Ohio is experimenting with many ways to build worker cooperatives throughout the state

This weekend I attended Ohio’s Worker Owner Network meeting where teams from Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kent, and Dayton came together to share ideas and learn together. It was great to see the many strategies that different cooperative development teams were taking. It showed me that there are so many ways to make progress toward making worker-owned cooperatives and cooperative principles a major force in Ohio’s economy. I’ll share a little about each strategy, in the way I understand it, and then move into discussing ways the cooperative development teams are already collaborating or potential opportunities for further collaboration.

I hope through sharing more about each program, you will see that working in the cooperative economy is possible. I encourage you to think about how your perspective could strengthen the work that these teams are doing.

Co-op Cincy: Scaling cooperative ownership

Co-op Cincy just celebrated its 10th anniversary as a cooperative development team. The team spent much of its first 10 years focused on building cooperative incubation programs to build a self-sustaining network of cooperatives that work for all. They hope to have 80,000 people working in their cooperative network by 2050.  

Their foundation of education is strong, and they have taken opportunities to expand their training program for construction coops, Black-led coops, and state-wide coops. They not only train coop entrepreneurs but train others in the community to become cooperative developers through a partnership with Xavier that trains people in participatory management principles.

Co-op Cincy is proud of the work that they’ve done to support entrepreneurs in creating worker cooperatives, but they are recognizing that the path toward 80,000 worker-owners is a slow path if it relies solely on entrepreneurship, so they are shifting to put more emphasis on business conversion. Following a trend of national co-op developers, Co-op Cincy has raised enough funding to compete by purchasing small to medium size companies whose owners are poised to retire. They are just getting started in this venture, but they are hopeful that expanding into fields like manufacturing will help them support good-paying worker-owned roles that will benefit the whole network of worker cooperatives. The challenge they are facing right now is that private equity is competing to purchase these companies, and it is hard to compete with firms that have more capital.

Co-op Dayton: Building an economy that will last for us

Co-op Dayton is known throughout the country for its success in starting a cooperative grocery store that opened its doors in 2021. The team was very focused on building the grocery store for and with the community, hosting block parties with 800+ people, and holding community meetings that were packed to the brim to discuss the grocery store’s mission and many aspects of the grocery store’s design. The pandemic and the original grocery store manager hurt community engagement that existed pre-launch, but the team is finding ways to re-engage the community.

Co-op Dayton now incubates other worker-cooperatives in the region, providing worker-owner training, supporting governance practices, and connecting entrepreneurs with other organizations in the network. Co-op Dayton also has a supportive capitalization strategy that provides access to financing for entrepreneurs in ways that are non-extractive.

Alongside building a network of worker-cooperatives that provide good-paying jobs, they are equally focused on engaging the Black community in believing that they can create an economy that works for them. The team believes that spending time and energy organizing training for the community, focusing on self-healing and community-healing, and bringing together organizations that are already supporting the Black community should be the foundation of the future of Dayton’s economy. They believe that this strategy may mean that there is slower initial progress of co-op development, but in the long run, it could create a huge movement of cooperatives that are seeded from within the community’s most under-resourced community members.

Right now, Co-op Dayton’s biggest challenge is recognizing the tension between scaling cooperative development and building a cooperative movement while still moving forward in both directions. So, they are finding ways to be more efficient with co-op incubation and testing out a variety of ways to support movement building, particularly focusing on creating a network of partner organizations through culturally supportive practices. The team is also focused on defining their roles in ways that are most fulfilling to them.

Cleveland: Using two paths for employee ownership

Cleveland has two organizations that are using different methods to scale cooperative ownership, and each deserves its own explanation. I personally don’t know as much about either of these organizations, so sharing less is no indication that they are doing less.

Evergreen

Evergreen was started by major funding institutions, like the Cleveland Foundation. They created coops to serve as vendors to anchor institutions like hospitals and higher education. The close relationship with the anchor institutions and foundations gave them the capital and customers necessary to scale quickly. It seems like this model has been extremely successful at scaling. There is enough centralized leadership that the organization has been able to make strategic decisions to acquire new businesses to become cooperatives.

The coop network is also taking in funding from investors as a means for additional funding for the coop network and an avenue for people to receive returns from their investment in these worker cooperatives.

This model is built starting with the needs identified by the anchor institutions (e.g., laundry services, food services, etc.). It provides fair-good paying jobs and a path to employee ownership.

This model does not have a similar movement-building practice, and others have said that it is not working to have Cleveland’s Black and working-class community members see the path they can take to build cooperatives that serve their needs in their communities.  

Cleveland Owns: Creating cooperative infrastructure projects

Cleveland Owns aims to have a deeper community focus to incubate projects at the grassroots level. They are primarily focused on projects that would improve the city’s infrastructure with cooperative practices (e.g., digital infrastructure, collective purchasing, and clean energy projects). They have worked with the incoming Cleveland Mayor to outline a community budgeting plan.

They work at the intersection of community organizing and cooperative development, supporting community organizers with access to funding for cooperative development. As of now, they have one full-time staff member and a rotating organizer position.

Kent: Scaling Employee Ownership (ESOPS and co-ops)

Kent State houses a Center for Employee Ownership that supports a loosely tied network of thousands of employee owners. Kent State’s program has been instrumental in supporting coop development across the state. They hold a lot of resources to support cooperative development and train many organizations in transitioning to worker ownership.

Appalachia Collaborative Institute: Creating open space for connection

Ohio State’s Center for Cooperatives in Pinkerton Ohio specializes in agriculture worker cooperatives. They teach courses on cooperatives and have an educational farm where they host tours for the community. The center also houses training sessions for the community and monthly sessions to support cooperative development in Appalachia.  

Opportunities for state-wide collaboration

Consolidated coop incubation training

Co-op Cincy already has developed a strong program to incubate start-up cooperatives, so they are starting to provide state-wide training. The other co-op incubators will subsidize the training costs for Co-op Cincy and will still provide advisory support for coops in their region, connecting the budding entrepreneurs to useful contacts in their region.

Scaling co-ops to other cities

Sustainergy, a solar and heating worker co-op that was founded in Cincinnati has opened a second location in Dayton. It has been helpful for the co-op to test out its scaling strategy in a location that already has a co-op incubator because Co-op Dayton has been helpful in partnering with the Sustainergy team to build out the staff, meet with important business contacts, and find a location for their business. As co-ops continue to scale, it makes sense that they start with opportunities in regions that already have co-op development support.

Collective budgeting and city infrastructure projects

The rest of the co-op incubators were impressed with Cleveland Own’s work with the city government to map out a path for a collective budgeting process. Based on the lessons learned from this process, other cities are interested in learning about the project.

Connecting with universities and educational institutions

The employee ownership center at Kent State taught a class on cooperatives in their political science department. Co-op Dayton’s Co-CEO is building out a community-based research lab through Sinclair University and aims to use the lab to support research projects that can be the seeds for new cooperative projects. Co-op Cincy partnered with Xavier University to provide a certificate program in participatory management.  Ohio State University has a cooperative education department at their Pinkerton campus focused on cooperative development in agriculture and they have an educational farm.

Co-op Cincy is also exploring a partnership with Cincinnati University’s cybersecurity department to develop a cybersecurity worker cooperative that also acts as an apprentice opportunity for students. Co-op Dayton is exploring ways to partner with local educational institutes to provide co-op incubation classes. All this collaboration with universities could lead to a state-wide strategy in the future

Movement-building & storytelling

Other co-op development teams were impressed with the ways Co-op Dayton has mobilized their community to attend events and planning sessions. They hope to learn more about the strategies that could be replicated within their own cities.