Resource Library

Cities are built for sharing. It’s what makes cities engines of prosperity, in­novation, and cultural exchange. Well connected cities have the unique capacity to raise per capita production and innovation while using dra­matically less energy. For this reason, cities may be our best hope for achieving widespread prosperity within the earth’s natural limits. We believe that fostering the growth of the sharing economy is the single most important thing that city governments can do to boost prosperity and resilience in times of economic crisis and climate change.

The Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (FPWA) presents this report, Worker Cooperatives for New York City: A Vision for Addressing Income Inequality, as an examination of one solution for the challenges facing New York’s workers: worker cooperative businesses. Indeed, the report’s key finding is that worker cooperatives can easily fit into a broad campaign to cope with poverty, long-term joblessness, the growing isolation of low-wage workers and unprecedented levels of income inequality.

This is an overview of the University of Winnipeg's anchor-led model for community economic development. It positions the Winnipeg model as a robust example of an anchor institution strategy, and includes a broad survey of US worker cooperative development and movement-building efforts of the last 30 years.

This presentation goes over the steps of the cooperative transition process and outlines benefits, challegnes, and key questions of a business transition.

Link: here

Before a cooperative transition process can get started, the selling owner needs to make some decisions about how to structure the process, specifically she needs to clearly define who has decision-making power in the process: herself, the transition committee, the likely coop members, and the whole group. This chart outlines who decides what.  

Gant chart outlining the phases a business goes through during transition to a cooperative. 

The absence of supervisors, who are charged with immediately identifying and addressing problem performance, makes the periodic occurrence of worker evaluations critical in a collective. This 1-page document outlines the importance of evaluations and provides tips on performing evaluations effectively. 

Tips for effective meetings and consensus decision-making. Thanks to USFWC member, South Mountain Company, for this resource. 

Sample employee handbook for a worker cooperative. Provided in a word document for easy modification for your own cooperative.

Handbook for new members to aid in understanding how the cooperative, Casa Nueva, is structured and run, as well as individual member's role within the cooperative.