Co-op Boot Camp
Introduction
The Co-op Boot Camp is a 14-week educational course for anyone who wants to learn more about worker co-ops or who wants to work in or start up their own co-op business.
The course consists of two classes: the four-week Introduction to Co-ops and the ten-week Building a Co-op Business. The first class introduces basic concepts, definitions, co-op history and their role in transformative social/economic justice. The second class gets into the nitty gritty of developing a business plan, legal entity choices, marketing, governance, financial projections and so forth.
The class meets once a week for three hours. The fee for the Intro is $50 and for Building a Co-op Business is $125. Scholarships are available. Since the pandemic, the Co-op Boot Camp has been held online, but when we return to in-person classes, they will be held in Springfield, MA.
The Co-op Boot Camp uses a popular education approach to learning in which everyone is a learner and everyone is a teacher. We build on people’s knowledge and experience to develop analysis and action for liberation. Since everyone learns differently, we use a range of methodologies such as participatory small group exercises, role plays, and games as well as videos and presentations.
Participants are exposed to the many different types and structures of cooperatives, allowing them to develop an informed cooperative model that suits their needs and business. Prior to the pandemic, and expected to return when safe, in-person courses included a field trip to local cooperatives in Western Mass such as Real Pickles, Artisan Beverage, and PV Squared Solar where students were given tours of the cooperatives and learned about how they function.
Worker-owners from Wellspring Harvest, Jumping Jack Hoops, and Farm Bug Cooperative in the Wellspring network graduated from the Co-op Bootcamp. The Co-op Boot Camp is helping to build a local cooperative economy that promotes a more just and sustainable future in which workers learn how to run their own businesses together, share in the profits, and give back to the local communities that support them.
History
The Worker Co-op Boot Camp is a project of Wellspring Cooperative. It built on a partnership with the Springfield Technical Community College, TESA (Toolbox for Educational & Social Action), Cooperative Fund of New England, Association of Black Business & Professionals, and Arise for Social Justice. We drew on our collective knowledge and experience as well as curriculum that other organizations had developed. We piloted the first Co-op Boot Camp in the fall of 2017 and have offered it every year since then.
Introduction to
Cooperatives
This 4-week course will give you the tools to understand what it takes to be a worker-owner and the knowledge to decide if working in, or starting up, a co-op is for you.
- What is a cooperative?
- What are the different types of co-ops?
- What role have co-ops played in supporting social and economic justice?
- Why is there a current upsurge of co-ops?
- How well do co-ops perform? How can they benefit workers and communities?
- What does economic democracy and culture look like in practice?
- What does it take to be a worker-owner as opposed to a worker?
- Case studies and problem-solving. Exploration of starting up your own co-op.
Building a
Co-op Business
This 10-week course will help you explore the feasibility of your idea and develop a business model/plan for your cooperative. Pre-requisite: Intro to Co-ops or equivalent
- Business model/Business Canvas: what’s your big picture?
- Governance and Management, Intro to Sociocracy
- Legal & Human Resource Issues: Incorporation choices, articles and by-laws, worker handbook, hiring, evaluations, etc.
- Marketing: What makes sense for your business?
- Sustainability: How can you strengthen your co-op’s economic, social, and environmental sustainability?
- Financials: Accounting, open book management, key metrics
- Raising Capital: Choices and strategies to raise startup capital