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….

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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!

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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Good Water Stewardship

Last weekend I discovered that Blissfest offers free, solar heated showers. Bravo, festival coordinators! It is unusual to see increased amenities, especially with no extra charge. This simple gesture is a great example of how ‘greening’ businesses will be more capable of serving their customer base.

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