Earning enough money to live on is a skill. As is making good decisions collaboratively, defusing conflict, and learning how to work according to your values. Sometimes you learn these things on purpose, and sometimes you only acquire them by making mistakes.
We’ve had difficult years and good ones. And the good ones were usually built on the difficult ones.
Early in 2024, Solidfund members responded decisively to Yalla Cooperative's crisis appeal, as the disaster unfolded in Gaza. While some of its workers stayed and fought to maintain themselves in the territory, others ended up as refugees in neighbouring countries. Supporting those workers by any means necessary had to take priority over building websites, apps and software for non-profit clients.
We talked to Joe Friel, one of Yalla's founders, about what Solidfund's intervention meant to them at the time - and what's happened since. [Click heading to read on]
The New York Cooperative Summit is a one-day event in Schenectady on October 17th, bringing together New York State cooperative members, leaders, organizers, and allies to share practical tools and strategies for starting, sustaining, and scaling cooperative ecosystems across the state. There will be more details to follow in the coming weeks. Please subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates!
In recent years, the State has introduced numerous mechanisms and policies to foster a favourable business environment and support the sustainable growth of cooperatives. Despite notable achievements, however, cooperatives continue to face limitations and challenges, one of the most pressing being restricted access to credit.
In September of 2025, Riverwest lost its eponymous food co-op on the corner of Clarke and Fratney. Covid had been the nail in the coffin to the Riverwest Co-op’s demise, yet its end could have been foreseen for several years.
“Out of 3000+ members,” said John Van Akkeren, the interim president at the closing of the Riverwest Co-op, “there were maybe 15 people there. Even at the terminal meeting to decide to dissolve the co-op, there were maybe 50 people.”
Notably, the bill would reauthorize and modernize the Rural Cooperative Development Grant program through FY2031.
Worker Cooperatives and Deep Democracy opens by characterizing what the authors call the “The Planetary Polycrisis”. Global capitalism is creating a socio-ecological rift, severing society from nature and putting civilization itself at risk. Planetary care labor is rendered invisible by capitalism, even as the system of capitalism relies on it for its own existence.
The question now is: What role will you play in the movement at this critical time? Through a series of discussions, webinars, and trainings, we hope to learn, in community, how to hone our unique skills and capacities, and do our part in the movement in our communities.
“I’ve never been able to put money aside,” she said. “And now it’s kind of like my retirement plan involves living in my co-op.”
Miller was among hundreds of co-op residents and supporters who gathered outside Quebec’s Housing Ministry offices in downtown Montreal on Monday to demand the provincial government withdraw the legislation.
LaSuite.coop is a multi-stakeholder cooperative being established in France by a consortium of long-standing cooperative actors in the digital space. Its founding members include IndieHosters (free software hosting, over 10 years of experience), Yaal.coop (cooperative software developers), Algoo/Galae (email hosting), and Lebureau.coop (domain names), with further collaboration from Open Source Politics .
The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) this month announced the theme for the 2026 International Day of Cooperatives: “Cooperatives for a Peaceful World.” The theme celebrates the unique capacity of cooperatives to contribute to global peace and prosperity.
REI Union workers have today launched a boycott against the co-op, which sells outdoor leisure gear, in protest against its “bad faith bargaining”.
Timed to disrupt REI Co-op’s anniversary sale, which takes place through May 25, the boycott follows recent negotiations that ended on 30 April, in Chicago.
The union claims that REI “failed to offer a single proposal until the final day of bargaining, and failed to send its own vice president of labor relations, or any key decision-maker, to the table”.
Argentina stands out as one of the most co-operative-minded countries in South America, with a number of co-ops emerging as a response to crises over the decades.
But it is also unique in how it embeds co-operation into the formal national curriculum. The country’s cooperativas escolares (school co-operatives) have a long history, which can be traced to 1946 legislation that formally established the teaching of co-operativism and the creation of school co-operatives.
