Webinar Resources: Intro to Cooperative Governance & Management

Posted by 6021.60sc on November 18, 2021

How do you spread ownership and control across a group of people? On November 9th, 2021, our Director of Economic Democracy, Ricardo Nuñez, sped through a very short introduction to the principles and practices of democratic governance and management for worker cooperatives and worker self-directed nonprofits in this 30 minute teach-in! Below, you'll find the recording and follow up resources that we shared with attendees.

First, we wanted to give a shout out to the City of Berkeley for funding this presentation and to Kieron Slaughter, Chief Community Development Officer at the City of Berkeley's Office of Economic Development, for showing up and giving some very useful and useable information on how the City of Berkeley is supporting the growth of worker cooperatives in Berkeley and beyond! Thank you!

Second, you'll find the recording of our webinar and a list of resources below that were mentioned on the webinar.

Here's the slide deck, if that's useful for you. Almost all of the Law Center's resources are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0), except where otherwise noted, so feel free to remix and use as long as you attribute and share-alike!
Want to dive deeper into your specific legal questions? RSVP for an upcoming Resilient Communities Legal Cafe! We host them virtually thrice per month with experienced legal professionals and cooperative technical assistance providers.
Check out Co-opLaw.org, an online legal resource library supporting democratic, worker-owned businesses from the Sustainable Economies Law Center and our friends and comrades across the country. Looking for legal resources, including template bylaws and operating agreements? Search Co-opLaw.org! Below are a few links from our teach-in:
- Here's a quick legal bite on How To Make Decisions in a Cooperative.
- Here's a quick legal bite on How to Form a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Corporation.
- See our page on Co-opLaw.org on Cooperative Governance.
- Here's a link to our Think Outside the Boss manual.

Find our worker self directed nonprofit resources for starting, supporting, or cultivating WSDNs here.
Looking for bookkeepers and accountants? Check out our list of California Legal and Accounting Service Providers and search this Service Provider directory from the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives.
Looking for business, policy, and other resources for your worker cooperative? Check out the Democracy at Work Institute, ensuring that worker cooperative development in economically and socially marginalized communities is adequately supported, effective, and strategically directed.
Want to connect with the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives - the only national business association of worker cooperatives and democratic workplaces - and its members? Find out how to join their Slack space here!
Looking for business support for your potential cooperative conversion? Check out Project Equity and their resources, like free 30 minute consultations!
Not enough resources for you? Check many of Ricardo's favorite, go-to resources for worker cooperatives, democratic organizations, and worker self-directed nonprofits here.