In this report, Project Equity, the California Center for Cooperative Development, and Sustainable Economies Law Center provide an in-depth look at the cooperative landscape in California, focusing on three types of cooperatives that are particularly well situated to help address the biggest crises facing our communities: jobs, housing, and childcare.

Dedicated sections on worker cooperatives, housing cooperatives and childcare cooperatives convey the presence and impact of these coops across the state, and provide recommendations to grow California’s cooperative economy, with calls to action for government, philanthropy and employers.

An introductory chapter presents an overview of the history and principles that have shaped cooperatives, the national organizations that support them, and policy opportunities to help cooperatives flourish. This is followed by separate chapters that discuss the landscape of worker, housing and childcare cooperatives, the ecosystems that support them, examples and profiles of successful coops, and recommendations to grow the cooperative economy. Additional features of the report include a review of the statutes that guide the formation and operation of cooperatives as well as up-to-date lists of California cooperatives in each sector.

We also produced separate reports on each type of cooperative (worker, housing and childcare) with the same content as the full paper, and the addition of annotated bibliographies. The full report, a stand-alone executive summary, and the worker cooperatives report can be found here on Project Equity's website.