Cooperative Development and Lending
Our cooperative development work is centered around the belief that communities have the wisdom and experience needed to create powerful collective solutions to address the structural barriers that we face, and that cooperative development is an important part of creating community power and equity.
PODER Emma provides technical assistance, accompaniment, and lending for the development and sustainability of worker-owned businesses, resident-owned mobile home parks, and community-based real estate investment cooperatives. Our lending is done as a member of Seed Commons, a national community wealth cooperative. Our loan fund has invested over $2,305,000 in community-owned cooperative assets in our neighborhood.
PODER Emma Community Ownership stewards three Cooperative Networks. These networks provide space for peer learning, shared resources, and leveraging of economic collective power.
Housing & Real Estate Cooperative Network
There are four cooperatives in our network that steward a total of 43 permanently affordable housing units and two commercial properties that provide office space to small businesses, and community organizations, as well as a community park.
2. Worker Owned Cooperative Network
There are four cooperatives in our network that engage in peer learning in areas including open book management, coaching supervision, and policy development.
These cooperatives are: