Forget Venture Capitalists—This Scrappy Composting Co-Op Found Another Way to Get Startup Money

Year: 
2015
Author(s): 
Laura Flanders
Affiliated Organization: 
Yes! Magazine
Source: 
http://www.yesmagazine.org/commonomics/forget-venture-capitalists-this-scrappy-composting-co-op-found-startup-money-cero
Description: 

At age 60, when many of her friends are considering retirement, Josefina Luna is chair of the board of CERO Cooperative Inc. CERO is a five-member worker-owned cooperative on a mission to encourage composting and create jobs in the hard-up Boston neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester, and East Boston. It's a small but unusually diverse team: Of the five worker-owners, two are African-American, two are Latinas, and one is white. They communicate in English and Spanish. To kick-start their business, they’ve also had to learn the language of stocks and shares, but they just may have hit on a new way of raising capital for businesses owned by poor people.

Resource Type: 
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