All Things Co-op: Interview with OWN Rochester

09/22/20 • 44 min

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin and Larry speak with Kate Washington, the CEO of OWN Rochester, a non-profit cooperative business development corporation whose mission is to create jobs and build wealth in low-income communities by developing, promoting, and supporting a diverse portfolio of employee-owned businesses in Rochester, New York. Kate Washington shares the backstory of how OWN Rochester started and its first projects; thoughts on incubating versus converting cooperatives; efforts to make government support of co-ops more mainstream and the challenges of lagging bureaucracy; ESOPs vs worker cooperatives, tailoring the model for the specific need; the challenges and opportunities for co-op conversion in the time of Covid-19; efforts of the Mayor of Rochester. Learn more about OWN Rochester on their website: https://www.ownrochester.coop/

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Interview with the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance

In this interview we talk with Jamila Medley, the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA), about her work catalyzing the growth and popularity of worker co-ops particularly within communities of color in Philadelphia, how worker co-ops represent a viable alternative to a capitalist system in decline, and more. Learn more about PACA: https://philadelphia.coop/

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All Things Co-op: Interview with Madison Cooperative Development Coalition

In this episode, Kevin, Cinar and Larry talk with two key figures at the Madison Cooperative Development Coalition (MCDC). Charity Schmidt is a cooperative development specialist at the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives. Ruth Rohlich is a Business Development Specialist for the City of Madison, working in the Economic Development division. Among their many topics, they discuss how the city of Madison is approaching this cooperative initiative, the importance of community ecosystems, how entrenched legislation creates unforeseen barriers to cooperative ownership that must be changed, financing, and more.