All Things Co-op

In this episode, Kevin, Cinar and Larry talk with two key figures at the Madison Cooperative Development Coalition (MCDC). Charity Schmidt is a cooperative development specialist at the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives. Ruth Rohlich is a Business Development Specialist for the City of Madison, working in the Economic Development division. Among their many topics, they discuss how the city of Madison is approaching this cooperative initiative, the importance of community ecosystems, how entrenched legislation creates unforeseen barriers to cooperative ownership that must be changed, financing, and more.

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin and Larry speak with Kate Washington, the CEO of OWN Rochester, a non-profit cooperative business development corporation whose mission is to create jobs and build wealth in low-income communities by developing, promoting, and supporting a diverse portfolio of employee-owned businesses in Rochester, New York.

Kate Washington shares the backstory of how OWN Rochester started and its first projects; thoughts on incubating versus converting cooperatives; efforts to make government support of co-ops more mainstream and the challenges of lagging bureaucracy; ESOPs vs worker cooperatives, tailoring the model for the specific need; the challenges and opportunities for co-op conversion in the time of Covid-19; efforts of the Mayor of Rochester.

Learn more about OWN Rochester on their website: https://www.ownrochester.coop/

In this interview we talk with Jamila Medley, the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA), about her work catalyzing the growth and popularity of worker co-ops particularly within communities of color in Philadelphia, how worker co-ops represent a viable alternative to a capitalist system in decline, and more.

Learn more about PACA: https://philadelphia.coop/

How do we create a more just, sustainable world? Zen Trenholm, Program Manager with the Democracy at Work Institute, joins All Things Co-op to talk about cooperatives as an economic solution that goes beyond band-aid solutions. In this episode we discuss various co-op ecosystem development models across cities in the US.

Zen Trenholm is a Program Manager with the Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI) building capacity, partnerships, and resources to scale democratic employee ownership across the country. He currently leads the Shared Equity in Economic Development Fellowship program (SEED) where he convenes and equips city and community leaders with tools and support to build equitable economies using employee ownership. Prior to DAWI he was an organizer for fossil fuel divestment, a director at the California Student Sustainability Coalition, and a co-founder of the Student Environmental Resource Center at UC Berkeley.

The Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI) is not connected to us, Democracy at Work (d@w). It was created by the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives to ensure that worker cooperative development in economically and socially marginalized is supported, effective and strategically directed.

Rob Brown is the Director of CDI’s Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) program. BOS promotes employee ownership and works with business owners and their employees to facilitate conversions. He was part of the advisory group that successfully converted three retail businesses into the Island Employee Cooperative, which is now the largest worker co-op in Maine and the second largest in New England. Rob participates in several national networks promoting the strategy of employee ownership conversion and best practices in the field, including as a 2015 DAWI Cooperative Developer Fellow and as a member of the Workers to Owners Collaborative. Rob joined CDI in 2012 as the Maine Housing Program Manager in CDI’s NEROC program, working to convert investor-owned parks into resident-owned cooperatives. He has a diverse background in community organizing, communications, non-profit and for-profit business development, and public policy development and advocacy. Rob studied economics and public policy at the University of Maine and College of the Atlantic, specializing in rural and community economic development, and has completed the Maine Association of Nonprofits’ Executive Leadership Institute.

Matt Cropp is the Co-Executive director of the Vermont Employee Ownership Center and has a wealth of knowledge about a number of issues that pertain to co-ops. Matt mainly works on conversions, but has had experiences of all types organizing different worker cooperatives and ESOPs. We discuss the work that the VEOC does, including its upcoming conference. This conversation spanned many topics and we can't wait to have Matt back on to talk more about his work.

In this first episode of Season 3, Cinar and Kevin talk to Kevin McPhillips from the Pennsylvania Center for Employee Ownership (PACEO). They discuss educating people about worker co-ops, the initiatives that Kevin has helped foster with the city, and the overall work and goals of the PACEO.

The Rochdale principles should really be seen as a set, they all intertwine and relate to one another creating a web of interlaced necessities. What would an economy look like that would embody these principles in all businesses?       

This week Kevin, Larry and Cinar discuss the Rochdale Principles as a whole, after their deep dive into each separate principle.     

The Rochdale Principles were first written in 1844 and were adopted by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) in 1937.

What really sets co-ops apart from traditional businesses is that instead of the bottom line, they have a wider vision. But can this go too far?

This week Kevin, Larry and Cinar discuss the seventh of the Rochdale Principles: Concern for community, which states, "Co-operatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies approved by their members."

The Rochdale Principles were first written in 1844 and were adopted by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) in 1937.

One of the most common refrains in the cooperative community is the need for a cooperative ecosystem. But how do we set this up? Who works who whom, and how do coops work together and be independent?

This week Kevin, Larry and Cinar discuss the sixth of the Rochdale Principles: Cooperation Among Cooperatives, which states, "Co-operatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the co-operative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures."

The Rochdale Principles were first written in 1844 and were adopted by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) in 1937.