Co-op Innovation Awards

Northside Residents Redevelopment Council

Northside Residents Redevelopment Council in Minneapolis focuses on cultivating safe, supportive, and economically vibrant neighborhoods where families can thrive. They are creating a state-certified Community Safety Specialist apprenticeship program, formalizing and professionalizing a community-led patrol program that has existed in North Minneapolis for decades.

North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO)

North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) based in Chicago is an alliance of group-equity housing cooperatives helping to build a world where every community benefits from resident-controlled housing. They are establishing a group-equity cooperative for housing primarily for Cambodian refugees and their families in Stockton, California. This pilot works with tenants’ unions and residents of apartment buildings facing displacement and gentrification to provide training, and give them the tools to buy the properties and own them through the group-equity model.

The Industrial Commons

The Industrial Commons in Morganton, NC founds and scales employee-owned social enterprises and industrial cooperatives to help erase the inequities of generational poverty. Their project, Seat at the Table, takes the need for skilled labor and turns it into a multi-layered business that trains workers to become upholsterers, one of the highest paid jobs in furniture. Their long-term vision is to create a direct-to-consumer furniture manufacturing co-op whose member-owners will come from the training program.

Pilsen Housing Cooperative (PIHCO)

Pilsen Housing Cooperative (PIHCO) – started by artists and families in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood – helps owner families secure affordable homes, earn equity and build wealth, build leadership skills, increase democratic participation in civic life, and take a pragmatic stand against displacement. To support its expansion, PIHCO is acquiring a third property, a “generator building” that will help make the co-op’s ongoing growth sustainable. By buying the building via donations rather than debt, PIHCO can then use the building to help fund subsequent acquisitions and supplement capital improvements across its portfolio.

Beloved Community Incubator

Beloved Community Incubator is a nonprofit co-op incubator that fosters living wage work with communities in Washington, D.C. They support the Vendors United Food Cooperative, a group of street food vendors in Washington, D.C., many of whom have been locked out of the mainstream economy. The vendors are starting an online, cooperatively-owned marketplace to sell their food.

Co-op Cincy

Co-op Cincy is an organization that fosters cooperative development in Greater Cincinnati. They are piloting a three-month co-op development course with racial justice education and co-op history. Created in response to the racially exacerbated effects of the health and economic crisis, this BIPOC-focused co-op development course starts with three Black-led cohorts, providing ongoing technical assistance and mini start-up grants, enabling 6-8 Black co-op entrepreneur teams to launch their worker-owned businesses successfully and provide feedback to create a “train-the-trainer” course.

Co-op Dayton

Co-op Dayton is an organization that fosters cooperative development in Dayton, Ohio. They are supporting Unified Power, a real estate investment co-op that organizes the residents of West Dayton to own and control land and development in their neighborhoods; create quality, affordable rental and homeownership opportunities; and revitalize disinvested commercial and residential streets.

Collective Remake

Collective Remake in Los Angeles is an organization that supports the creation of worker-owned businesses and other kinds of cooperatives for people who have been incarcerated and/or excluded from the mainstream economy. Collective Remake is operating several programs that were created during the economic and health crisis that were a result of the COVID pandemic: a Train the Trainers Program that will engage trainers with lived experience to facilitate participatory cooperative workshops; a Co-op Development Program to support start-up cooperatives; and a Wellness Hub that will focus on barriers to reentry and mental health services.

Custom Collaborative

Custom Collaborative in New York City is an organization that empowers Black and brown, low-income, and immigrant women who have been excluded from business and the sustainability movement with the tools and platform to lead in the creation of new solutions for the fashion industry and our planet. Custom Collaborative launched Fashion That Works Production (FTWP), a worker cooperative that centers marginalized women as learners and leaders. Custom Collaborative will be used as a pilot for the fashion industry, expanding the capacity of their visual education platform which includes on-demand and live interactive lessons.

Cooperation Humboldt

Cooperation Humboldt is an organization based on California’s North Coast that runs a no-cost, six-week, bi-lingual, project-based educational program for aspiring cooperative entrepreneurs. The program was developed collaboratively with community colleges, local Indigenous tribes, immigrant communities, and Community Development Financial Institutions. It will train cooperative business advisors from rural, and disinvested communities living with low incomes, including the Wiyok and Yurok tribes. In addition, the program will include supportive services like childcare subsidies, remedial education, trauma-informed support, remote community access, and direct capital infusion that will mitigate barriers to worker ownership.

The ChiFresh Kitchen

ChiFresh Kitchen is a Chicago-based women- and minority-owned worker cooperative, owned and determined by formerly incarcerated Chicagoans, primarily Black women. ChiFresh is delivering prepared meals that are freshly cooked, healthy, delicious, and rooted in the culture and traditions of the people being served. ChiFresh pushed forward its intended launch in response to the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on Chicagoans and residents living with low incomes.

The Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative

The Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative is a community-led economic development organization focused on building an equitable, democratic economy that creates shared wealth and ownership for people living with low incomes. BCDI is supporting the creation of a worker-owned integrated pest management (IPM) co-op that provides living wages and the opportunity to scale through demand from institutional purchasers.

The Guild

The Guild in Atlanta is focused on building community wealth through real estate, entrepreneurship programs, and access to capital, creating equitable and sustainable communities by addressing the root causes of economic inequality. The Guild is providing technical assistance to Black and Brown enterprises through its Community Wealth Building Accelerator; launching its Integrated Capital Fund that will coordinate and deploy different types of capital and investments to entrepreneurs working in disinvested communities; and launching the Groundcover Community Investment Trust to introduce an alternative real estate development model to the Atlanta community.

Community Labor Environment Action Network

The Community Labor Environment Action Network (CLEAN) is a grassroots, immigrant, car wash worker-led organization that seeks transformative change to the exploitative car wash industry. CLEAN is establishing CLEAN Carwash, a worker-owned car wash cooperative in Los Angeles that prioritizes worker and environmental rights, while working for improved pay and working conditions.

Independent Drivers Guild

The Independent Drivers Guild (IDG) represents more than 85,000 for-hire vehicle drives in New York City, 90 percent of whom are immigrant workers. IDG plans to launch a purchasing cooperative that will reduce expenses for drivers, and a worker cooperative to provide culturally appropriate meals-on-the-go for drivers.

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: United Workers’ Center (Centro)’s goal is to transform the local economy in Chicago by empowering low-wage workers, especially immigrants, to achieve economic resilience through cooperative ownership. Centro is funding a dual-language, culturally appropriate train-the-trainer curriculum for both worker cooperative developers and individuals seeking to start worker cooperatives.

Sustainable Economies Law Center (2018)

Supporting residents in the Oakland area, the Sustainable Economies Law Center is incubating the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative. EBPREC is piloting an innovative model that engages everyday people to organize, finance, acquire, and steward land and housing, particularly important for disinvested communities in and around Oakland that are experiencing rapid gentrification.

Association for Black Economic Power (2018)

Working to disrupt predatory lending practices in disinvested communities, the Association for Black Economic Power will create a Black-led financial cooperative credit union on the northside of Minneapolis called Village Trust Financial Cooperative. Fostering racial equity within financial services, the credit union will provide consumer loans to residents in the local area, as well as technical assistance and financial support for Black-led cooperatives throughout Minnesota.

Food Co-op Initiative (2017)

Food Co-op Initiative used its award to establish a program providing support and guidance to the most promising low-income, urban food startup efforts. The program includes seed grants, technical assistance, and the creation of a strong support network among participating co-ops.

Read more about Food Co-op Initiative’s work

Project Equity (2017, 2016)

Focusing on expanding its efforts to convert successful businesses to worker ownership, Project Equity seeks to increase access to quality jobs and create wealth building opportunities for low- to moderate-wage workers.

Read more about Project Equity’s work

Democracy at Work Institute (2016, 2015)

With more than $40,000 in grants through our Co-op Innovation Award, The Democracy at Work Initiative has spearheaded a national effort to help small, minority-owned businesses transition to worker-owned cooperatives.

Read more about DAWI’s work