Cultivate.Coop Is Live!

”It has been said that cooperativism is an economic movement that uses the methods of education. This definition can also be modified to affirm that cooperativism is an educational movement that uses the methods of economics.”
-Don José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga

Dear friends,

It’s time to democratize our economy by democratizing knowledge: Cultivate.Coop is officially launched and live. Visit the website now!

Cooperators and cooperative supporters have already contributed a great cache of articles and educational resources to Cultivate.Coop, which you can read, build upon, share, and implement.

Cultivate.Coop is designed to be a collaborative resource for the cooperative community. By harnessing the power of the internet as well as putting our diverse set of strengths, knowledge, resources, and skills together, we can create powerful means for people all over the country – and even the world – to learn and practice cooperation.

How can you utilize and take action with Cultivate.Coop?

• If you know it, share it! Cultivate.Coop already has articles ranging from meeting facilitation methods to self-management techniques, anti-oppression resources for cooperatives, steps to starting a cooperative, writing and using cooperative mission statements, and much more.  But there’s a whole world of cooperative knowledge out there, and we need you to expand these articles’ depth. Need help learning how to edit Cultivate.Coop? It’s easy, just check out our tutorial here. Or simply read some articles and learn what the community has to share!

• Learn about co-ops; teach about co-ops: Besides being a space to build and read articles on all cooperative subjects, Cultivate.Coop is also a place to collaboratively develop and employ educational resources for cooperatives and cooperation. You can see what’s already on the site that will help you teach about co-ops as well as what you and others can use to learn more about co-ops. If you have educational resources for co-ops and cooperation, please share them on Cultivate.Coop and help grow the educational capacity of the co-op community.

• Build it and fix it: Should there be articles on co-op subjects that are currently missing from Cultivate.Coop? Then get the ball rolling by starting an article! Do you see a fact or claim that’s inaccurate? Help improve Cultivate.Coop by fixing it! See our editing tutorial here.

• Talk, talk, and talk some more: If anything, Cultivate.Coop is built to be interactive. And that doesn’t stop at creating articles and powerful educational materials. Built into each article and resource page is a Discussion Area that will allow you and others to discuss the content as well as to collaborate on how to further strengthen resources for cooperation.

• Pass Cultivate.Coop on: This website is designed to be a collaborative project by and for co-ops and cooperators, existing and aspiring alike. The more people using and contributing to it, the stronger resource it will become.

I look forward to seeing you on Cultivate.Coop and working with you to build a powerful resource for a new economy.

In cooperation,
Brian Van Slyke
Cultivate.Coop Project Director

P.S. Some more tidbits:

• Did you know that Cultivate.Coop has a feature that will transform any page into a printable version? This makes it easy for you to print and share articles, resource lists, handouts, workshop facilitation instructions, and more. Just look for the “Printable version” button on the left hand side of the website.

• We will still be adding a few more features and making a few more aesthetic changes to Cultivate.Coop over the coming week, so keep your eyes peeled for changes!

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Watch Cultivate.Coop’s demonstration video.
Read the Cultivate.Coop blog.
Follow Cultivate.Coop on Twitter.
Like Cultivate.Coop on Facebook
Make a tax-exempt donation to Cultivate.Coop today.

December 10th: Cultivate.Coop’s Launch Date

Mark your calendars: Cultivate.Coop is launching its beta website on December 10^th, only a week from today!

What can you do?

Well, first, get excited. Then, second, tell a friend, colleague, and/or family member about Cultivate.Coop and help spread the word! If they haven’t heard about it yet, you can send them this introductory link. The more people using Cultivate.Coop, the bigger an impact it will have for the cooperative community.

Finally, keep an eye out on December 10th! We’ve already received a number of contributions in content and educational resources. But we will need your help to build articles as well as to expand and improve upon existing materials. Together we can collaboratively create powerful content and resources for cooperators and co-ops, existing and aspiring alike. Together we can democratize knowledge for democratizing our economy.

In the mean time, we’re still accepting contributions in content and educational resources for the site before it launches. And, of course, let us know if you have any questions.

P.S. The website is currently going through a testing-phase. We still have a few spots open, so if you’re interested in participating in this process, please send us an e-mail at cultivatecoop AT gmail DOT com. Your contribution will help strengthen Cultivate.Coop.
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Watch Cultivate.Coop’s demonstration video.
Read the Cultivate.Coop blog.
Follow Cultivate.Coop on Twitter.
Like Cultivate.Coop on Facebook.
Make a tax-exempt donation to Cultivate.Coop today.

Cultivate.Coop Newsletter #1: An Exciting Time – Help Strengthen the Cooperative Community

Dear friends of Cultivate.Coop,

This is an incredibly exciting time: Cultivate.Coop’s launch is only a few weeks away.

Our goal is to make information on all things cooperative radically more accessible, as well as to collaboratively build effective educational resources for the cooperative community. We’re forging a space where cooperators from across the country can work together to share and harvest cooperative knowledge; discuss how to utilize this information and explore ways to practice cooperation; and strive alongside each other to create, develop, and utilize educational materials on co-ops.

Yet, in order to make Cultivate.Coop a truly useful and powerful tool for the cooperative community, we need your help. The more resources and information on the Cultivate.Coop website, the better suited it will be to impact a broad community of existing and aspiring cooperators. Do you, your cooperative, or your co-op organization have any materials you can contribute to Cultivate.Coop before it launches? Can you write a short “stub” (one to three paragraphs) to begin an article on Cultivate.Coop’s wiki? Anything you can share will go a long way towards making cooperative information more accessible to anyone from aspiring cooperators to college students, educators, cooperative developers, community organizers, high schools, entrepreneurs, existing co-ops, and much more.

By pooling our knowledge, we can make co-ops a more viable reality for those seeking to start a co-op, explore the option, or work with others to build a cooperative economy. By pooling our educational materials, we can help people teach about co-ops in communities and schools, and we can empower groups to educate themselves and their friends on cooperative practices.

So, please, help us in our mission of strengthening the cooperative community by freeing knowledge and building useful tools for cooperation. If you’re interested in contributing to Cultivate.Coop, see our original announcement here. See our content wish-list here. See our educational resources wish-list here. All you have to do is send us an e-mail (cultivatecoop AT gmail DOT com).

P.S. Have questions about Cultivate.Coop? Check out our FAQ or send us an e-mail. Want to get our newsletters in your inbox? Just send us an e-mail!

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Watch Cultivate.Coop’s demonstration video.
Read the Cultivate.Coop blog.
Follow Cultivate.Coop on Twitter.
Like Cultivate.Coop on Facebook
Make a tax-exempt donation to Cultivate.Coop today.

Just Added: Frequently Asked Questions

Hey there! We’ve just added a new page to the blog, Frequently Asked Questions about Cultivate.Coop – so check it out here. Or simply click the tab below the blog’s banner.

Announcing: Cultivate.Coop – Support the Project Today!

Announcing: Cultivate.Coop

Cultivate.Coop is a new, innovative tool by and for the cooperative community. It is an online and interactive hub for developing knowledge on cooperatives and skills in cooperation. With Cultivate.Coop, cooperators and cooperative allies can pool their knowledge to collaboratively increase the amount of information on co-ops freely accessible to all people, as well as build useful and effective educational resources for the cooperative community. In fact, using this website is an act of cooperation in itself, as people develop and expand it based on their own experiences and insight for everyone’s gain.

To see Cultivate.Coop in action and find out how it may useful for you, please watch our demonstration video by clicking here http://bit.ly/bNkc62. (Or visit our website at www.cultivate.coop. )

Cultivate.Coop will go live in late November 2010. To stay up to date with Cultivate.Coop, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and read our blog.

P.S. Want to stay in the loop with Cultivate.Coop by e-mail? Send us a message at CultivateCoop@gmail.com with your e-mail address and name.

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Support Cultivate.Coop

Cultivate.Coop is an online hub for sharing knowledge and resources on cooperatives. It is a space to collect information and build educational tools for the co-op community.

In order to make Cultivate.Coop an effective and powerful tool for the cooperative community, we need your support before the website launches in late November. You can help Cultivate.Coop strengthen the cooperative community by supporting the project with knowledge, educational resources, and/or funds:

1. Help us gather content. Write one to three paragraphs on a specific cooperative subject. This can range anywhere from topics such as decision-making processes in co-ops to the history of co-ops, cross-sector cooperation, the story of Mondragon, how to start a co-op, co-ops as a tool of community economic development, where and how to raise funds for starting co-ops, etc. If your personal focus is within a specific sector, i.e. worker-cooperatives or grocer co-ops, your contribution can focus on that area. Every contribution will help us make more information on co-ops freely available to everyone. To contribute content or discuss the possibility, send us an email at cultivatecoop@gmail.com! Interested in participating but not sure what you’d write about? Send us an email and we’ll work with you to think of something. Or you can view our content “wish list” here.

(All information and resources donated to Cultivate.Coop will be licensed under a Creative Commons license.)

 

2. Help us collect resources for teaching and learning about co-ops. Have you put together a handout, a workshop, a lesson plan, a curriculum, or anything else for teaching about cooperatives and cooperation? Have you constructed a tool that helps individuals or small groups learn about co-ops? If you contribute these materials to Cultivate.Coop, many more cooperators and aspiring cooperators will be able to put them to use. What’s more, other individuals can collaboratively build on these materials to make them more impactful resources for the co-op community. To contribute materials, or discuss the possibility, send us an email at cultivatecoop@gmail.com! You can also view our educational resource wish list here.

 

3. Help us raise funds for our efforts to cultivate the cooperative community. A donation of $5, $10, $15, $25, or even $250 will go a long way towards ensuring that Cultivate.Coop is a powerful tool for strengthening and advancing co-ops and a cooperative economy. All your donations to Cultivate.Coop are tax-exempt, thanks to the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI), our non-profit fiscal sponsor. In addition, this project is being built by co-ops and co-op organizations, so any money that you contribute will stay in the cooperative community.

 

To make a Paypal or credit card donation, click here (or go to http://bit.ly/9CCrHR ). Alternatively, you may send a check to: CDI, PO Box 244, South Deerfield MA, 01373 with “Cultivate.Coop” in the memo line.

 

Any individual that supports Cultivate.Coop in one of these three ways before the website launches in late November will be featured on a permanent “Thank You” page. If you are a member of a co-op or a cooperative organization, we will list your cooperative/organization at the top of the page with a brief description and link to your co-op’s website.*

 

Finally, keep in mind that not only is this resource being built and implemented by cooperatives, but Cultivate.Coop is also guided by a growing Advisory Board. This board is composed of individuals from co-ops and co-op organizations and will maintain Cultivate.Coop’s dedication to and usefulness for the cooperative community.

 

* If you would like to support Cultivate.Coop but would prefer to not be listed on the Thank You page, just let us know.

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Watch Cultivate.Coop’s demonstration video.
Read the Cultivate.Coop blog.
Follow Cultivate.Coop on Twitter.

Like Cultivate.Coop on Facebook.

Make a tax-exempt donation to Cultivate.Coop today.

 

 

 

Donate to Cultivate.Coop

In order to make Cultivate.Coop an effective and powerful tool for the cooperative community, we need your support before the website launches in mid-November. You can help Cultivate.Coop strengthen the cooperative community by supporting the project through the contribution of content, educational resources, and/or funds (read below):

Help us raise funds for our efforts to cultivate the cooperative community. A donation of $5, $10, $15, $25, or even $250 will go a long way towards ensuring that Cultivate.Coop is a powerful tool for strengthening and advancing co-ops and a cooperative economy. All your donations to Cultivate.Coop are tax-exempt, thanks to the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI), our non-profit fiscal sponsor. In addition, this project is being built by co-ops and co-op organizations, so any money that you contribute will stay in the cooperative community.

To make a Paypal or credit card donation, click here (or go to http://bit.ly/9CCrHR). Alternatively, you may send a check to: CDI, PO Box 244, South Deerfield MA, 01373 with “Cultivate.Coop” in the memo line.

 

Help us raise funds for our efforts to cultivate the cooperative community. A donation of $5, $10, $15, $25, or even $250 will go a long way towards ensuring that Cultivate.Coop is a powerful tool for strengthening and advancing co-ops and a cooperative economy. All your donations to Cultivate.Coop are tax-exempt, thanks to the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI), our non-profit fiscal sponsor. In addition, this project is being built by co-ops and co-op organizations, so any money that you contribute will stay in the cooperative community.

 

To make a Paypal or credit card donation, click here (or go to http://bit.ly/9CCrHR ). Alternatively, you may send a check to: CDI, PO Box 244, South Deerfield MA, 01373 with “Cultivate.Coop” in the memo line.

Educational Resources Wish List

In order to make Cultivate.Coop an effective and powerful tool for the cooperative community, we need your support before the website launches in mid-November. You can help Cultivate.Coop strengthen the cooperative community by supporting the project through the contribution of content, educational resources (read below), and/or funds:

Help Us Gather Educational Resources

Have you put together a handout, a workshop, a lesson plan, a curriculum, or anything else for teaching about cooperatives and cooperation? Have you constructed a tool that helps individuals or small groups learn about co-ops? If you contribute these materials to Cultivate.Coop, many more cooperators and aspiring cooperators will be able to put them to use. What’s more, other individuals can collaboratively build on these materials to make them more impactful resources for the co-op community.

To contribute materials, or discuss the possibility, send us an email at cultivatecoop@gmail.com! You can also view our educational resource wish list below:

(All information posted on the Cultivate.Coop will be licensed under a Creative Commons license.)

Wish List

Please check back often, as this will be updated as we add more items to the wish list or as we check some off as contributions come in.

• Cooperative Economy (Workshop)
  
• Decision Making Processes in Worker Cooperatives (Workshop)
  
• Member Rights and Responsibilities in Consumer Cooperatives (Handout)
  
• Management in Grocery Cooperatives (Handout)
  
• Management in Worker Cooperatives (Handout)
  
• Conflict Resolution in Cooperatives (Workshop or Handout)
• History of Cooperatives (Workshop or Handout)
• Health Care in Cooperatives (Workshop, Lesson plan, or Handout)
  
• Environmentalism and Cooperatives (Workshop, Handout, or Lesson plan)
  
• Unions and Cooperatives (Handout)
  
• Student Cooperatives (Handout)
• Internal Capital Accounts (Handout)
  
• Meeting Facilitation (Workshop)
• Cross Cooperation (Workshop)
  
• How to do Market Research for your Co-op (Workshop, Lesson Plan, or Hand out)
  
• Obtaining Start Up Capital for Cooperatives (Hand out)
• Cooperative Movement (Workshop, Lesson Plan, or Hand out)

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Watch the Cultivate.Coop demonstration video.
Follow Cultivate.Coop on Twitter.
Like Cultivate.Coop on Facebook

Have you put together a handout, a workshop, a lesson plan, a curriculum, or anything else for teaching about cooperatives and cooperation? Have you constructed a tool that helps individuals or small groups learn about co-ops? If you contribute these materials to Cultivate.Coop, many more cooperators and aspiring cooperators will be able to put them to use. (All information posted on the web site will be licensed under a Creative Commons license.) What’s more, other individuals can collaboratively build on these materials to make them more impactful resources for the co-op community. To contribute materials, or discuss the possibility, send us an email at cultivatecoop@gmail.com! You can also view our educational resource wish list here.