Resources
Our Networks
Southern Reparations Loan Fund
SRLF is building a more democratic, just and sustainable South. We're a network of loan funds that lend to democratically-governed enterprises that meet the needs and elevate the quality of life of African American, immigrant, and poor white communities in the US South.
Seed Commons Network
Seed Commons is a national network of locally-rooted, non-extractive loan funds that brings the power of big finance under community control. By taking guidance from the grassroots and sharing capital and resources to support local cooperative businesses, we are building the infrastructure necessary for a truly just, democratic and sustainable new economy.
Starting a Worker-Owned Cooperative
Co-Op Cinci Worker-Owned Cooperative Handbook
The workbook contains the essentials of the co-op movement, labor movement, and the Mondragon cooperative network of Spain. It teaches the nuts and bolts of business financials, conflict management and team building skills.
How to Start a New Worker Co-op
Own the Change is a 22 minute, free documentary that gives you a guide to starting worker co-ops. It lays out the the real-world challenges of launching a co-op as well as the transformative benefits the model offers, and it includes interviews with people who have launched their own co-ops. By TESA Collective Published in 2015, 22 minutes long.
Immigrant Worker Owned Cooperatives: A User’s Manual
This booklet is meant to be a “users manual” for workers (especially immigrant workers) and their advocates in the field who may be thinking of organizing a worker owned cooperative as a worker empowerment strategy.
Books, Articles and Podcasts
What is a Worker-Owned Cooperative?
US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. One of the best-kept secrets in this country is the growing economy of worker cooperatives and democratic workplaces. Thousands of people work in them, thousands more patronize them. They are a growing and hopeful part of a movement to go not just against but beyond the corporate model of exploitation and abandonment, to create a real economic alternative for people who need good jobs the most. But what are they, exactly?
How Co-ops Build Stronger Communities, A New Economy, and A Better World
Cooperatives are businesses and organizations democratically owned and managed by the people they serve. They come in many shapes and sizes: from a handful of people to thousands upon thousands of members. Some are owned and run by workers, others are owned and governed by consumers, still others are for producers (like farmers and artists). But no matter what, cooperatives always have the same foundation: one member, one share, one vote.
Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice
By Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard Published in 2014, 311 pages. In Collective Courage, Jessica Gordon Nembhard chronicles African American cooperative business ownership and its place in the movements for Black civil rights and economic equality. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1907 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans has there been a full-length, nationwide study of African American cooperatives. Collective Courage extends that story into the twenty-first century.
Upstream
By Della Z Duncan and Robert Ramin Raymond. Founded in 2016, Upstream is a radio documentary and interview series offering themed episodes that explore a wide variety of topics pertaining to our tumultuous and thrilling 21st-century economy. Through a mixture of heartfelt stories, expert interviews, and rich sound design, we challenge traditional assumptions and invite our listeners to imagine what a democratic, just, and sustainable economy might look like.
Everything Co-op with Vernon Oakes
Host Vernon Oakes interview co-op advocates, analyzes news, and offers opinions on this DC-based radio show. Lots of great interviews, including Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo, Esteban Kelly, Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Kali Akuno, and more.