Primary Goal
Our primary goal is to support communities in being self-sustainable and self-reliant.
It simply is not sustainable to rely on government oversight of large corporations regarding our basic needs. Lobbying in combination with "donations" tend to lead such relationships to allow for the gradual development of monopoly's and forms of corporation led governments.
We strive to educate and equip the working people to combat this process. By creating and supporting localized systems for things like food and housing we can have a big impact on a communities economy. Multiplying wealth and power for the average worker, as well as making families more resilient to possible disasters.
General Principles
Workers or Consumers Cooperatives
The Cooperative business model is one in which ownership and control of a business in spread through out the structure.
In some cases this ownership is held by the consumer base, giving shareholding customers more control over the quality of goods and services. The shareholders promising to purchase an amount set of goods on an agreed upon basis. This way the workers have an accurate prediction of how much they will be selling, minimizing the overhead cost of wasted resources. In others ownership is held by the workers, giving them more control over things like their pay, benefits, and management style. In both cases resources like labor, capital, and land are pooled collectively through the owners and share holders in order to maximize synergies and compete economically with larger corporations.
Business or Charity
Charity is not always the best answer to the issues that arise from situations of poverty. Often only providing a temporary "band aid" to the problem, and occasionally actually making it worse. Either by incentivizing reliance on charity or sometimes even undermining the local business that had tried to service that need, leaving a community with even less opportunity to to grow.
Co-ops are not charity. Rather they are profitable business' that are built to serve the interests of of the direct workers and consumers. With proper management co-ops can compete with large businesses, most notably REI does just that. Do to its collective nature, co-ops are also more viable to emerge from communities experiencing poverty that traditional businesses.
If charity is "giving a man a fish", co-ops are "teaching a few men to fish together, and sell their excess catch at a market to buy a boat"
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Vote With Your Dollar
In free market economies like ours, where you spend your money matters. Every business and corporation relies on its customer basis to grow and thrive. In today's world a handful of corporate conglomerates dominate the international markets. Regardless of where you stand politically or ideologically, it is clear that donations and lobbying are modern forms of political bribery. It would be unreasonable to expect politicians to put regulations or restrictions on their doners, at least in any meaningful way. So the best thing we can do to lessen the power these corporations have, is be wary of when we give them our money. They require use to use their products and services in order to operate, and more importantly to afford the "donations". By finding ways to fill your needs through local or co-op businesses, we can weaken these corporate giants enough to begin to fight back.
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More resources to Learn about Cooperatives.
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6 ways a food co-op can change the economy: https://youtu.be/uNgGv2gHUm4?si=_NVa67yYqGX4BMRY
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Own the change: https://youtu.be/8G1-SYMatNc?si=4SmhoydUGhYkyRFU
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What is a Co-op: https://youtu.be/pKN-gxmVRUc?si=2deB3SPqsADX_6kM