.COOP Newsletter

2025 is the International Year of Cooperatives (#IYC2025) – and we are working full speed to fulfil our mission to connect cooperatives to the global movement. 

We’ll be educating cooperatives through our Affiliate Programme, promoting the cooperative identity on the Cooperative World Map, and celebrating the cooperative identity through stories.

To this end, we’ve revamped our main website – identity.coop. This is part of a wider rebranding exercise to show how we serve co-ops around the world. We are a resource for the whole movement, and we are making sure that people know it!

As part of the rebrand, we updated our strap line from ‘elevate your identity’ to ‘the online home of cooperatives’ – because we don’t just sell domain names and look after the COOP marque; we run global projects and partnership initiatives that support Principle 6 – cooperation among cooperatives. This is the linchpin of everything we do, and our task this #IYC2025 is to make it easier for cooperatives to work together.

Because cooperatives should lean into principle six as their superpower (an idea coined by Rob McClinton from Smallworld.coop!). Working together makes cooperatives more effective and gives them the edge and we’re aiming to make cooperatives much more effective at using this superpower.

* Cooperative World Map: This year we want to increase the amount and quality of data we have on the map. We’re increasing its functionality and applicability, and exploring ways to use the map to uncover the world’s hidden cooperative ecosystem; The International Cooperative Alliance estimates that 80% of the cooperative economy around the world is hidden. We want to find it! To find out more about becoming a data provider email tom@identity.coop.

* Stories.coop: In May, we began a one-month revamp for stories.coop – later in 2025 we’re going to be increasing functionality (including searches and categorisation), with content updated more regularly. Click here to submit your own story

* Affiliates Programme: We’ll be expanding our affiliate programme in different regions and with new partners as part of an education initiative that works as an exchange of value, providing webinars and other educational tools to use these assets and upskill for digital transformation. We’re helping cooperatives to operate more effectively with few resources.

To take part in any of these initiatives, get in touch with DotCoop or talk to your local, sectoral or regional membership body – or share our details with them. We may already be working with them! 

Throughout 2025, we will be highlighting all of this through our new quarterly newsletter and at the events we’re attending. This year you’ll find us at the Worker Co-op Weekend (UK, 17-19 May); the Festival of Cooperatives for the International Cooperative Alliance General Assembly and UK Co-op Congress (Manchester/Rochdale, 2-5 July), the Cooperative IMPACT Conference (Washington, USA, 8-9 October) and the Global Innovation Cooperative Summit (Portugal, 27-28 October), exchanging ideas and sharing more about our projects.

Finally, big thanks go to Zuraidah Hoffman, Jay-vee Pangan and Mark Luscombe for their help with developing the website. They are all cooperative experts and communicators, making for a truly cooperative team – and an example of principle 6 in action!

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