Rock City Roasters owner Susanne Ward of Rockland, Maine, never intended to spend her career as a business owner. Instead she describes Rock City’s success as a happy accident that owes a lot to the passion and commitment of her employees. Soon, she’ll join their ranks and become a worker-owner when the business converts to
CDI’s intern Arhi Tallon spent the summer researching policy and case studies and learning the ropes of cooperative development. His reflections on the experience can be found below. This summer I was really happy to get the opportunity to do an internship with the New England-based Cooperative Development Institute (CDI). I had found out about
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn recently issued a manifesto that calls for cooperative ownership of digital platforms. Corbyn took a page from the growing movement comprised of efforts to collectively own and democratically govern our workplaces using apps, websites, and similar technologies. Platform Cooperativism takes many shapes. It could be a multi-stakeholder co-op whose work
Family-owned businesses don’t often stay family-owned for long. Not many businesses have a strong succession plan, and family-owned businesses are no exception. Most are unlikely to remain family-owned as a 2014 study found. 56 percent of family business owners are either unhappy with their succession plan or don’t have one at all, and 62 percent
Homeowners at Colonial Estates in Taunton, MA, now have a new reason to be proud of where they live: they collectively own the manufactured home park. Thanks to a deal closed on August 29th, 2016, residents there no longer pay rent to a landlord, but instead finance their own residents association. There is a visible
A one-woman gardening business in upstate New York has blossomed into a major enterprise since 2001. Now, with the help of Cooperative Development Institute (CDI), that business is sharing its prosperity and becoming all the more successful through employee ownership. The Rosendale, New York, based Earth Designs Cooperative mapped out a unique process to convert
Affordable housing is much easier to achieve when tenants—and not outside investors—own their land. Our New England Resident-Owned Communities (NEROC) program offers financial security and peace of mind to owners of manufactured homes who live in rental communities. NEROC secures and protects affordable housing by uniting neighbors to buy the land they currently rent and
Updated: The application period for this position closed on September 15, 2016. Thank you to everyone for your interest! CDI seeks a qualified person to serve as Director of Fundraising and Communications within the organization. This is a new position. As Director of Fundraising, leads the Fundraising Committee to raise funds for the organization in
Four New American farmer-owners are launching New Roots Cooperative Farm, a 30-acre farm on College St. in Lewiston that will be the first New American cooperative farm in Maine. The four farmer-owners of New Roots–Mohamed Abukar, Batula Ismail, Seynab Ali, and Jabril Abdi–are originally from Somalia. For the past 10 years, they have farmed with
Meet Cathy, the Cooperative Development Institute’s new answerwoman! She can take on any co-op questions you might have, big or small. Today we address the question: “How do the new overtime rules the Obama administration has planned affect cooperatives?” See all of Cathy’s answers and ask your own on her home page. This blog post
