r/cooperatives

Hey everyone. I’m new to this community and relatively new to the cooperative world, so I wanted to introduce myself and ask for some guidance.

I’m a longtime software engineer and entrepreneur. I previously ran a software consultancy building mobile apps, web apps, blockchain products, and AI systems before the company was acquired. I still work in technology and spend a lot of time thinking about how software and AI are changing businesses and work.

I recently watched a piece about rideshare drivers in Colorado forming a cooperative and building their own app rather than relying entirely on the major rideshare platforms. Something about that really clicked for me.
I’ve spent a big chunk of my career helping companies build technology and create value for owners and investors. I’d like to explore using those same skills to help workers and communities build things they actually own.

I’m not coming in with a specific startup idea or trying to sell anything. I’m trying to learn where someone with my background can be useful. Are there organizations, communities, conferences, accelerator programs, or existing co-ops where experienced technical people can get plugged in?

I’d especially love to hear from people who have worked on platform co-ops, worker-owned tech companies, or helped non-technical groups turn a cooperative idea into an actual product.

Where would you recommend I start?

I don't know how many here this will matter to. Website looks quite sleepy to me. But what are my expectations? Something Blackwater Investments funded so there are all kinds of digital whirlagigs to distract? It's what we make of it here, huh.

If I'd totally discovered this on my own I'd be more likely to shrug it off and ask for nobody's attention here. But I learned about it in email from the California Center for Cooperative Development. So more than me are looking at the Coops calendar. This is short notice 'cause it's already well into the day the other side of the international date line. For me it's easy to remember for next year because it coincides with Independence Day where I live.

This thread is part of an attempt by the moderators to create a series of monthly repeating posts to help aggregate certain kinds of content into single threads.

If you have any basic questions about Cooperatives, feel free to ask them here. Please also remember to visit this thread even if you consider yourself a cooperative veteran so that you can help others!

Note that this thread will be posted on the first and will run throughout the month.

The treadmill is costing workers way too much today. When the president and crew took America off the gold standard in 1971 I could buy an ounce of gold for three hours of my work; They also froze wages and prices, and today it takes 251 hours of the same work to buy an ounce.

We sold our first home in 1969 for $2,450. Today Zillows list the little house, still on the same footprint, for $550,500. Wages have stayed frozen but prices increased as new money was printed to pay for the Vietnam War and the wars to come.

The coin of cooperatives is labor, not dollars that have lost most of their value. How many hours does it take to build a house, to operate market gardens, or raise a child.

About eleven thousand generations of Homo sapiens have lived since our species first appeared. A wooden farmhouse dating back to the 11th century is still lived in today. Regenerated farmland can last 10,000 years. If a cooperative is a company owned by its members it can easily last until the next glacial period.

 Does this make sense?

DENNISEARTHANDHEART

I’m an old dog, still learning new tricks. Born during World War Two, I grew up with a front-row seat to human chaos. That early shock turned me into a lifelong seeker, always trying to understand what’s real beneath the noise.
I spent 29 years in Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe starting in 1945. Tahoe was my classroom. In the summers, the richest people in the world showed up. The rest of the year, it was laborers, carpenters, cooks, and families trying to make it through the winter. Seeing both worlds up close shaped how I see everything.
Today my work is about helping people step off the late-stage capitalism treadmill and live like humans again. I’m interested in how others here think about that shift.

Hi there,

I'm working with cooperatives in Europe already. I love it and would like to connect to anybody interested in building anything in the cooperative world. All ideas are great.

We can even build a Discord if you're interested in this kind of stuff if the interest is there.

If anybody is interested in cooperatives just let me know.

Thanks!

I have one simple question for you. “What becomes possible when humanity’s collective intelligence finally has proper infrastructure?” Let me know your thoughts.

Specifically when the company is doing fine. So not cases where the company is about to close down that workplace or declare bankruptcy or anything like that. A union or workers organizing to take control of their workplace while the company is doing ok.

The mutual aid group that I am with has been developing and testing an app for collective organizing and routing requests for aid. We hope to develop this into a fully open-source, self-hosted, end-to-end encrypted, and federated node based program. It would allow collectives to communicate, offer services, form coalitions with other collectives, and develop projects that can operate across a number of different collectives.

Everything is consent based, and decisions can be unmade. Collective decisions are made by petition, and the thresholds required to approve those petitions are determined by aggregated governance preferences between all of the members of that collective. There are no super-users or admin.

Anyways, I won’t get too deep into the weeds, but we are looking for other folks to help test the program, and offer feedback on the GitHub repository. We have started an open alpha test server, and will share the link to that below.

There are warnings on the app, but the security features are not yet complete, so obviously do not use any personal identifying information. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that, but just in case. Please don’t.

Lastly, there is a feedback form linked at the top of every page, so if you decide to try it out, please use the feedback function! Bugs, feature recommendations, security concerns, whatever, we want it all.

GitHub repository: https://github.com/anarchos501/commons.git

Commons test server: https://commons.chat

Thanks!

"On March 2^(nd), 2026, cooperative educator and “recovering farmer” Emi Do and I visited Heather Pritchard at her home on Fraser Common Cooperative Farm, near Aldergrove, British Columbia. After a brief tour of the farm, twenty acres on the foothills above the Fraser River Valley, and a conversation with fellow farm co-op member David Catzell, we sat down for lunch at Heather’s kitchen table and spoke for over an hour. The following is a lightly edited version of her reflections.

"Over the course of the conversation, Heather mentioned many cooperative organizations and key figures in the cooperative movement in British Columbia."

There is a lot to celebrate this Fourth of July. Along with the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, July 4 is International Day of Cooperatives.

By signing the Declaration of Independence, 56 delegates chose to break away from a system that no longer supported their vision of safety and happiness. They wrote about the right “to institute new government,” built on principles that better served the people.

That idea aligns with how cooperatives work today. Instead of power flowing from the top down, co-ops are built by people coming together to create something that works for them through shared ownership, shared decision-making, and shared benefit.

While the Declaration focuses on independence, the cooperative model leans into interdependence: people organizing around common needs, supporting each other, and creating stability as a group.

Both are rooted in the belief that systems should reflect the people they serve.   

What language in the Declaration of Independence feels most “cooperative” to you?