By Jim Johnson, GEO Collective

Since its founding in 2000, worker-managed non-profit Free Geek of Portland, Oregon, has supplied over 15,000 refurbished computers to individuals and community organizations, and has also ethically recycled 2,000 tons of non-reusable computer components (known as "e-waste"). Along the way, they've also successfully reproduced their organizational model, with nine similar organizations having taken root in the US and Canada. But they've also encountered some special challenges in propagating their model, and their experience offers some important cautionary tales for co-ops and collectives seeking to do the same.