There’s a new generation of state leaders rising up to deepen democracy in statehouses across the country. They need policy backup. That’s where the Democracy Policy Network comes in. Learn about our launch below and support our mission at: 🌱

Learn more here — and if you are an entrepreneur, legislator, activist, expert, or journalist looking to help promote social cooperatives in your community, please get in touch:

What is needed most now are “early adopters” who work to advocate, do further research, and launch demonstration enterprises.

Since none of these forms actually replicate all the key features of a social co-op though, our ultimate goal should be to enable this new enterprise model to come as close to its developed form (i.e., as found in Italy, South Korea, and Quebec, for example) as possible.

In the United States, social co-ops are not yet recognized legally as a specific legal category of enterprise. However, communities are currently using a variety of approaches (conventional worker co-ops, non-profits, and social enterprises) to deliver social care.

With a decades-long track record of delivering quality care, dignified work, and democratic workplaces, social cooperatives (or social co-ops) have made significant contributions to the quality of life in places like northern Italy, Quebec, South Korea, and more.

It stands in contrast to status quo models in which care provision is created, directed, and performed solely by isolated families or corporate and government bureaucracies.

A social cooperative is a model of social care provision in which care is collaboratively provided by an enterprise co-created and co-directed by multiple stakeholders, such as care workers, care recipients, family members, community members, governments, and funders.

🚨 New DPN policy kit by @elias_crim: on how SOCIAL COOPERATIVES, a powerful, tested model for organizing social care can ensure that the growing caring economy is co-created by caretakers and communities:

RT @ntnsndr: What could enable economic democracy at scale? At the @DemocracyPolicy, Júlia Martins Rodrigues and I have a new report on les….

Learn more in DPN's FINANCING SHARED OWNERSHIP policy kit:

✅Developing public investment funds and revolving loan programs to support shared ownership.✅Learning from successful precedents in Colorado, Italy, Brazil, and Quebec.

✅Establishing cash collateral and loan guarantee programs to overcome financing barriers.✅Enacting statutory rights of first offer and refusal for workers and community stakeholders.

In this kit, explore comprehensive strategies to level the playing field for shared ownership, including:.✅ Creating inter-agency frameworks to coordinate federal and state support across sectors.✅Expanding the successful "1042 rollover" to all forms of shared ownership.

Our markets are already shaped by policy that channels capital toward wealth consolidation through venture capital and private equity. But what if policy could instead support businesses owned by the people who depend on them?.

Shared ownership isn't just good policy—it's good business. Employee-owned companies produce reduced wealth inequality, better firm performance, workforce retention, and increased productivity.

Through broad-based shared ownership, access to the responsibilities and rewards of ownership can be distributed throughout society rather than concentrated in the hands of a financial elite, resulting in more democratic governance and shared prosperity.

In this context, shared ownership refers to broad-based structures that make company ownership available and reasonably accessible to all members of a stakeholder class—such as its workers, consumers, neighbors, or other groups of direct participants.

A truly democratic society should be capable of extending democracy into the workplace and everyday economic life. Shared ownership is a fundamental stepping stone toward such economic democracy.

New policy kit out today by Júlia Martins Rodrigues and @ntnsndr on FINANCING SHARED OWNERSHIP — how policymakers can support the creation of financing infrastructure for shared ownership models (like cooperative enterprises and employee-owned businesses):

Want to learn more about how states can enable and empower the creation of municipally-owned, mixed-income housing developments? Check out DPN's kit on Social Housing at: