Tom Ivey – DotCooperation

Up and Go

April 12, 2021 by Tom Ivey

www.upandgo.coop

Up & Go is cooperatively owned by professional home cleaners. We carefully select our partners through an extensive application process, trainings, and trial cleanings. Our rigorous quality standards and extensive training make us uniquely equipped to bring thorough, restorative cleanings to your home. Our focus on quality goes all the way down to the non-toxic products and sustainable methods we use, leaving your home with a healthy sparkle, every time.

A better clean, fair and square.Up & Go lets you easily book professional home cleaning services from businesses with fair work practices.Every home cleaning professional on Up & Go is a co-owner of their own business known as a worker cooperative. We are committed to:

Service Quality and Accountability. Because the service professionals on Up & Go are also business owners, they are committed to building customer loyalty through excellent service. They have developed ongoing training and rigorous service quality standards that are leading industry best practice. If you ever do have a problem, call or email Up & Go and a human will respond within one business day.

Living wage, safe, and dignified work. As a consumer, you can be sure you are supporting fair work practices because these businesses are 100% worker-owned. Business decisions are made by the service professionals themselves (1 worker = 1 vote!), who joined a worker cooperative in order to secure fair schedules and wages.

Transparency. On Up & Go, people get paid fairly for the work they do. 95% of your service fee goes straight to the worker-owned business. The other 5% is for Up & Go to book the job.

Community. Booking on Up & Go builds a stronger community around you. These cooperative businesses are owned by everyday people building better lives and a just local economy. Up & Go connects you with them.

About Cooperatives and .coop
The global Cooperative community has more than 1 billion members, representing 12% of the world’s employed population. All Cooperatives verify their identity when selecting a .coop web address. Your unique business identity is recognized online with a .coop domain name – your digital brand – a brand known for its economic advantages to its community, consumers, and members.

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit upandgo.coop on social media:

Cooperative Network

March 31, 2021March 31, 2021 by Tom Ivey

www.cooperativenetwork.coop

Cooperative Network has a proud history of bringing together and strengthening the voice of cooperative businesses.

The Minnesota Association of Cooperatives was founded in 1945 when cooperatives were under intense scrutiny, and the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives was formed in 1969 by two politically divergent organizations—the Wisconsin Association of Cooperatives, which served primarily consumer co-ops, and the Wisconsin Council of Agricultural Cooperatives.

The Minnesota association entered into a management agreement with its Wisconsin counterpart in 1998. The two organizations became one in 2004 after members voted in favor of a formal unification. The association was renamed Cooperative Network in 2009.

The trusted voice for cooperatives, Cooperative Network is committed to protecting and promoting cooperative businesses and their shared cooperative principles.

We know we are stronger together. Our ultimate goal is to optimize the value we provide to our member cooperatives in Minnesota and Wisconsin. We are committed to meeting the needs of our members by providing world-class legislative and regulatory advocacy, a wide range of opportunities for learning and development and creative leadership in public awareness.

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit Cooperative Network on social media:

Cooperative Business New Zealand

March 31, 2021 by Tom Ivey

www.nz.coop

Cooperative Business New Zealand is the industry body that unites and represents New Zealand’s diverse range of member-owned businesses.

We independently represent co-operatives, mutual and societies sitting across multiple sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, insurance, banking, financial services, utilities, education, health, wholesale and retail.

As the peak body, our aim is to increase awareness of the important contribution these organisations make to New Zealand’s economy and society. New Zealand is one of the most co-operative economies in the world with co-operatives generating around 16% of GDP and employing more than 50,000 New Zealanders.

By sharing information and bringing together members, Cooperative Business New Zealand provides a platform for members to collaborate, have a stronger collective voice and to educate the broader community on the value of the business model.

Seven internationally agreed principles (Rochdale Principles) guide co-operatives, mutuals and societies. These emphasise democracy and shared equity, while providing economic and social returns to members and their communities:

Voluntary and open membership
Democratic control
Member economic participation
Autonomy and independence
Education, training and information
Cooperation among co-operatives
Concern for community.

Read our Value Proposition here.

As a member of the International Co-operative Alliance, we have access to a large pool of co-operative practitioners, specialists and researchers from the Asia-Pacific region and around the world.

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit nz.coop on social media:

Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency

March 19, 2021 by Tom Ivey

www.gcda.coop

GCDA supporting communities to be healthy and sustainable since 1982.

We aim to:

To develop enterprises, which meet economic and social needs and are co-operatively managed. Click here to see the GCDA Business Plan 2014-2016
To deliver training programmes and courses, which build the knowledge and skills of the community and partners we work with across the areas core to our aims; enterprise, health and the environment.
To create community hubs – based on cafes, farms, allotments, marketplaces and training centres
To promote healthy lifestyles to the whole population and particularly those experiencing health inequalities, so their physical and mental well-being is improved.

Sustainability and Community Development

We believe in minimising our impact on the environment, whilst maximising the quality of our programmes and maintaining a financially viable business. To deliver this we have policies, procedures and programmes that ensure we embed this within all of our GCDA work.

Here at GCDA we are promoting the Living Wage and encourage other employers to implement this great benefit and service to their staff. We believe that work should be the surest way out of poverty, and by getting paid the Living Wage, it will enrich society and promote fairness. Our Good Food in Greenwich charter recognises and promotes this fairness in local businesses, and encourages businesses and organisations who pledge to consider this and how to work towards it.

We have a comprehensive operational system to reduce CO2 impact and maximise the recycling and use of waste including food. In 2011 we were awarded the Carbon Smart Blue Award in recognition of the work we do as an organisation in this area.

We employ a comprehensive, community needs, assessment approach to all our work which allows us to fully understand the audience we are working with, understand their views and incorporate them into our services; what they want, what their needs are, what they would like to see in place and how much they want to spend.

Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency Limited, Registered Society: RS007029, HMRC Charity number: EW35985, VAT number 130522365

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit gcda on social media:

Agromovil

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021 by Tom Ivey

www.agromovil.coop

The Farmers’ Platform. Putting Power in the hands of Producers, Co-ops & Co-op Associations.

Agromovil is a mobile supply chain platform that helps farmers connect with buyers to see new opportunities, sell direct, and find optimized transport – getting products to market more efficiently and profitably around the world.

A Better Model for Sellers, Buyers and Transporters

• Matching buyers and sellers
• Optimizing transport + payments
• Making money as the network grows
• Providing licensed data products and charging a percent of each sale on the platform

Competitive Advantages

Unlike competitors, Agromovil functions as an arranger, NOT an intermediary. The platform requires almost no infrastructure on the ground, making it easy to scale. The platform is growing quickly via relationships with banks, government agencies, and mobile providers.

Success in their Pilot Year – in just 6 months

• 1000 farms, 1300 total users on the platform, 150+ communities
• 500 tons of goods placed for sale, 80+ products
• Accessible to anyone – users aged 17-71
• Stickiness: 45% of all farmers who have downloaded Agromovil have posted,
145 more than 3x, at any given time more than 1/3 of farmers had an active post
• Expanding across Colombia, starting JV with USDA in Africa and in the US

Founded by Andrew Mack, Washington, D.C. entrepreneur and former World Bank executive, the Agromovil team includes globally-recognized entrepreneurs, and financial and technology experts including CTO Jens Francis, Lead Advisor Constanza Nieto, and AgTech startup veteran Rodrigo Iafelice.

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit agromovil.coop on social media:

The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC)

February 15, 2021 by Tom Ivey

www.usworker.coop

The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) is the national grassroots membership organization for worker cooperatives. Our mission is to build a thriving cooperative movement of stable, empowering jobs through worker-ownership. We advance worker-owned, -managed, and -governed workplaces through cooperative education, advocacy and development.

Our Federation includes more than 300 business and organizational members representing 10,000 workers across the country. We organize through local cooperative networks while building power with national and international partners to advance an agenda for economic justice rooted in community-based, shared ownership.

The USFWC was founded in 2004 when a core of worker co-op members came together with co-op developers, scholars, community organizers, and supporters from the broader co-op sector to strengthen worker co-ops through a national, sector-specific organization. Building on growing momentum, this founding event brought together worker co-op practitioners from the existing Western Worker Co-op Conference and the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy, as well as key players in Midwest and Southern states, to galvanize and support rising interest in the worker co-op business model. We organized an inaugural conference in Minneapolis to launch the Federation, deliberating over a long weekend to articulate a shared vision, identity, and organizational structure for this new democratically-run national organization.

From its very inception, the USFWC has centered the leadership of workers from democratic workplaces and of historically marginalized communities; especially leadership of color and leaders from low-income and immigrant communities. To this day, our membership is comprised of worker co-ops, democratic workplaces (consumer cooperatives, non-profits, and ESOPs with democratic staff management), cooperative developers, and various organizations and individuals that support worker cooperatives. These Federation members range from 2 to 2,000 workers and span dozens of industries with varying management and governance structures.

As a membership and advocacy organization, we connect worker cooperative members to benefits, to each other and to the larger cooperative and economic justice movements. We amplify our members’ voices to advocate for worker cooperatives at the local, state and national level. We provide consulting and technical assistance to cooperatives old and new. And through the education, training and organizing work of our partner organization, the Democracy at Work Institute, we are committed to ensuring cooperative business ownership reaches those who need it the most.

Our Federation is led by a 100% member-elected Board of Directors, member councils, and a small but mighty staff with offices in Oakland, CA and Philadelphia, PA. Annual membership dues are our primary funding source, supplemented by small grants, consulting and program contracts, and individual contributions.

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit usworker.coop on social media:

Aroundtheworld.coop

January 22, 2021January 21, 2021 by Tom Ivey

www.aroundtheworld.coop

Aroundtheworld.coop (ATW) aims to enhance and share with the wider society best practices from the social and solidarity economy, both from Italy and around the world, contributing to raise awareness that alternatives to the mainstream is possible.

For this the ATW team aims to be a means for the internationalization of innovative knowledge and know-how, inspiring communities and individuals about collective solutions to local and global issues.

The ATW work is built on professional excellence and reliability. They aim to foster decent work while promoting democratic culture and sustainable human development, with the ambition to contribute to creating a world where social and economic cohesion and solidarity are the rule, not the exception.

Aroundtheworld.coop is committed to strengthen the ability of cooperatives, collectives, and social and solidarity economy organizations in general, to communicate their story of positive impact.

For this, aroundtheworld.coop operates by:

· transforming socio-economic research into participatory high-quality videos;

· carrying out research projects by adopting qualitative and quantitative methods;

· developing capacities of individuals and their organizations to effectively communicate their story and identity both internally and externally, through qualitative methods and digitalization;

· providing training and capacity development to universities and schools, development practitioners, and cooperators, among others.

The Aroundtheworld.coop started as a project from the idea of Andrea Mancori and Sara Vicari, a couple who traveled the world to document innovative cooperatives. The around the world trip was carried out in 2019, in partnership with the International Co-operative Alliance and in particular with the Coops4Dev programme. In total, they produced 13 videos that tell stories of cooperatives from all the continents

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit Aroundtheworld.coop on social media:

Federación de Cooperativas Federadas Ltda.

January 12, 2021January 12, 2021 by Tom Ivey

www.fecofe.coop

FECOFE IS A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE AGRI-FOOD COOPERATIVES.

We are a cooperative of cooperatives. We represent traditional agricultural livestock cooperatives and processed food cooperatives. Today we have 38 associated cooperatives in 8 provinces, and many others in the process of association, covering a wide spectrum of socio-economic and productive realities.

Our reason for being is cooperatives and associated small and medium producers, committed to inter-cooperation practices aimed at adding value at origin and contextualized in rural territorial development processes with industrialization.

We carry out actions to finance working capital and productive investment, for commercialization, equipment, infrastructure and value-added projects.

We commercially link food producing cooperatives through marketing channels that minimize intermediation, bringing cooperative products closer to consumers. We prioritize the progress of small and medium producers, as well as consumers’ access to healthy food at fair prices.

We are a second grade cooperative, founded on September 29, 2006 within the framework of the 94th Congress of the Argentine Agrarian Federation.

From the beginning, we proposed ourselves as an instrument for the integral development of cooperatives and their producers, seeking a balance between economic, productive and technological aspects, with social, union, cultural and environmental aspects.

At the Federación de Cooperativas Federadas Ltda., We conceive the participation of the members as an irreducible condition in decision-making, consistent with the mandate of democratic, autonomous and plural management.

With integration and competitiveness strategies, we direct our actions to the development of sustainable businesses, without the member cooperatives losing their independence.

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit Fecofe on social media:

Dublin Food Cooperative

January 7, 2021January 7, 2021 by Tom Ivey

www.dublinfood.coop

The Dublin Food Cooperative’s founding members met through the many anti-war and anti-nuclear demonstrations in the late 70s and early 80s.

Many had adopted a vegetarian lifestyle and were struggling to find access to food to that met their health, ecological and ethical standards.

They recognised that they could meet their common needs for setting up a bulk-buying co-operative, in which each family would pre-order and pre-pay, and participate in receiving and sub-dividing a monthly order from suppliers.

The Dublin Food Co-op slowly developed as a buying club, with membership rising each year and the co-ordinating group organising collections from different venues.

In 2007, the Co-op moved to new leased warehouse premises in Newmarket, Dublin 8 which allowed the Co-op over time to develop a 5 day a week Co-op Shop, a Co-op Cafe and its own market and event space.

The Co-op would host a range of popular markets in its space including the Dublin Flea Market during its time at Newmarket, as well as a range of organic farmers and other ethical producers.

Over time the Co-op began to focus on directly sourcing fruit and vegetables on behalf of its members, establishing strong relationships with a number of Irish organic producers.

The Co-op moved into its new premises in 2018 with the support of our members, Donore Credit Union and Community Finance Ireland. The Co-op was welcomed warmly by the local community, and the existing Co-op community found itself in good company. The Co-op has gone on to be a fixture of the Kilmainham/Inchicore community, with membership increasingly compromised of local residents while retaining many loyal members from Newmarket, Pearse Street and before.

After many years of focusing on navigating the challenges of operating at Newmarket, moving premises and getting established in a new shop, the Co-op is increasingly focused on its broader social, economic and environmental purposes and how it can best empower its membership to take collection action.

This has culminated in the latest innovation, the Community Development Programme, which provides training and capacity building to members and the wider community. The future of the Co-op is an exciting one, with lots of opportunities ahead for growing the services that we provide to our members, and increasing our social and environmental impact.

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit Dublin Food Cooperative on social media:

Food Co-op Initiative

December 21, 2020 by Tom Ivey

www.fci.coop

Strengthening Communities through Cooperation
Food Co-op Initiative paves the way for New Food Co-op Excellence, leading to better fed, healthier communities with local control and connections.

FCI aims to increase the number, success and sustainability of new food cooperatives delivering access to healthy food in diverse communities across this country. It provides information, training and technical assistance, as well as seed capital, and engages in research to blaze, maintain and improve the development path for new food coops.

History

Food Co-op Initiative began as a pilot project designed to test the theory that new food retail co-ops could open more quickly and successfully if they had appropriate guidance. Launched by a group of visionary co-op supporters in 2005, Food Co-op 500 started out by offering development grants and peer support to groups starting new food co-ops in diverse settings. In addition to providing guidance and funding, the organization wanted to see first-hand what impact different organizing practices and community types had on successful startup efforts. Patterns and trends started to emerge and Food Co-op 500 was able to offer more effective guidance based on our experience working with these early startups.

They adopted their current logo in 2015 to represent the process of opening a new retail food co-op. The first circle is for the organizing stage, as the conversation starts at the smaller “kitchen table” and grows to a larger community-driven initiative. The hard work of feasibility and planning move the startup forward in the second circle. The third circle is for the implementation stage of building out the store and opening its doors.

If you would like your cooperative featured, click on this link to submit your story.

Visit Food Co-op Initiative on social media: