Full Transcript
AGENDA GOAL:
Creating a matrix for comparing and contrasting different models of cooperative like structures
For people coming in from the outside that might be able to troubleshoot their options in terms of what the structure might be like
The idea is that we want to target functions and values that we hope to derive from the coop structure.
Informal go around on coops
Resources:
- University of Wisconsin has a center for the study of COOPS
- Worker owned coops - a ton of information coops
- Mondragon - commercial coop that has been tremendously successful - started with workers
- Historical coop was a group a weavers
- NCBA CLUSA
- Enspiral - based in New Zealand - started as a workers coop of tech developers.
- EVA - Ride sharing
- Country Natural Beef - marketing, distribution, resources -values based, members must achieve certain measures.
Coops are really good at fulfilling needs that the coop members don’t want to do
Thousand hills - Minnesota marketing COOP
Differentiate for their members
Functional requirement for coops - strong statement of non financial values - minimize profit or surplus
Different types of structures that can serve similar challenges
- DAO
- Joint stock corp - C corp - legal innovation was the way to carve out shareholders
- LLC started in the late seventies - differ from a C because you can have shareholder but they cant be swapped out - pass through tax only
- MOst coops in the US is in only a few states and is typically just a C corp
- A DAO may have no legal basis - there is no org to point at - in practice the court still sees people and everyone is liable
- LLC - you can make multiple operating agreements -
- THere are good frameworks for making DAO’s real by attaching them to LLC
Is there an agreed criteria for a coop?
Principles of coops are set out and agreed upon by members.
- voluntary and open membership
- democratic membership member controlà
- member economic participation
- Members contribute equitably and democratically control the capital of their coop
- autonomy and independence - controlled by members
- education training and information
- cooperation among coops
- concern for community
There are types of coops
- consumer coop
- worker coop
- worker members
- producer coop
- Housing coop
- tech Coop
- Tool coop
What is GOAT?
- a conference and a forum
- stability is something that is a problem
Some challenges with GOAT
- Held by a few key individuals that hold major institution knowledge
- Challenges with funding something like GOAT
- if is not funded it can disappear
- When there is an org with no funding there is no org
- And there are expenses
- Sheer volunteer hours to put on this conference
- open source non profit good work seems synonymous with not caring for yourself
- We need something to provide stability
There are other things that GOAT can do that are things people might not want to do.
In 2018 there were ideas of what we might do as a GOAT
If we are trying to maximize the sharing of value - we need to take seriously how well open up around this
how can we have a better coop for organizing a conference coop
Risk
- How do coops mitigate financial risk - ie carbon credit space - how can coops be an instrumental tool in buffering risk - what other tools can we deploy to mitigate financial risk
- Robber Bank -because it has been around for a while it has created a risk buffer for transforming risk
- How to think about risk
Baby Goat and Goat adjacent
- How can we participate in a GOAT structure in California - why do we
- GOAT KID = knowledge interaction distributor
- A legal structure would make things easier to fundi
- is it sustainable long term
- We can get a physical sponsor
- we need to associate
- GOAT is more than just a conference
- How do we fund a year of GOAT - there are many costs associated with this.
In the passed all the organizers have all put up money
COOP takes all of this and makes it more
It is no longer held up by spit and glue
Structure and governance
At least one of the benefits of a formal organization is that university and institutions now have a things to interface with that allows them to partner easier
Data and trust is needed in any structure
- stewardship of data
- we have for profit
- research,
- communities
- How do we aggregate and trust data
- Create a structure that fluidly allows for participation and data
Membership models?
- ACademic societèes that run conferences need a publisher arm to create revenue
- 501c3
- Trade unions have another structure - they can use their collective weight to make change
May need to codify the relationships
Pro-social draws on the work of Elinor Ostrom.
Natural way to move toward a common objective and the legal structure will fall out at the end.
- Values and principles need to be brought to light and focused on.
- If GOAT is just a conference and meeting than maybe this works
- Top heavy structures and bureacracy is not what we want
- When you are talking about a conference - insurance, liability etc. Something has to own that account and there needs to be someone they are accountable
- From a structural standpoint of a conference a small spinoff organization that can be done to organizati this
Machine COOP Example
- Soil Steamer Coop
- We worked with 5 farms to set up a coop
- this group of 5 farms will own this coop
- It provides a safety valve and support that can
Having projects to prototype in a COOP
- Can anyone propose a use case that we could prototype
- The conference itself is a perfect idea - a project
- GOAT as a year long event
Some commons needs of members:
- We all share a lot of the accounts -t there are lots of things like legal and trademark
- For example legal could be sharded
- Marketing would be great
- another function is UI design
- shared resource could be of use
- software talent pool - people that can move around
- Having someone at understand the domain
- help on identifying new hires
- HR
- Soft funding
- Sharing resources - shared seasonal workers
- how to create a culture of maintenance
- forum moderation for contributors
- Another consideration we might have mentioned
- if we are looking to some kind of philanthropic funds
- plus a grant writer.
Other possible structures
- Is there a 501 c3
- Oregon agricultural land trust
- Double organization structure
- MAPS - has raised 100 million plus and houses that in another org
So you could have one structure that increases membership engagement and another that facilitates things
Try to figure out what the set of actions are and what is the minimum set to start with
- viability - financial
- actionable thing - forma legal entity based on agreed principles
- that has basic coop member structure
- that allows participants to get paid
- to reduce liability for conference next years
IF that is all you do - that is an incredible framework for expanding its scope for next year
This isnt broke dont fix it - but does this ask too much from people
We don’t want to participate and attend something that is unfair and painful to some.
Membership
Revenue generating potential -corp group to pay dues
Is everyone a member
How do we describe membership
We are actively trying to bring people into organizing this
Funding
OurPsy was used to funnel securing and shipping money through in the past
Open collective
Question: How is what we are doing not achievable through Open COllective
We cut a lot of stuff out from our budget
Our goal is to support anyone that wants to come - including travel, and other things
Even from this year we had good question and conversations - we could have ensured we got more funding from institutions
Could need a community moderator
Nobody suffered in the making of this GOAT
We should use the coop for things that it is designed for
WIth an expanded purpose GOAT may do that
It needs to be something more than a conference
We need to add some of the other things to make it worth the time
The forum alone is an all year thing
Could need a community moderator
Other considerations
possible shared resource
We can do this as US only conference
Doing an international version would dramatically increase cost of conference
It wouldn’t raise the cost if there were other ways to contribute to those cost
THere could be member dues - no benefit except to perhaps vote on GOAT
There are big organizations that could help out with this. Orgs that could fund other people to come
THe main thing we need is pay goat herders
We need to be able to coordinate and moderate the community between things
Dues taking off the fee from members
Conference Models
- MOFGA for example is something that does this
- Conference that has built a model of fundraising.
Could we have more of a decentralized GOAT?
- How to do this but allow ourselves to be connected
- Mother GOAT
- This also has happened with GOSH
- perhaps this is a good reason for a trademark
2 Questions:
- What do you need?
- what can you give?
See sharing round above.