Ecosystems

This guide provides a catalog of efforts made by local government institutions to support cooperative development in their regions

This white paper addresses the issue of fairness in funding for cooperative development in the United States and advocates for federally funded cooperative development assistance that is on par with that ofered for non-cooperative business development. It also emphasizes the disparity between rural and urban cooperative access to funding and proposes an increase in availabiity of funding for urban cooperatives without hindering rural cooperative development.

By emphasizing wealth creation, communities can not only cultivate streams of income, but also build wealth. Through collectively owned and democratically governed assets, communities can build wealth. Economic development policy and practice should emphasize wealth creation. Employee ownership, through worker cooperatives is one way to build wealth. But worker cooperatives are rare in the United States; this is because there is not a supportive cooperative ecosystem.

This case study discusses a pathbreaking strategy in Cleveland, Ohio, that addressed the economic challenges facing the city by generating local wealth, economic opportunity, and jobs. The strategy involved the expansion of the University Hospitals, an important anchor institution. The study is based on in-depth interviews with key stakeholders.

This guide explores the worker cooperative network as a neighborhood, municipal and regional strategy for generating wealth. It presents two examples: the well-established Mondragon Complex in Spain and the nascent Evergreen Cooperative Initiative in Cleveland Ohio. Drawing from these two cases the authors then put forth a general framework for building a scalable cooperative network in post-industrial American cities.