Who we are
DotCooperation was formed in 2001 by the National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International (NCBA CLUSA) as a subsidiary, to help cooperatives worldwide create a strong online presence and strengthen the cooperative movement. In 2012, a strategic restructuring took place. We became jointly owned by NCBA CLUSA and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), two organizations who believe that when cooperatives thrive, everyone benefits. Our organization has evolved to stay ahead of social, digital and technology trends, but our mission and vision remain steadfast to our core values:
- Our Mission: To unite and strengthen the cooperative community through a shared and recognized online identity. With this identity as our foundation, we aim to foster trust, solidarity, and collaboration worldwide.
- Our Vision: To serve as a digital identity leader for cooperatives, and provide them with a platform to participate, inform, educate, and thrive in the digital economy.
What we do
DotCooperation is the Registry of the .coop and .creditunion domain names and owns Domains.coop, a subsidiary domain name registrar. To support the global cooperative ecosystem, we manage a global network of our retail partners, who are .coop domain name ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)-accredited registrars. We serve the cooperative community by empowering them with tools and resources to participate and thrive in the digital economy. This is done by:
- Promoting the cooperative identity through the .coop and .creditunion namespaces, the Cooperative World Map, and Stories.coop
- Using the Global Cooperative Marque, building data management systems for the cooperative movement.
- Educating businesses on digital proficiency and cooperative branding.
This helps promote the cooperative business model as the most sustainable form of enterprise, elevating the cooperative community’s identity.
Our History
The idea to create a .coop domain, came during the DotCom boom in the late 1990’s. The ICANN, the non-profit body that regulates the Domain Name System, invited organizations to apply for the first round of new Top Level Domain (TLD) names.
NCBA-CLUSA put ideas in motion and teamed up with Poptel, a UK-based worker cooperative and internet service provider. Poptel handled the technical elements of the application, and NCBA through its subsidiary DotCooperation LLC, focused on getting support from the global cooperative community. The two organisations together secured the contract with the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to run the .coop internet namespace on their behalf. The ICA also joined in and offered critical support. The ICANN board approved .coop, as one of just seven new top-level domains at the time.
When the .coop domain was officially launched on January 30, 2002, there were 20 TLDs on the internet. Today, there are more than 1500 TLDs, and more on the way. Today over 4500 cooperative organizations from 95 countries have purchased about 9,000 .coop domain names, investing not just in their future, but also the global cooperative movement.