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New Executive Director for KCH

I’m excited to write that the KCH Board of Directors has appointed Matt Lechel to be KCH’s new Executive Director. Our extraordinary friend and founder, Michael Gregor, will continue to be an instrument of change in his new position as Director of Communications for Equality Michigan.

Matt has all of the qualifications needed to facilitate members of the KCH Board and the KCH houses in their efforts toward achieving their shared goals of sustainable homes, democratic communities, and exemplary rates of expansion…

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Keep your Cooperative Competitive: Start a Business

Although living in a cooperative should be the cheapest housing option, it does not always work out to be so in reality.

Some expenses (like a mortgage, payments to a landlord, or debt from major renovations) outweigh the savings that you gain from collective purchasing power. So, how do you make your cooperative less expensive? Start a business! It may sound crazy, but read on, friend. I have a success story.

In 2008, Kalamazoo Collective Housing started an apparel company called Grassroots Goods. Grassroots Goods produces organic cotton shirts (manufactured in the United States) with several attractive designs (printed in Kalamazoo, Michigan). The shirts are sold in bulk to retailers around the state, who have had a great deal of success selling our niche product….

To read the other three sections of this article, visit us at our new location!

Why cooperative housing should be the cheapest housing…

Why should living in a cooperative be the cheapest housing option?

To increase your cooperative’s inclusivity: Cooperatives often stand for progressive principals. “Being inclusive” is often one of those principals, and that one that members have the most trouble enacting. To make a change, look no further than your fees! By reducing the expense related to becoming a member, you also reduce the classist (wealth based) barrier that prohibits some people from joining your organization. (Within reason,) it is the responsibility of the current members of a cooperative to ensure that all people have the choice to participate in the cooperative in the future…

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Fundraising: The Lifeblood of your Non-profit and its Community

One subject that likely no one in a community gets excited to talk about is fundraising, especially in a volunteer-powered organization. The kind of thinking, planning, and professionalism that are required to obtain grants from corporate donors and individual or group philanthropists are not a high priority for a volunteers’ downtime activity. And while events like concerts and bake-sales seem to require less investment, the cash return is often less, and the number of hours that organizers actually invest often exceed what was projected.

Despite its dreariness, a good fundraising program is essential to a Non-profit, and there are a few tricks that you should keep in mind to make the process easier, more lucrative, and more fun. To see this article in full, please take this link to our new location!

Spirituality & Cooperation: Organizing in Boston

In Boston, Massachusetts, a group of seven people are creating the model for the Lucy Stone Cooperative (LSC). LSC seeks to be a presence that gives back to its community through living out Universal Unitarian values. Other issues that LSC organizes around are sustainability, affordability, and cooperation.

LSC is raising funds to purchase property. Through years of planning, LSC has been gaining in member numbers and mission clarity. Some members of the planning team have been working for as long as five years. Others, like Hilary Lake, a former member of Kalamazoo Collective Housing, joined the team about one year ago.

Our site has moved, but you can still read about LSC. Visit the article at our new location!

An event for you…

Cultivating Democratic Institutions;
Introductory Workshop on Racism and Anti-Racism.

WMU, Multicultural Center
(Trimpe Building)

January 29
11am-5pm
(Lunch Included)

Register in Advance www.kalamazoo.coop

The purpose of this workshop is to provide an introductory process for participants to explore and deepen their understanding of systematic racism and to begin to investigate ways to more effectively dismantle racism within their institutions. Specifically, workshop participants will:

• Explore common language and definitions to understand the continuing issue of racism throughout our country;
• Understand racism as a systemic issue, and not simply an issue of individual attitudes and actions;
• Explore approaches to dismantling racism that can provide a foundation for enduring solutions that lead to true racial healing, equity, and justice.

This workshop is conducted in an atmosphere of mutual respect, caring and safety, and is not based on confrontation, guilt and/or judgement.

Loan Modification Scams

On June 16, Kalamazoo Neighborhood Housing Services (KNHS, INC.) held a symposium on the issue of “loan modification” scams.

If you know that you are headed toward foreclosure, others know it too. Predatory lenders seek those who are listed as going into foreclosure on public forums and databases.

KNHS is a nonprofit that serves low-to-moderate income neighborhoods in and around Kalamazoo County. Their educational services, offered at no cost, are designed to help people prepare for an upcoming purchase, manage their finances, and achieve other goals. In addition, KNHS offers foreclosure counseling. In some cases, KNHS can award grants to individuals in danger of being foreclosed upon.

According to KNHS, loan modification scams are routinely offered to homeowners under threat of foreclosure. Loan modification scams have been an issue for decades. They are still very common. About 15% of KNHS’s clients have been victims of a scam.

Our article goes on to list ways of avoiding becoming a victim of foreclosure scams. Please see it in full length at our new location.

Cooperative Decision Making

The Fletcher Collective operates on consensus. Consensus can be thought of as a direct democracy – the kind of democracy that your Social Studies teacher may have told you about just before explaining what the Electoral College is all about…

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Get Between the Pages

The Fletcher Collective is hosting a monthly reading group. We meet on the second Thursday of every month. On May 13, we’ll gather in our yellow living room to talk about David Foster Wallace’s “Good Old Neon.”

You are invited. The reading group is accessible, no matter what your confidence level. We take the perspective that no ideas are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in literary criticism. There’s no conclusion to interpretation.

The reading group is participant lead. From the selection of the readings to the format of the discussions, everything about the group is democratically determined. We’re open to anything – you name it: fiction, comics, non-fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction – what we’re especially into is first-rate recommendations. What readings do you want to talk about?

The reading group is moderated by a member of the Fletcher Collective. The moderators role is principally to ensure that anyone who desires to speak gets a chance. To make sure that things get off on the right foot, a member will also come prepared with a few prompts. Bring your own list of questions, too. We’re interested in your ideas about the text. Each perspective, or ‘take’ on a reading gets us closer to full knowledge of a text, and different perspectives are most quickly discoverable when many people are contributing to the discussion.

We’ve had the leisure to use an unguided discussion format. Our meetings have been, let’s say, ‘intimately sized.’ However, as we grow, we may try different styles. I wanted to get an idea of how other reading groups are structured, so I looked for online resources that list different formats for reading group discussions. I didn’t turn anything up. Let us know what your reading group experiences have been like, we’re curious to know what works. Or, if you bump into a website that’s worthwhile on your daily surf, post a link.

I did find general information on book clubs at this website. On this website, I found a list of different discussion styles for the classroom. I think that the formats titled “Posted Dialogues” and “Circe of Voices” look like they’d be amusing and productive if adapted for a reading group.

Poster by James Gleghorn