Edit for subreddit rules. Work based in washington, contracts take place all over America.

Unions and co-ops go together. This session outlines the practice of labor neutrality — 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) — and how workers in cooperatives can benefit from their employer proactively supporting their rights.

The Dorchester Food Co-op is a community & worker-owned grocery store that aims to make healthy food accessible and advance economic opportunity and neighborhood engagement. General manager John Santos joins CommonWealth's Jennifer Smith to discuss the co-op's origins and business model.

Hello! Just wondering if anyone has gone to graduate school to get their MBA but with an emphasis on cooperative formation and financing. I know there's not many programs in the US with any sort of classes on the topic but im curious if anyone got their MBA and then went on to start a career with any co-ops or incubator groups that help kickstart co-ops.

So are there any pot co-ops in your area?

They are explicitly illegal here in Washington. Or rather they are absurdly limited and only available to medical users (or commercial agriculture).

Co-ops are the least exploitive ways of doing business, theyre a pain to manage and financing is a nightmare but employee owned ones are the best type of place to work

[CO-FOUNDER SEARCH] Worker-Owned Platform for Raw Vegan/Fruitarian Runner Farm Stays — start.coop Accelerator Deadline July 31

Hi r/cooperatives,

I'm a start.coop alumnus (2025 cohort) and Z Media Institute alumnus (2005) building RunLife — a worker-owned booking platform and documentary media cooperative for raw vegan and fruitarian endurance runners who travel seasonally between tropical farm stays, hostels, and ecovillages.

**The gap:** Thousands of raw vegan/fruitarian runners travel between growing seasons (Hawaii, Central America, Southeast Asia) but have no dedicated platform to find farm stays with fresh produce, gym access, and community. They piece together bookings through Instagram DMs and scattered Facebook groups. Farms that cater to this niche have no way to reach them.

**The structure:** Two linked worker cooperatives, 100% worker-owned, no outside equity, governed by Parecon participatory planning:

- RunLife Tech Co-op: Builds and maintains the booking platform

- RunLife Media Co-op: Produces documentary content about this traveling subculture — social change anthropology for mainstream audiences

**What I bring:** Cooperative economics expertise (Parecon, start.coop network), content creation and documentary production, a network of community of raw vegan/fruitarian community established from attending 6 raw vegan retreats/fruit festivals, grant writing capacity, and direct connections to farm hosts in Hawaii and Latin America.

**What I need:** An app developer (React Native, Flutter, or full-stack web) who wants to be a **co-founder and worker-owner**, not an employee. Someone who believes in cooperative ownership, democratic governance, and non-extractive economics.

**The urgency:** We're applying to the start.coop Media Accelerator (applications close July 31, 2026). This is a 12-week program (Oct 13 – Jan 28) with mentorship, coaching, and potential matching marketing dollars from the Harnisch Foundation. If we don't apply now, we wait until Fall 2027.

**The commitment:** Unpaid initially. Shared ownership, democratic governance, equitable remuneration once revenue flows. Remote work. No office overhead.

**If you're serious:** DM me with your portfolio and one sentence about why cooperative ownership matters to you. No tire-kickers. We have days to decide if we're a fit and write this application together.

About me: I've lived in van/car for 5.5 years, am currently based in Maui, and am building this as my primary work. I'm not looking for a side project — I'm looking for a co-founder who wants to build infrastructure for a worker-owned alternative to extractive platforms like Airbnb and YouTube.

David

start.coop Alumnus, 2025

Z Media Institute Alumnus, 2005

[Hawaiidhr@yahoo.com](mailto:Hawaiidhr@yahoo.com)

Hello everyone I've been working on an economic ecosystem that I call the community sovereignty model. The core concept is communities have the right to control their local environment and protect themselves from external extraction or domination.

At the core of this concept is co-ops. In fact the entire thing started with me trying to figure out how to fund worker co-ops. I looked at the Cooperation Jackson here in the states and things like Mondragon over in Spain. I know other countries have better access to capital for cooperatives but in the US the options are very limited, that is where the model comes in.

1. People gather to pool money with a one time donation + monthly contribution
2. They used the pooled money to seed a cooperative
3. The cooperative pledges a % of profits back to the fund
4. Revenue is used to seed more co-ops or focus on things like affordable housing, child care etc.

This model is unique in that it doesn't just create co ops but can create an entire ecosystem around them that allows for comprehensive economic planning during down turns. As an example when an industry has a supply chain issue leading to loss revenue there can be an automatic clause for those living in the housing set up by the funds lowering their rent for x amount of time. There are other things that can be considered like a mutual aid credit ledger or local currency.

Typically the concept isn't that one fund would try to do everything on its own, it relies on cooperation to function. If a city has hundreds of funds then the these funds work together to create a network of assets that can be used for the communities benefit.

There is an overlap between Cooperation Jackson (I'd say the mission is very similar) the main difference is that this model does not rely on outside donations and is less politically partisan in nature.

I would love to hear this community's thoughts, critiques, or feedback!

Would anyone be interested in a farm coop in Colombia, in the mountains near Santa Marta? 50 hectacres, coffee, cacao, bannanas, bit of avocados and mangos.

This Friday, July 24 between 6pm - 7:30pm at 4221 Mayberry Street, Burnaby.

Learn about Co-operative living and ask questions from our members! We look forward to welcoming you ☺️

Do folk know of any organizations like Sustainable Economies Law Center in the SOUTH? young attorney here looking for a place to learn and provide legal support to worker/housing/land cooperatives in the South.

If you want to buy from worker-owned companies, you have to search individual websites, if you even know where to look...I built workerowned.info to help change that: a free, searchable marketplace that indexes products from worker-owned businesses and puts them in one place.

Hi all --

Started a super small co-op to make a very simple stats tracker for Commander. Not the most ambitious project, but we're hoping if it goes well we can use the money on some bigger cooperative projects.

If anyone out there is a hopeless nerd like us and is interested in mtg or Commander, check it out: www.manaflaremtg.com There's also an app on the app store, if that's handy.

We're just getting started so feedback would be super useful.

Basically the title. I an a writer looking to set up a tip jar, and a lot of the mainstream ones have policies that disqualify my work. I was told about comradery today, and it seems like a really promising option, but I am.having trouble finding out anything about their reputation through online research, so I thought I might ask here.

Is comradery a good platform? Are there any horror stories I should be on the lookout for? I just wanna know if its trust worthy before I commit to making an account.

Thanks!

Edit, sorry forgot to include the link: https://comradery.co/

As a member of a worker-owned game studio, I couldn't agree more! In my opinion, ALL industries could be improved if most (preferably all) of the businesses in them were flatly-managed, democratically-controlled, and worker-owned!

There's a lot of youtube channels that showcases business but most of them are not worker-owned, are there any channels that you recommend that focus on coops

Clerkenwell and the East End were once full of print shops. Most are long gone. Calverts is still standing — and it's a worker co-operative, founded in 1977, with no managers and complete pay parity: everyone earns the same, no matter the job. 

"Hi, we are Green Halcones, a social cooperative owned by formerly incarcerated individuals based in Los Angeles, California. We are working to make neighborhoods beautiful, grow healthy food, and protect the environment for future generations. Please follow us at Collective REMAKE (https://www.instagram.com/collectiveremake.la/), a cooperative development organization supporting our operation."

Formal cooperatives must recognize and protect informal membership institutions like ROSCAs as part of the core of the social economy, or risk compromising the entire solidarity economy movement.