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Funding the Cooperative City focuses on the post-welfare transition of today’s European societies: with austerity measures and the financialisation of real estate stocks and urban services, the gradual withdrawal of the state and municipal administrations from providing certain facilities and maintaining certain spaces have prompted citizen initiatives and professional groups to organise their own services and venues.

The self-organisation of new spaces of work, culture and social welfare was made possible by various socio-economic circumstances: unemployment, solidarity networks, changing real estate prices and ownership patters created opportunities for stepping out of the regular dynamisms of real estate development.

cooperative ownership

Candidate Donald Trump made a campaign stop in February 2016 hosted by South Carolina’s Broad River Electric Cooperative.

By the onset of the Great Depression, few people in the rural United States had electricity at home—about 10 percent. The power companies that had lit up the cities simply didn’t see enough profit in serving far-flung farmers. But gradually some of those farmers started forming electric cooperatives—utility companies owned and governed by their customers—and strung up their own lines.

We typically think of our democratic institutions as having to do with politicians and governments. But there are democratic businesses, too—not just these electric co-ops, but also hulking credit unions, mutual-insurance companies, and ubiquitous cooperative brands from Land O’Lakes to the Associated Press. Their democracy is fragile. When it’s not exercised or noticed, these creatures act on their own volition.

1. Conventional Incubators are not viable in themselves.  Instead they act as a business development tool for “side-car” investors trying to pick winners.  We think you need an incubator that exists to serve its incubatees.2. Conventional Incubators look for a 1-in-1000 unicorn to repay their many wrong bets.  We think you need an incubator that creates businesses of value that go the distance.3. Conventional Incubators looks for exceptional talent.  We think you need an incubator for collective endeavours4. Conventional Incubators function with a top-down approach.  We think you need an incubator that harnesses the wisdom of the crowd.5. Conventional Incubators promote returns for the 1%.  We think you need an incubator where 1 Member = 1 Vote6. Conventional Incubators run for 6-months.  We think you need an incubator that supports the whole period of development from formation through to operation.

We help any type of Cooperative to ‘Form, Organise, Fund and Operate‘.  The exciting areas of new CoOp formation include:– Community Owned Enterprises – anything from a pub to a post-office, school to satellite, house to hospital– Platform or Online CoOperatives – these are being created by online communities in place of Venture Capital backed 2-sided marketplaces

Collaborative ventures employ a variety of tools (web apps, social media, wikis etc.) and strategies (regular group meetings, webinars etc.) to make working as a group functional.There are some challenges with working as a group that aren’t solved by todays technology and they include1. Reaching a timely and productive consensus that in turn creates “collaboration paralysis“.  2. Groups try to be decentralised, but often most have a bottleneck around finance related decisions.3. Collectives need a way to track and incentivise efforts with non-financial and / or financial rewards and4. Groups need a way to create agreement contingent on future outcomes on the blockchain to improve trust within commerce