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The Director of Education (DE) is responsible for coordinating and implementing NASCO’s educational programs. The DE coordinates and develops the annual Cooperative Education & Training Institute and the Staff & Managers Conference. The DE is also responsible for delegating education work and overseeing contracted staff in order to implement NASCO educational programs. The DE is the primary person responsible for the creation of new educational programming for NASCO, including responding to board directives and member requests for new programming.

The 2022 UnFound Accelerator programme is now underway, supporting the creation of yet more fair, ethical and co‑operatively owned tech platforms.  

This year, there are nine teams taking part in the 10‑week programme. The Accelerator is supporting them to develop their platform businesses as co‑ops – and to develop their products, business planning, strategy, branding and marketing.  

The Alliance is a worker cooperative—a business owned by its workers with democratic decision-making processes. Though cooperatives can be hierarchical, the Alliance specifically operates as a non-hierarchical collective. Worker-owners at the Alliance say the co-op model offers autonomy and sustainability to continue doing work they spent years training to do, while offering better, equitable care for the clients they serve.

[A]t times, a labour judiciary not specialised in cooperative or mutual matters has produced inadequate rulings, without taking into account the spirit and essence of the type of worker cooperative organisation and its specific legal dynamics.

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Last fall, Devynn Fetter came home to find papers stuck in the door of her home in Columbia Falls, Montana. The paperwork let her know that her community of 30 homes was for sale – and that she and her neighbors had the opportunity to buy it for themselves. Once things were in motion, Hideaway Community was on its way to becoming a Resident Owned Community with Dev at the helm as interim Board President, a role she now permanently holds.

For the fourth year running, a survey of Canadian co- operatives leaders found that the most pressing challenge facing the sector is a general lack of awareness about the co- operative model. As one of the 311 respondents to the 2021 Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives (CCSC) annual survey noted, “we can’t tackle any of the other issues on the list if policy makers and citizens don’t understand the value of co-operation in our society.”

The Government of Kerala has created an innovative program to combat unemployment by employing educated but unemployed people. The services and support provided includes job training, placement assistance, financial counseling which results in many successful outcomes for participants as they find work or start their own businesses!

We are very excited to announce SoFA’s second annual Sociocracy in Cooperatives international conference. Building on the success of last year, we look forward to welcoming you to an interactive programme of inspiring workshops. 

This year we’ll be exploring implementations in worker and multi-stakeholder co-ops, reviewing the progress made in aligning sociocracy with UK cooperative legal structures, and making space to co-design a new community of practice for co-operators implementing sociocracy in their co-ops .

Wanting to take a closer look at the emergent Black leadership in the food cooperative movement, I spoke with nine colleagues, representing six co-ops from around the country. I posed the question “What does organizing for sovereignty look like?” This led to deep reflections about the underlying nature of the communities they are working to support.

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Ella Josephine Baker, a prominent leader of the civil rights movement, was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1903 and grew up in a close-knit African American community in Warren County, North Carolina where Black people pooled resources to help each other survive and thrive in the aftermath of slavery. An assertive and adventurous soul who experienced early on the benefits of a sharing economy, she worked with George Schuyler to power a new Black cooperative movement in this country at the age of 27.

L.A.’s Worker Centers were established to support the efforts of low-wage workers, immigrant and refugee workers, and workers of color in Los Angeles by engaging in campaigns against wage theft and other forms of exploitation,  enforcement of labor standards, and other strategies to change the terms of engagement between low-wage industries and their workers.

Did you know that the USFWC board strategically represents regions across the country?

Each year, the USFWC hosts an annual election for the Board of Directors. On odd years, we hold an election for our at-large positions, and on even years like 2022, we elect our Regional Representatives, who advocate for the co-ops in their area: North, South, East, and West.

There is 1 open seat for each of our regions. Voting members may nominate one or more of your members to run for the Regional Representative seat of your Region!*