On Sat 6/24, you can meet our co-ops & connect with people interested in the cooperative movement
There will be music & free food
On Saturday June 24 from 4-6 pm, come celebrate with us!
You’ll meet our co-op teams, learn about their products, and connect with other people interested in the cooperative movement!
There will be locally grown food from Hopes Fulfilled Farm 2 Table and Our Harvest, plus popsicles from Honey Child Artisan Pops.
The festival is at Our Harvest's beautiful urban farm in College Hill, located at 969 W. North Bend Road Cincinnati, OH 45224. Please bring your own blanket or chair.
The food (and popsicles!) will be free.
2022 Annual Report Released
We've released our 2022 annual report, Setting the Stage for Scale.
The report details what we've learned at this point in our organizational development and key strategies going forward.
It also details our accomplishments from this past year, including helping a childcare center and apparel company become worker owned.
Check out the report.
Join Our 2023 Union Co-op Symposium
From Dream to Action: The Transformative Power of Co-ops, Labor, and Community
We're 4 months away from our Union Co-op Symposium, From Dream to Action: The Transformative Power of Co-ops, Labor, and Community, which we are co-hosting with 1worker1vote. The Symposium will take place in-person on Oct 20 and Oct 21 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Symposium focuses on combining the best of the co-op and union movements to forge a new economy rooted in connection. The event will be dynamic and inspiring, waking us up to the possibilities of being networked in meaningful ways. Activities will highlight equity, labor, community wealth-building, and care for the earth and ourselves.
Staff and Supporters Present to City Council About Mondragon Tour
On 5/31, Co-op Cincy and supporters presented to the City Council's Healthy Neighborhoods Committee about our tour of the Mondragon cooperative association, one of the largest networks of cooperatives in the world.
We toured Mondragon in Spain at the end of April with a delegation that included civic, business, philanthropic, and faith leaders from Greater Cincinnati and Dayton, as well as worker-owners from our own network of worker cooperatives.
Our goal? Help our region learn from a proven model for equitable economic growth.
During our 5/31 presentation, we discussed how the city can support and fund the growth of worker-owned businesses in Cincinnati.
A big thanks to everyone who spoke!
You can learn more about our trip on our Learning from Mondragon blog post.
Our tour has been covered in a variety of media outlets, from Soapbox to the Cincinnati Business Courier!
Power in Numbers Applications Due Soon
Beginning in the fall, we’re offering another Power in Numbers, our co-op business boot camp for Black-led teams!
The free, 14-week course helps Black-led teams of entrepreneurs work through the process of launching a cooperative business and build wealth for the long term.
As a co-op business incubator, we support participants in the process and offer ongoing technical assistance after they launch their co-op business.
Applications are due by June 31 – apply today! Know someone who might be interested? Share our info!
Victoria Russell, Cooperative Owner, Joins Team
We’re excited to welcome Victoria Russell to our team as our new Office & Project Manager!
Victoria Russell is an entrepreneur and mortgage analyst with over 20 years of experience, most of which is in the mortgage industry. Her diverse professional background has equipped her with valuable skills in organization, communication, attention to detail, and problem-solving. She is a founder and worker-owner of A Touch of TLC Home Health Care.
Read more about her at coopcincy.org/staff-and-board
Events on Cooperative Ownership
Ellen Vera, our Co-Director, and Mary Wilder, worker-owner of Shine Nurture Center, participated in a recent webinar, "Preserving Your Legacy: How to Sell Your Business to Your Employees," about how owners can sell their businesses to their employees, preserving their legacy and positively impacting the community. You can watch the webinar online!
Mary also joined the webinar “Remaking the Economy: Caring for the Care Economy" organized by Nonprofit Quarterly. Here's one of Mary's quotes from the webinar: “Childcare workers are not in the same conversation [with] regular teachers…. We’re an afterthought, so we have to fight harder for funding than normal schools—and there is funding out there, but you just have to dig for it and find it. But those are the things that we are seeing in childcare that workers need: they need higher wages, they need healthcare, they need more benefits." Watch the webinar online!
And Flequer Vera of Sustainergy spoke at an international webinar on June 7 organized by CICOPA Americas (the International Organisation of Industrial and Service Cooperatives) called "Contribution From Worker Cooperatives on Environmental Sustainability, Territorial Development, and Decent Work."
Movement
ICYMI, last month the U.N. General Assembly adopted its first resolution on the social and solidarity economy and spotlighted the role of cooperatives!
