COOP Stories

www.thelocalcrowd.coop

History:

The Local Crowd (TLC) is a rewards-based crowdfunding platform that specializes in funding for small businesses and organizations, especially in rural areas. The platform offers a coordinated suite of success-generating services such as education, coaching, research, and networking.

TLC has been helping rural businesses and communities grown since 2014. The platform offers a coordinated suite of success-generating services such as education, coaching, research, and networking.

Services:

The power of TLC’s crowdfunding platform is made more powerful because it is local- activated in communities through community development groups.
Each TLC community gets its own, branded platform to support residents, businesses, and nonprofits. Local features such as matching grants, in kind contributions and sponsored rewards make TLC a one-of-a-kind platform focused on rural communities.

We are currently transitioning to a member- owned cooperative which will enable local communities to share in platform management and revenues.

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 TLC on social media:

www.incita.coop

History:
Incita is a workers’ cooperative co-founded by Laure Caillot, Amélie Côté and Mélissa de La Fontaine. Through the projects in which they collaborate, they wish to contribute to building a society respectful of nature and humans, in which the word challenge rhymes with solution. A place where their values are consistent with their actions.

The zero waste approach proposed by Incita is a positive solution to mobilize teams and communities through the concrete actions proposed.

Working with the Incita team:

Collaborate with a team of inspiring women who mobilize and raise awareness among your teams thanks to their expertise and their talents as communicators and popularisers. Learn essential levers to set in motion the socio-ecological transition.

We believe in a more just, ecological and inclusive society. We want our vision to be reflected in the organization in which we operate. As women engaged in the environment, we believe it is important that the structures in place facilitate horizontal management and engage stakeholders.

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 Incita on social media:

www.health.coop

History:
IHCO is an international organisation founded in 1996 that brings together health cooperatives. It is the health sectoral organisation of the International Cooperative Alliance.

It is made up of national apex organisations and cooperative businesses active in primary and specialised healthcare, management of hospitals, health insurance, socio-healthcare, health promotion, health literacy and pharmacy distribution.

IHCO activity is addressed to showcase cooperatives as an alternative to private and public healthcare, which combines economic goals with social values.

IHCO highlights the global scale of the cooperative business model in the health sector, raising awareness about its added value.

IHCO promotes a people-focused approach to meet the population’s health needs, encouraging high-quality healthcare services and ethical working conditions for professionals.

Services:
Cooperatives that provide services to groups that require care, such as home care for the elderly or care for sick people with mobility difficulties.

Cooperatives whose function is to improve the welfare and health of citizens and prevent the onset of diseases.

Achieving Universal Health Coverage is close related with the efficient implementation of healthcare. It means making good decisions on spending. But also, as healthcare is a labour-intensive industry, health professionals can make a big difference.

Improvements in healthcare provision can be reached if resources are pooled and health professionals enjoy better working conditions. Health cooperatives combine workers’ skills and financial resources to respond to market failures and provide services and products otherwise inaccessible.

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 IHCO on social media:

www.cinergies.coop

History:
Cinergies is a Greek social cooperative (5 co-funding active members) founded in mid-2016 whose purpose is to create and support alternative narratives to foster equitable and sustainable pathways. The cooperative specializes in transmedia documentary production and explores new mediums to cover events and share the important stories of our times integrating audio/video/photography to research and storytelling. As a team it gathers a diverse set of people, whose skills complement one another in order to document and recognize how people actively resist and shape transformational pathways.

Services:
It aims to concretely enable know-how and capacity-building services to support and further disseminate the achievements of social economy and sustainability initiatives, which often suffer from a lack of visibility. By giving voice to people that are disempowered by mainstream media, the cooperative provides an opportunity for people to become actors – agents– of change rather than merely spectators.

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 Cinergies on social media:

www.ad-coop.coop

In Morocco, the work required to obtain local products, such as argan oil, saffron,… is almost exclusively female. Traditionally, women had to ensure the education of children and take care of the household, while being dependent on the income of their spouses.

The development of the creation of women’s cooperatives in the last few years has enabled rural women to gain financial independence, perpetuating the traditions of the terroir, despite the precarious living conditions of the rural environment. The grouping of these women in cooperatives allows them to weave a social canvas that allows them to develop projects that benefit them on a daily basis and thus improve the quality of life of the entire community.

To promote these projects, and help these women come out of the shadows, we create with these cooperatives, thanks to you, and with you, a human relationship before being commercial: together, we study the needs of these populations, and we all work hand in hand, in order to fulfill them, while engaging them in order to allow them to keep their autonomy.

Welcome to this adventure…

AD COOP was created, in 2007, with a view to enhancing the value of products from Moroccan terroirs and promoting the know-how of disadvantaged producers and Moroccan cooperatives internationally.

The aim is to provide these cooperatives with assistance to enable them to meet the demands of foreign markets.

AD COOP’s priority is to create a link between international clients and Moroccan cooperatives, while privileging the autonomy of the latter, in order to create a dynamic of sustainable local development.

The natural products we offer represent the different Moroccan terroirs, specific to each region: Taliouine’s Saffron, Kelâa Meggouna’s Roses, Argan (Region of Essaouira, Taroudant, ..), …

AD COOP also has a mission of sourcing and consulting, for clients who are looking for specific raw materials in Morocco.

AD COOP guarantees the search for the best quality products, as well as the follow-up of all the stages, from the order to the shipment.

We will answer all your questions and requests, as our requirement to satisfy you is our priority.

Your collaboration, a guarantee of irreplaceable quality and know-how, will be welcome.

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 AD COOP on social media:

www.ocdc.coop

History: In 1962, the U.S Agency for International Development undertook a study of cooperative development. From that study came a committee of U.S. cooperative organizations that focused on implementing a 1961 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, which was designed “to encourage the development and use of cooperatives, credit unions and savings and loan associations” worldwide. A cooperative office was created to build on the pioneering work of the National Cooperative Business Association and the Global Office of the National Credit Union Administration.

Many of these early overseas efforts were carried out by U.S. cooperative employees who were asked to share their experiences overseas. Many of the cooperatives they created still exist, particularly in Latin America.

In 1982, this cooperative alliance was formally organized as a cooperative — the U.S. Overseas Cooperative Development Council.

Services: The U.S. Overseas Cooperative Development Council (OCDC) brings together U.S.-based organizations committed to building a more prosperous world through cooperatives. OCDC’s mission is to champion, advocate and promote effective and sustainable international cooperative development. Together, U.S. cooperative development organizations promote sustainability and self-reliance through local ownership. With projects in more than 70 counties, OCDC members have implemented the largest portfolio of cooperative development programs in the world. Members include ACDI VOCA, Equal Exchange, Frontier Cooperative, GENEX, Global Communities, HealthPartners, Land O’Lakes Venture37, NCBA CLUSA International, NRECA International and the World Council of Credit Unions. Our members’ international activities are powered by grants from the Cooperative Development Program of USAID.

The International Cooperative Research Group (ICRG) is a division of OCDC which carries out an international cooperative research agenda focused on issues related to the impact and effectiveness of cooperatives in developing countries and emerging markets. The ICRG designs, directly undertakes and partners of academic and practitioner partners to carry out rigorous research that helps to bridge the gap between theory and practice. It also fosters a learning community within OCDC and provides resources and information related to cooperative development to OCDC members and to the broader international cooperative and development community.

Vision: OCDC envisions a world where people in all countries have the opportunity to work together through cooperatives to create a better life for themselves and their communities.

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 OCDC on social media:

www.weareopen.coop

We’re a collective of independent thinkers and makers helping charities, ethical companies, government departments and educational institutions with sensemaking and digital transformation.

We are a cooperative. We are thinkers and writers, philosophers and makers. We’re technologists, educators, philanthropists and community-minded folks. We are open and engaged. Get to know us, we’re looking forward to it!

Why us? Because whatever your project, our interest, knowledge and networks can help you change the world. We can help you do big things.

When we start a new project, we get to know our clients using a variety of discovery techniques. Depending on the scale of the project or its complexity we might recommend a Thinkathon in which we seek to map the complexity of your project, organisation and context.

We’ll use open approaches to provide a different, connected approach to the problems your organisation is trying to solve. We’ll design and deliver both the strategy and the tactics by working hand-in-hand with you and your colleagues. We don’t work ‘for’ you, we work with you.

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 We Are Open on social media:

www.jazz.coop

Jazz.Coop provides opportunities for people to listen to, learn and play jazz and related music.

Primarily we do this at The Globe, our venue in Newcastle upon Tyne. The Globe hosts over 200 live events a year including 60 jazz gigs. Most jazz gigs feature local musicians and we host national or international jazz artists on tour at least once a month.

We run a full programme of workshops and courses for adult musicians. Most of them are about jazz and there are some folk courses and some non-genre-specific courses.

We host several regular jam sessions (jazz and folk) for musicians of different abilities. Bands can also hire rooms at The Globe for rehearsals. The Globe is a place where musicians can share and develop their skills in a supportive environment.

Jazz.Coop is owned and democratically controlled by its members.

Any person or organisation that agrees with our objectives may apply to buy shares and become a member.

We’ve got over 230 members, who elect a board of directors to manage the business. The directors are volunteers and do not get paid a salary. There are also several working groups of volunteers set up to help with specific tasks such as programming, promotion, hospitality, maintenance and finance. We employ some staff to take care of the day-to-day running of The Globe.

Jazz + Coop = Innovation

In our brief history we have always sought to try and develop new ways of doing things, including:
• Setting up a cooperative to support jazz
• Buying a pub to create a coop music venue
• Running women-only jazz workshops
• Enabling musicians to perform and earn during lockdown
• Pioneering the hybrid livestream/in-venue future of live performance

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 Jazz.coop on social media:

www.nolafood.coop

New Orleans Food Co-op provides access to healthy food at a fair price; Is a center of community activity; Promotes local and regional food production; Keeps capital and jobs in our community; Practices environmental responsibility and sustainability; Reflects our unique and diverse community.

In the late Summer of 2002 a few people began meeting to talk about opening a co-op grocery store in New Orleans. A handful of us met regularly in cafes to share ideas, and also to discuss research we were doing about how to start a co-op. We found a lot of useful information on the internet and from other co-ops around the country. We quickly decided to hold a general meeting and advertise this by posting flyers all over New Orleans.

The first meeting was held in November, 2002. There were 22 people present at that meeting. All the people at the meeting shared the common goal of opening a cooperative grocery store in New Orleans. There were many reasons the people in attendance wanted a food co-op. These reasons included affordable groceries, support of local and regional producers, supporting our local economy, access to organic and healthy foods, and opening a grocery that was environmentally responsible. It was also very important to these people that this store was cooperatively owned, and that ownership was open to everyone

Today, in our 6th year of operation, we’ve grown from that first meeting of 22 people to a vital membership of over 4,000 people.  We generate over 2.5 million dollars a year in sales, a lot of those sales dollars go directly to local vendors and farmers.  We employ nearly 20 people from the local community and look forward to creating more jobs as we grow.  We are proud of our grassroots beginnings and look forward to many years of serving our ownership and the people of New Orleans.

Our ENDS Statements:

The New Orleans Food Co-op exists so that we have a healthy and thriving community. Because of all we do:

• Our community, regardless of income has access to healthy food.
• Regional farmers and producers are linked in a relationship with consumers.
• The diversity of our community is represented.
• Economically and environmentally sustainable practices are supported.
• Our community understands the cooperative model and experiences its economic and social value.
• Community members, staff, and owners have a sense of pride, belonging, and fellowship in their cooperative.
• Our community is knowledgeable about healthy eating and how their food is produced.

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 New Orleans Food Co-op on social media:

www.natcco.coop

The National Confederation of Cooperatives (NATCCO Network) began as the National Association of Training Centers for Cooperatives (NATCCO), formed by cooperators who believed that the task of co-op development lay primarily in the hands of the private sector. These leaders believed in self-help and in the idea that through co-operation, people can create opportunities for themselves to improve their socio-economic well-being.

Today, NATCCO is the biggest federation of co-ops in the Philippines, in terms of geographical reach, membership, financial capacity and array of services. It now reaches around 5.1 million individual members coming from 812 co-ops and NGOs. The 5.1 million individual members are served through 1,975 offices located in 77 provinces and 129 cities all over the country.  They are also served by more than 70 ATM branches of the Network.  The 812 cooperatives have combined assets of more than P150 Billion.

The NATCCO Network, in endeavoring to ensure the sustainability/viability of co-ops, invests heavily in Information Technology software, hardware, and services that co-ops can acquire and use at the most reasonable cost.  The key idea was to automate and standardize co-op operations.  eKoopBanker is NATCCO’s premiere financial software designed for co-ops, launched in 2005 and used by more than 250 co-ops today.

NATCCO’s latest offering is the KAYA Payment Platform, in partnership with the Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Unions and the Philippine Federation of Credit Cooperatives (PFCCO), where co-op members can transact using their smart phones anytime-anywhere, through ATMs, and over-the-counter.

The NATCCO still remains true to its commitment that education is the key to co-op development and offers Training & Consultancy in every area of co-op operations.  

The core service of the NATCCO Network has been financial intermediation since 2002, when the Central Fund was re-launched.  Initial Deposits from co-ops amounted to P61.6 Million.  In 2004, Deposits reached P225.7 Million.  As of end-2018, Deposits stood at P2.26 Billion.

The Stabilization Fund System was launched in 2008.  Patterned after the Korean, Canadian and German models, the system provides inspection, supervision, diagnosis and financial assistance to prevent co-op insolvency.

The NATCCO Network is committed to help co-ops in achieving the ICA’s 2020 Vision as well as the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

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 NATCCO Network on social media: