spaces, and commercial rentals. 

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Building Social Wealth through Mutual Aid

An Interview with Stephanie Rearick

by David Bollier
Timebanking in its many variations is powerful, says Rearick, because “it just feels very different to engage in economic life as equals and peers with everyone else. That's one of the reasons I'm such a zealot about timebanking. It's an experiential learning tool that helps you learn how the money economy is fake, and the real value is all the people around you. Dollars are something that cheapen that, in my view.” 

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Crowdfunded Real Estate Projects Bring in Community Investors

by Sandra Larson
Small-investor crowdfunding for collective real estate ownership is a growing trend, and other efforts are now operating across the U.S. But until recently, this type of fundraising, especially for large purchases like real estate, was far more difficult.

“Generally speaking, it has been exceedingly difficult and expensive for grassroots investors to put money into any local business, including local real estate projects. But that changed with the national crowdfunding reforms put into law in 2012,” says Michael H. Shuman, a community economics expert who follows community investment models in his “Main Street Journal” newsletter.

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Can co-ops help end capital extraction in the UK care system?

Co-op News — Voices from the co-op movement have long opposed this capitalised system, advocating a mutually owned model instead – exemplified by the likes of Equal Care Co-op, based in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. At last year’s conference of the Co-operative Councils Innovation Network, Equal Care’s Emma Back urged councils to used their devolved powers to commission from co-ops, and offer co-operative social care instead of letting outsourcers – often owned by foreign equity companies – extract money from communities...

Indonesia: Village cooperatives urged to prioritise local products

The Cooperator News — Indonesia’s Ministry of Cooperatives is pressing village-based cooperatives to prioritise locally made goods, a policy aimed at strengthening domestic supply chains and reducing reliance on imports as economic pressures mount. “All local products must be absorbed by cooperatives,” Ahmad Zabadi, secretary at the Ministry of Cooperatives, said in a statement released in Jakarta on Sunday, underscoring the government’s push to anchor economic growth at the village level...

A Village Built for Rabbits

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage — From the very beginning, our village design has centered around densely clustered buildings surrounded by expansive natural areas for wildlife protection and human enjoyment. Building density serves two main functions: it maintains a human-centric, walkable village in which collaboration and social interaction are encouraged by the physical environment, and it leaves as much space for wildlife as possible...

This Multi-Issue Interfaith Organizing Group Has Supported Six Housing Co-ops for Decades

Shelterforce — On a plot of land in western Connecticut resides a small group of tenants who are doing housing a little differently. “ We’re all involved and invested in the same thing, which is safe housing for ourselves and our family,” says Wandy Luna, 48, president of one of the six Brookside Housing Cooperatives, the oldest cooperative housing project in Connecticut...

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This week, the people of the Palmarito Afro-descendant commune in Venzuela talk about the fishery commons that sustains their community, and the ways in which their ethos of solidarity and mutual support has helped the commune overcome the massive economic disruptions caused by the US blockade.

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‘Fishing Provides for Everyone’

The Palmarito Afro-Descendant Commune (Part III)

by Venezuelanalysis
In Palmarito, there is a culture of mutual support. We can trace its roots to the practice of fishing, which is often cooperative, and to the Chimbángale, which brings practically the whole community together. When things got really hard, the Palmarito Commune organized collective cuero y escama expeditions. We made a census of families and sent out the boats and crews for three or four days. When they returned with six or seven thousand kilos of fish, we distributed the catch house-to-house and even gave some to nearby communities. That way, no one went hungry.

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Worker Cooperatives and Deep Democracy

Pluto Press — Capitalism’s crisis is planetary. It is a system upending nature and society, causing many to live and work in despair. So far, the left has been incapable of inspiring an effective challenge to it. In ​Worker Cooperatives and Deep Democracy, Vishwas Satgar and Michelle Williams map a new transformative politics arising from inspiring worker cooperative systems that advance planetary care from below and which have the potential to undermine the capitalist status quo...

2025 in review: Rose Karimi Kiwanuka

Co-operative News — Throughout 2025, ICA-Africa advanced its work across key priority areas. On gender equality, the organization launched the ICA-Africa Framework for the Establishment of National Cooperative Gender Platforms, reinforcing the role of co-operatives in promoting inclusive participation. In East and Southern Africa, capacity-building efforts continued through the REGCoop project supported by Norges Vel...

US groups chip away at historic levels of social isolation

NBC4 — There’s a Baltimore neighborhood trying to build a culture of giving and mutual support, and a Pittsburgh ministry focused on healing those wounded by poverty and violence. In Kentucky, a cooperative is supporting small farmers in hopes of strengthening their rural communities, while groups in Ohio are restoring neighborhoods and neighborliness. “We need to build a movement centered around connection,” former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told The Associated Press. “The good news is that that movement is already starting to build. … What we have to do now is accelerate that movement.”...

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This week, Joel Franqui discusses how the Puerto Rico Social Solidarity Economy Network formed from cooperative and community organizations, and how they work together to support just and sustainable economic development.

Then, Luis Razeto considers the possibilities for the integration of cooperative economic operations. To accomplish this, Razeto proposes the creation of four intercooperative bodies. 

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The Puerto Rico Social Solidarity Economy Network

A Presentation by Joel Franqui

by Wellbeing Economy Alliance California
The Puerto Rico Social Solidarity Network is a platform that connects people and organizations to promote and foster the social solidarity economy. The network emerged after a series of economical disasters and from the coop and community development movements to influence economic transformation for a sustainable, integral, human development for the common good.

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Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 14

by Luis Razeto Migliaro; transl. by Matt Noyes

Starting from the model of cooperatives “in the market” that we have proposed, and supposing the existence of a significant number of such enterprises, sufficiently consolidated, it seems possible to develop a factor market built by and for cooperative enterprises. In concrete terms this might look like:

1. A cooperative share exchange;
2. A cooperative labor exchange;
3. A market for cooperative finance;
4. A service for the cultivation, strategic planning, and technological development of the cooperative sector.

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Dancing Rabbit in 2025

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage — As 2025 comes to a close, it’s a good time to look back over the last 12 months of happenings at Dancing Rabbit. As with any year, we’ve had our ups and downs. When we look at the big picture, it’s quite promising; we’re making meaningful progress on a number of projects, our population is growing steadily, and our collective institutions are chugging along and aiding villagers and visitors in living sustainable, connected, and meaningful lives...

Brooklyn’s Boyfriend Co-op shows power of shared ownership

The Chief — At Boyfriend Co-op, the four worker-owners work together to curate the cafe and cocktail menu, design the space and plan events. Although there is a hierarchy of roles — one worker-owner with more expertise in event-planning may take on more of those responsibilities, for instance — there is no hierarchy of person...

West Yorkshire moor brought under community ownership

Co-op News — Bridestones Moor, a dramatic 114-acre space above Todmorden, West Yorkshire, has been brought under community ownership. The site, beloved in Calderdale for its striking rock formations, sweeping moorland vistas and wildlife, will now be managed by Bridestones Rewilded, a community interest company (CIC) led by local ecologists, naturalists and residents...

African youth prepare to structure their initiatives on a continental scale

RIPESS — From 15 to 17 December 2025, the CIPCRE in Bafoussam hosted the preparatory work for the launch of the Youth and Social and Solidarity Economy HUB (JeunESS), a strategic initiative led by the African Network for Social and Solidarity Economy (RAESS), in conjunction with the Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of Social and Solidarity Economy (RIPESS IC)...

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New on our YouTube Channel

Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 8 [audio version]

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This week, the Punchcard Podcast talks Elle Glenny about her experiences in housing co-ops and worker co-ops, and how both can often have blindspots around class and culture that keep low income, "working class" people away.

Then, composer and multi-instrumentalist Louis-Louise Kay talks about how and why the Mirlo cooperative is building an alternative to Bandcamp and other music distribution services, and dives deep into the details of what the open-source project has managed to achieve so far. 

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Classism in Cooperatives

An Interview with Elle Glenny

by PUNCHCARD
Unfortunately not everybody's experience of cooperatives is positive. For Elle, their time in co-operatives was both transformative, but also painful, marred by classism that often goes unnamed. In this episode of Punchcard, Elle and I talk about what classism looks like in co-ops, how we can transform it and why inclusion isn’t enough.

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Mirlo is Building Cooperative Tools for Music Distribution

by Mittens XVX
"So two years after launch, this is where we are now: we’ve got a free and open-source service run by a workers coop that emulates Bandcamp. People can choose the fee they want to give us, or keep all the money from their sales, it’s setup at 10% by default but they can manually set it to 0 and even decide variable fees for each of their releases if they want. The entire code the platform itself runs on being free and open-source means people could potentially even use it to build their own platform with it."

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The Employee-Ownership Mirage: Private Equity’s Latest PR Strategy

OnLabor — Without situating private equity’s employee-ownership initiatives within the broader empirical record of how private equity operates, and how its practices have historically reduced worker bargaining power, any positive account is incomplete at best. Omitting this context obscures the structural tension between private equity’s financial incentives and meaningful worker ownership...

Co-op Values in Action: Abundance Staff Win Union Vote

Food Tank — Over 70 percent of the employees signed union authorization cards early in the process. With the guidance of seasoned organizers at Workers United, the nearly 40 workers moved quickly from there. The election was held two weeks after workers first announced their intention to organize. “[It’s] the fastest [organizing] I’ve ever encountered,” Will Westlake, an organizer with Workers United, tells Food Tank...

Why Co-ops Are the Solution to Our Housing Crisis

The Walrus — In 2024, rent for a three-bedroom apartment in the co-op was $828 a month, a very affordable price compared to the $1,687 for a much smaller one-bedroom apartment listed on kijiji.ca in the same city. Twenty of the townhouses in the complex have even more budget-friendly rates thanks to governmental subsidies for “geared to income” housing...

Rep. Khanna Introduces Bill to Support Worker Co-op Businesses

Rep. Khanna's website — The legislation will launch a coordinated federal effort to provide funding, technical assistance, education, and an improved regulatory environment for worker co-ops as well as establish a United States Council on Worker Cooperatives, led by the Department of Labor. The council will report to Congress with a federal worker cooperative strategy, designed through identifying regulatory barriers, proposing solutions, and coordinating research and educational initiatives...

1970 (and 2026) Anarchist Calendar

GEO — Tor Faegre, a peace and civil rights activist and carpenter, designed a series of six Anarchist Calendars beginning with 1968. These calendars were originally published by Solidarity Bookshop, which he co-founded, and printed at the J.S. Jordan Memorial Print Cooperative, both in Chicago. The original was printed on a variety of weights and color sheets. This digital file of the 1970 calendar has been color corrected for optimal reproduction. May is the only month originally printed in two colors. The 1970 calendar is identical with the dates of 2026. 

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New on our YouTube Channel

Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 7 [audio version]

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We're pleased to announce that GEO will be publishing a quarterly journal of the cooperative and solidarity economy movements! For a monthly donation of $10 or more, you'll receive a collection of our best articles from the website, as well as original pieces from GEO writers, four times a year. Perfect for co-op development centers, libraries, researchers, and co-op fans of all varieties. 

Now back to your regular newsletter.

This week, residents of Venezuela's Palmarito Commune share the story of their community's long practice of solidarity, cooperation, and resistance as they've made their livelihoods on the shores of Lake Maracaibo.

Then Luis Razeto writes about  the power of "cooperative integration" to expand the co-op movement, and presents some thoughts for improving intercooperation in chapter 13 of Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy.

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A Story of Resistance and Renewal: The Palmarito Afro-Descendant Commune (Part I)

by Chris Gilbert & Cira Pascual Marquina
"Our history is one of resistance—first against enslavement, later against criollo domination—and out of that came a community capable of standing on its own. Life here has always been defined by fishing and by our cultural practices with African roots."

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Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 13

by Luis Razeto Migliaro, transl. by Matt Noyes
Cooperation starts from the principle that through association, individuals can realize better results in those activities that alone would require great effort with less chance of success. It would follow that the broader range of action that can be obtained through cooperation among distinct cooperatives can only expand the operational possibilities of each one. In fact in every country where the cooperative movement has reached a certain degree of development, it has given rise to processes of integration, through the building of second and third level cooperatives, and through the constitution of representative associations (federations, confederations, etc.).

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Local co-ops are vital community institutions

Edible Vermont — To learn more about these vital community institutions, I sat down with Erbin Crowell, executive director of the Neighboring Food Co-op Association, or NFCA, and a member of Board of Directors of the National Cooperative Business Association. He shared a fountain of information about the intriguing history— and inspiring power—of the co-operative movement in the United States and beyond...

4 Governance Challenges from Co-op Leaders

Co-operatives First — A classic governance problem is whether the board is able to hold management accountable. The board (known as the ‘principal’) is supposed to oversee the co-op’s management (called the ‘agent’). The problem is that the board tends to have less experience and industry knowledge than the managers, and isn’t present for the day-to-day activities of the co-op...

Build Together Thrive Forever: Creating an Employee Owned Future

Discovered Hiring (YouTube) — What happens when a small crew of “hippie carpenters” grows into a nationally admired, employee-owned company that changes lives, families, and communities? In this inspiring episode, Fletcher sits down with John Abrams, founder of Abrams+Angell, formerly of South Mountain Company, who spent 50+ years proving that business can be both profitable and profoundly people-centered...

Grant and Scholarship Opportunities from CDF

Cooperative Development Foundation — Did you know that the Cooperative Development Foundation has been building the capacity of the cooperative business community since 1944? CDF provides grants for cooperative development and education every year. We could be supporting your co-op work! Check out the opportunities below and save the date for exciting events we are hosting in the new year...

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New on our YouTube Channel

The Problem with the USFWC Worker Co-op Conference

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This week, David Lidz talks about his work with West Baltimore's innovative Waterbottle Cooperative. The co-op buys and renovates severely distressed row homes, then places them on the rental market at affordable rates, keeping the property ownership with the cooperative. 

Then Deyanira Del Rio, Roberto Garcia Ceballos, and Chris Brown join Shelterforce to discuss the progress they've made and the challenges they've faced in creating new models of community ownership in New York City, Los Angeles, and the Hudson Valley. 

And finally, as it is giving Tuesday, why not consider making a contribution to GEO to help us keep covering the worker co-op and solidarity economy movements? 

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Own The Hell Out Of It

David Lidz On Co-ops, Recovery And Rebuilding Baltimore

by David Lidz & Jack Clarke
"Often it’s folks coming back from prison, or coming up from addiction, or trying to escape street violence, or coming from another country and trying to get a fresh start. We hire those folks into our construction jobs and into other jobs within the co-op. And then once we finish a row home, we present it to the world as fully renovated homes at affordable rates. And the final piece is that we keep all these homes that we are renovating in a portfolio that is owned by those same workers. And now that we are starting to gather a significant tenant pool, we’re having a conversation about how we invite tenants into ownership of the portfolio."

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Fueling the Future of Community Ownership

by Shelterforce
Learn about the power of Los Angeles’s Measure ULA, New York City’s take on a shared services model, cooperation between conservationists and affordable housing development in New York’s Hudson Valley, and more. 

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Co-op Cincy is Hiring a Business Developer

Co-op Cincy (Google Docs) — Co-op Cincy (formerly Cincinnati Union Co-op Initiative) is seeking a full-time Co-op Culture and Business Developer to join our growing team. Co-op Cincy works to overcome inequality of opportunity, mobility, and income by building a network of unionized worker-owned cooperative businesses...

The Social Care Playbook

Equal Care Co-op — This playbook is a roadmap - developed to support local authorities, health services, grassroots groups and individuals who want to bring about a step change in social care. Although it is available for anyone to read, it is primarily aimed at three groups of people and in the following order: Directors, commissioners or policymakers for social care services...Community groups and collectives wishing to start their own co-operatives...Homecare and residential organisations wanting to shift to a relationship-centred, co-operative model of support...

Union Worker Cooperatives: Stronger Together

Lisabeth Ryder (YouTube) — Collective leadership is a process. It is dependent on the relationships among the parts in the system, whether that system is two people working together; a classroom, team, board, or organization; or a system initiative. In collective leadership, the way the group works together makes it different from a more traditional model of leadership. How the group works together and the unique results that are possible only when this happens differentiate a group that is sharing leadership from one that is not...

Co-operatives make their voices heard at Cop30 in Brazil

Co-op News — The sector’s main message was that co-operatives are already contributing to the climate agenda, in Brazil and around the world, but need more support to implement more climate-friendly initiatives. “Brazilian co-operatives are already protagonists in the climate agenda,” said Márcio Lopes de Freitas, president of the Organisation of Brazilian Co-operatives (OCB), during one of the sessions. “They represent the link between the real economy and major global commitments, bringing innovation, sustainability, and inclusion to those at the production base.”...

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New on our YouTube Channel

"Like co-creating with a photocopier"

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This week, we honor this year's four inductees to the US Cooperative Hall of Fame: Estelle Witherspoon, Lori Capouch, Randy Lee, and Tom Webb.

Then, Kristin Wiksell looks at five Swedish worker cooperatives and considers in what ways they serve as "constructive resistance" to the capitalist market economy, by spreading knowledge of alternative ways to organize economic activities. 

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2025 Cooperative Hall of Fame Inductees

by Cooperative Development Foundation
Estelle Witherspoon helped transform economic reality for Black women artisans and their families in Wilcox County, Alabama. As founding member and Board President of the Freedom Quilting Bee (FQB), she oversaw its markets and sales for over 20 years until her retirement.

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Worker Cooperatives for Social Change

by Kristin Wiksell
This section explores Swedish worker co-ops’ possibilities of constructive resistance by enacting economic businesses differently to typical ways associated with capitalist systems. A recurrent pattern in the empirical material is that this realisation is represented by the co-ops as a display or proof that co-ops function, and that their cooperative principles can offer an alternative to the dominance of capitalist ideals.

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A Look at Weaver Street Market as a Third Space

The Daily Tar Heel — To the community, Weaver Street Market is more than a grocery store, it’s Carrboro’s unofficial front porch. On any afternoon, the patio outside fills with students, families and longtime residents. Some eat lunch under the broad oak trees, while others read, talk, listen or play...

Is Group Health still a Cooperative?

Tone Madison — Members unanimously approved a resolution that, by October 17, our cooperative “shall notify GHC Workers United and SEIU Wisconsin of the co-op’s intent to voluntarily recognize the bargaining unit democratically chosen by GHC workers.” Members also unanimously passed four other transparency resolutions demanding that GHC share how much it has spent on union-busting lawyers and consultants...But later that week, the GHC Board of Directors sent an email to members that calls GHC’s cooperative values into question. The Board reminded members that any member vote on the union issue would be advisory, merely “encouraging” the Board to take action...

Five Elements of Collective Leadership

Nonprofit Quarterly — Collective leadership is a process. It is dependent on the relationships among the parts in the system, whether that system is two people working together; a classroom, team, board, or organization; or a system initiative. In collective leadership, the way the group works together makes it different from a more traditional model of leadership. How the group works together and the unique results that are possible only when this happens differentiate a group that is sharing leadership from one that is not...

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Our mailing address is:

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P.O. Box 115
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This week, the Punchcard podcast talks with Abbas Shapuri about how and why he left corporate accounting at firms like KPMG to get involved in worker cooperatives.

Then, we've got chapter 12 of Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy, wherein author Luis Razeto Migliaro considers some of the "extra-economic" virtues of worker and community cooperatives.

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How to Radicalise an Accountant

by PUNCHCARD
Abbas Shapuri’s journey into the worker co-operative movement is not a typical one. Many worker co-operators arrive from the “alternative” or activist scenes. Abbas, however, came from the heart of capitalism: corporate accountancy. 

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Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 12

by Luis Razeto Migliaro, transl. by Matt Noyes
Placing labor at the root and center of economic organizations logically leads – as we have seen – to a regime of distributed personal property, which implies use in common of the necessary means of production, which the collective of workers know and feel to be their own. Following the reasoning of Laborem Exercens, and in light of various ethical-social considerations, we can appreciate why an ownership structure founded on labor and indissolubly linked to labor, should show itself to be profoundly human and socially just.

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Kigro Recyclers Worker Cooperative, Nairobi, Kenya

Cooperativism at Work (YouTube) — This video by Global Communities presents Kigro Recyclers, a new youth-led waste management cooperative in Nairobi, whose success demonstrates the worker cooperative model’s potential in Kenya and Africa for job creation, poverty reduction and environmental improvement. It offers a viable path to formalising Kenya’s informal workforce and promoting inclusive economic development...

Sociocracy in Small Groups

Sociocracy for All — In many organizations, there’s both a tendency to have too many circles and a tendency not to have enough circles. So, what’s the number of circles that’s just right? There is no universal answer. But there is a test. The right number of circles is perfect when every agenda item in every meeting is relevant to every person in the room for their own work...

The Kootenay Bakery Cafe’ Cooperative

BC Artisans at Work (YouTube) — The Kootenay Bakery Café Cooperative is not your average bakery. As the name suggests, the bakery operates as a worker co-op. This means the principles of cooperation, mutual aid, solidarity and equity between members, employees, and the community are inherent to our values...

Local mutual aid group looks to strengthen community, reframe problem solving

Stanwood Camano News — Emily “Kimmy” Kim and Mary Ellen Wood have a shared vision to bring grassroots community networks to the Stanwood-Camano area. In March of this year, the Mutual Aid Assembly of Stanwood-Camano was born to bring that vision to life. Kim said the group has hosted about 10 meetings and several events with a focus on working together to solve problems and learn from each other...

The Praxis Wheel (Revised)

Dorian's Mode — My guiding goal is to engage with care—responsively, intentionally, and through practices that support healing rather than impose it. Over time, I developed a framework to help navigate these complex spaces with integrity, transparency, and genuine respect. I now share this framework with other liberation-oriented, trauma-informed practitioners—mental health workers, artists, activists, organizers, facilitators, and all who engage in work that centers on healing and liberation..

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New on our YouTube Channel

GEO Game Night #1

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This week, the Maine Cooperative Business Alliance wraps up its three part series on housing co-ops with stories from Maine housing co-ops about how they have gotten over the inevitable hurdles to create successful cooperatives (and in one case a community land trust).

Then Kenzie Love writes about Ludovic Viger's new book, The Great Canadian Reset. Viger sees co-ops, and worker co-ops specifically, as an answer to many of the interlocking economic, political, and environmental crises that Canadians are now facing. 

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Inspiring Stories and Impact: Housing Co-ops and Beyond

by Cooperative Maine Business Alliance
Listen to inspiring stories of housing co-ops overcoming challenges, building resilient communities, and shaping local economies. This session zooms out to explore how co-ops fit into the broader landscape of affordable housing and solidarity economy movements. 

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Ludovic Viger Envisions a Co-operative Reset for Canada

by Kenzie Love
Worker co-ops play a key role in Viger’s vision for the future, based on their track record of resilience in tough economic times, egalitarian structure, and ability to appeal across the political spectrum, based on the control it offers members over their own labour.

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Federation of Southern Co-ops sets out shutdown support measures

Co-op News — With the US federal shutdown entering its second month, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund has set out its effort to support people suffering food insecurity...The Federation has pointed to the ”urgency” of the situation and its impact on programmes like SNAP, “which millions depend on for food access”, and says it has “built infrastructure to address crises like this”...

Cooperative leaders unveil manifesto for new global economy at Doha Summit

Vulcan Post — A global network of cooperative and mutual leaders launched at the World Summit for Social Development – and its first action was to publish a Contract for a New Global Economy...

Building a Solidarity Economy: Miami Care Worker Cooperative

Miami Workers Center (YouTube) — Miami Workers Center is in process of developing a care worker cooperative, and collaborating with workers to define a truly democratic, entrepreneurial and community-driven economy that centers workers’ voices, grows worker wealth, and builds worker power in Miami-Dade...

World Cooperative Monitor 2025 edition

World Cooperative Monitor — The 2025 issue of the World Cooperative Monitor report explores the economic and social impact of the largest cooperatives and mutuals worldwide, providing rankings of the Top 300, sector rankings, and employment data. The World Cooperative Monitor is produced by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) with the scientific and technical support of the European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises (EURICSE)...

Co-ops looking to change the world, town by town

Co-op News — Local co-op and solidarity economy initiatives were in evidence at last month’s World Transformed festival, which gathered more 3,000 people from left-wing movements to strategise and organise around principles of socialist utopianism, creativity and collaboration...

What Is the Commons—And Why Does It Matter Today?

Growing the Commons —  If the Commons is such a compelling alternative, why is it still so marginal in public discourse? Ask around, and you’ll likely get one of three reactions:...

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This week, the Progressive News Network talks with Delia Marx about the Westchester Cooperative Network, a group that seeks to educate the public about worker co-ops, as well as serving as a bridge between interested members of the community and local, experienced, co-op developers. This interview also contains a short video about the conversion of Manhattan's Green Mountain Graphics to a worker cooperative.

Then, we continue with our translation of Luis Razeto Migliaro's Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy, in which the author presents an analysis of the internal dynamics of worker co-ops and makes an argument that they operate in ways that more closely resemble the "perfect competition" of standard economic theory than traditional capitalist firms. 

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The Westchester Cooperative Network

by Progressive News Network
Chuck Bell interviews Delia Marx of Westchester Cooperative Network about the organization's work to promote the development of worker-owned cooperatives in Westchester, County, NY. 

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Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 11

by Luis Razeto Migliaro
The outstanding characteristic of these workers’ enterprises would be the tendency to privilege qualitative growth over quantitative growth: they are driven not to establish gigantic enterprises but rather comparatively small enterprises, with fewer workers, but high productivity due to a more rapid process of innovation and technological improvement. This supports the development of communitarian human relations and the real participation of members of the labor collective in the management and control of the productive and economic processes in general. 

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Building a Food System Worth Its Salt

Old Salt Co-op — We wanted to build a new kind of marketplace for food that would function like a stream, but where good inefficiencies like wends and eddies, logs and riffles support life of all kinds and the water from a stream ends up being much cleaner than that of the canal. The thing is, life makes its home in inefficiencies...

A cooperative path for building a stable, thriving child care workforce in Alaska

Anchorage Daily News — We believe that true capacity building requires both sound public policy and entrepreneurial innovation. To that end, First Entrepreneurial and YWCA Alaska have partnered to propose and launch a pilot to develop worker-owned cooperative child care operations. The project was funded by ACCEE in July 2025...

New book on worker and social cooperatives: “Cooperativism at Work“

CICOPA —“Cooperativism at Work: Worker-Owned Cooperatives Across the World” highlights how worker and social cooperatives drive sustainable, democratic, and community focused development worldwide. Through global case studies, it shows their role in promoting equality, innovation, and environmental responsibility. The book includes contributions from 32 contributors worldwide, offering a comprehensive view of worker-owned cooperatives. Among the authors of the book, there are several CICOPA members from Argentina, Spain, France, Sweden, Canada, Uruguay, Japan, USA, UK and Italy...

10 Principles of Next Economy Enterprises: A Guide for Designing a Regenerative Future

Lift Economy — The 10 Principles of Next Economy Enterprises serve as critical guideposts for designing organizations from a socially just and environmentally regenerative perspective. They are emergent and malleable, derived from work with hundreds of social enterprises. Here is an outline of the 10 principles...

David Thompson Warns of Big Problems with Limited-Eqity Housing Co-op Proposal

Davisite — Much as I love LEHC’s, the Village Farms LEHC proposal is impossible to develop under present circumstances. To be fair to the City and to the citizens this proposal should be removed immediately or else it will be a huge waste of the City’s time and the citizen’s resources or it will be a major housing proposal seen as an ill-prepared developer’s red herring that should have been eliminated. Village Farms does a disservice to the City by presenting a thin dream without details to back up the Co-op...

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Our mailing address is:

Grassroots Economic Organizing
P.O. Box 115
Riverdale MD 20738-0115

This week, Megan McGee writes about the Rhizome Therapy Cooperative and how their worker owned model serves as an antidote to the burnout that is epidemic among community mental health workers. Beyond being a superior working environment for therapists, Rhizome also offers a sliding scale for clients to ensure that as many as possible are able to benefit from their services.

Then, the Cooperative Maine Business Alliance presents part two of their three part series on housing co-ops. this week's is devoted to maintaining and growing existing housing co-ops, with presenters from Raise-Op Housing Cooperative, Cooperative Fund of the Northeast, Cooperative Development Institute, and Maine Initiatives.

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How the Rhizome Therapy Cooperative Counters Burnout

by Megan McGee
For Ostendorf, the co-op model feels like a strong antidote to the unequal power dynamic that exists between therapists and clients, and in the nonprofit world. “Social work as a field has some roots in philanthropy, and those with resources showing up and helping those without resources.” Rhizome’s collaborative structure corresponds with the anti-oppression informed approach they and Heflin both take to therapy.

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Maintaining and Growing Existing Housing Co-ops

by Cooperative Maine Business Alliance
This webinar dives into strategies for keeping co-ops strong and sustainable: decision-making, financial management, upkeep, growth strategies, and member engagement. Learn about what works, what to avoid, and how to position your co-op for long-term success.

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Cooperatives: Beyond the dichotomy between non-profit and for-profit

International Labour Organization — This joint ILO–ICA policy brief clarifies that cooperatives are neither non-profit nor for-profit institutions, but limited-profit institutions grounded in cooperative identity and values. Proper understanding and accurate legal and statistical classification is critical to their sustainability and contribution to decent work and sustainable development. In line with cooperative principles, surplus may be distributed to members in proportion to their transactions, while profits from non-member transactions must be transferred to indivisible reserves. The brief calls on governments to recognize this unique character in policy and law...

Worker cooperatives make the world better

The Solidarity Wedge — In the lead up to Christmas 2014, Ingham Poultry announced that it was planning to shut its turkey processing facility near the town of McLaren Vale just outside of Adelaide on the Fleurieu Peninsula. The plant was represented by my union at the time — the National Union of Workers (NUW). The local manufacturing workforce, with the recently announced shut down of the Australian car manufacturing industry that hit South Australia particularly hard, did not have many other options. The local turkey and poultry farmers, meanwhile, did not have any other accessible processing facilities in the area. A group of workers and farmers got together to campaign to re-open the factory under the operation of a joint worker-farmer cooperative...

New CECOP Report: “Quality Jobs, the Cooperative Way”

CECOP — CECOP’s report “Quality Jobs – the Cooperative Way”, authored by independent researcher Mila Shamku, shows how worker cooperatives, social cooperatives, and cooperatives of autonomous workers make their own contribution to workplace democracy while balancing economic sustainability with fair conditions and long-term job security...

How Co-ops Help Businesses Compete in a Globalized Economy

Co-operatives First — Just because you’re an independent business, doesn’t mean you need to go it alone. Across Canada there are thousands of entrepreneurs working together to help their businesses survive and to carve out space for locally owned businesses. By forming co-operatives, entrepreneurs have reduced their input costs, added value to their products, and positioned themselves to remain competitive.  

Creating and Sustaining Limited Equity Cooperatives in D.C.

Coaltion for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development — Limited Equity Cooperatives (LECs) provide a critical source of affordable homeownership, stable community networks, and political power in neighborhoods across the District of Columbia. The District is home to 96 LECs, representing more than 4,300 units in all 8 wards (Figure 1). While a third are located in Ward 1, due to ongoing patterns of gentrification and displacement, Ward 4 has seen recent growth in the number of buildings opting to become LECs. The LECs in the District have been created steadily over the past four decades and represent a mix of building types, sizes, and resident-owner communities...

Regional Maryland Cooperative and Solidarity Convening

Network for Developing Conscious Communities — The Regional Maryland Cooperative and Solidarity Convening will serve as a dynamic forum to: 
- Strengthen regional cooperative and solidarity business networks and develop cross-sector partnerships. 
- Address barriers to cooperative and solidarity development and influence local/state policy. 
- Provide training, resources, and technical assistance to cooperative and solidarity leaders...

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Our mailing address is:

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This week, the Cooperative Maine Business Alliance brings together members of three housing co-ops and one co-op development specialist to share practical guidance for starting a housing cooperative.

Then, Nicolás Chesta writes about Chile's thriving solidarity economy movement, and the many interconnected pieces that have helped make it a success.

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Housing Co-op Startups: From Idea to Reality

by Cooperative Maine Business Alliance
In this webinar, our panel shares insights, lessons learned, and practical guidance for starting a housing cooperative. Whether you’re considering a limited-equity co-op, a resident-owned community (ROC), or other shared housing models, this session provides valuable advice to help bring your vision to life. 

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Chile’s Solidarity Economy is Growing

by Nicolás Chesta
Other examples of municipal initiatives include several community-market programs based in Santiago, including Mercado Vintage Lastarria, a vintage market that blends circular economy practices with cultural identity; Acción Errante, a socially engaged collective working to activate local economies through creative collaboration; and Mercado Kimén, which focuses on fair trade and local food systems.

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How cooperatives can tackle youth unemployment

Co-op News — The contribution of cooperatives to the country’s economy is well-documented in official economic records and observed in daily life. Yet, a significant demographic gap exists within these cooperatives, as the majority of their membership is comprised of older individuals, while the Kenyan population skews younger. This disparity represents both a challenge and an opportunity in addressing youth unemployment...

Innovative organizations receive $205,000 in grants from National Cooperative Bank and Capital Impact Partners

NCBA CLUSA — “The recipients of this year’s Co-op Innovation Awards are helping to strengthen communities by creating jobs, increasing the availability of affordable housing, expanding access to child care, and providing more of the opportunities that people need to succeed,” said Ellis Carr, President and CEO of Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance, both of which are part of the Momentus Capital branded family of organizations...

Lessons from a cooperative businesses conference

The 51st — The 51st is D.C.’s first worker-led nonprofit newsroom. But we’re part of a larger system of cooperative organizations working to build a better world. I got to see what that meant more tangibly this past week, when I spoke on a panel at the 2025 Cooperative IMPACT Conference alongside Jasper Wang. He’s one of the co-founders of Defector, a newsroom our team looked to for inspiration — and advice — before we launched last year...

Elroy Webster Cooperative Studies Now Accepting Applications for 2025 Scholarships!

Ralph K. Morris Foundation — The Ralph K. Morris Foundation is accepting applications for scholarships from the Elroy Webster Cooperative Studies Program. This program provides two scholarships of $2,500 each and honorary awards to graduate students or law students interested in agriculture and cooperatives.  These scholarships are funded by the CHS Foundation...

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Our mailing address is:

Grassroots Economic Organizing
P.O. Box 115
Riverdale MD 20738-0115