Our mission is to scale the next generation of cooperatively owned businesses.

The problem we are addressing is the wealth gap and racial wealth gap. Our current economy is based on both unequal initial wealth and unequal wealth accumulation.

 

Cooperative ownership is a game-changing intervention that unlocks pathways to community wealth-building opportunities – be it for farmers, gig drivers, artists or other types of workers–through their contributions beyond capital.

Cooperatively-owned businesses have the potential to unlock ownership and wealth generation for so many traditionally excluded individuals and communities. They help workers, farmers, and ordinary people to build economic stability and resilience, weather economic upheaval and generate wealth for themselves and their families. breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty. They offer an alternative to traditional, winner-takes-all capitalism.

Inspire: We bring more people to cooperative entrepreneurship.

Cooperatives have real and amazing stories to tell. Cooperatively-owned businesses are a viable alternative to traditional winner-takes-all capitalism but few people know what cooperatives are and few entrepreneurs even know this ownership model exists. Start.coop is breaking open the black box and shifting the narrative by:

  • Partnering with educational and economic development organizations to tell the stories of successful co-ops: startups and mature businesses alike.

  • Connecting the traditional entrepreneurship and economic development communities with the co-op community.

Design: We enable founders to design inclusive ownership for their community.

While thoughtful ownership design takes slightly more work than ceding everything to investors, we are working to ease the effort and expense needed to form a cooperative by building out an cooperative assessment tool; educational modules, and three templatized legal forms.

Build: We equip founders to build their cooperatively-owned businesses.

We equip you with the knowledge, tools, and resources you need to build a thriving cooperatively-owned business. From helping you explore and test your co-op idea to helping you launch and grow your business, there are lots of different ways we can support you on this journey.