United States

Cooperative development is the most important social change work that a person can do.

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard talks about her research into the history of African-American co-ops.

How a 50 year old food co-op in Ithaca practices diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Can studying cooperative housing in Sweden teach the U.S. how to overcome the moderate-income family housing crisis?

“Multi-stakeholder” co-ops have become popular in recent years, but what does it really mean to bring different groups together for common ownership and governance?

How might the commons paradigm be applied to cities in a more focused, effective way?  To find some answers, I recently interviewed two leading thinkers and advocates for urban commons, Sheila R. Foster and Christian Iaione.

How the VAWC Inter-cooperative Loan Fund helped save the fledgling worker co-op Flat Iron Coffeehouse.

Vernon interviews Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D., Professor at John Jay College, and Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo, Co Editor at Grassroots Economic Organizing. Both are also economic social justice advocates. Vernon and his guests will discuss the Unsung Cooperative Hero Award, and its first recipient Ella Jo Baker.

Ajowa and Josh share their thoughts on whether worker co-ops should have investor shares with voting rights.

“Mutual aid is putting the saying ‘We are all we’ve got’ into practice, and trying to meet some of the survival needs of struggling people, including ourselves, while building community and working towards [long-term] solutions that don’t depend on the state.”