Vernice Walters - Gorman Houses and Phoenix Community Garden, Brownsville, Brooklyn - “Being a part of CEANYC’s Seeding Solidarity map made me feel the power of our movement. It helped me see the revolution we can make happen when we work together.”
An amazing number of co-ops and community-controlled groups call NYC home - and they’re on the rise. These democratic solutions for how we eat, shelter, work, and bank are essential in the fights for racial, gender and climate justice and can guide us to the post-capitalist future we all need. Join CEANYC in building that robust ecosystem to support them all and really challenge the status quo economy by donating today.
As CEANYC supporters know, community wealth-building in black and brown neighborhoods can't happen in a silo. This movement is not something a single organization can hold, so investing in a solidarity economy means investing in grassroots peer-to-peer infrastructure.
CEANYC works with our members to build bridges to one another, through:
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Research - What and where these groups are, and who leads them
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Convenings - Spaces for groups to deepen relationships, ground themselves in solidarity economy principles and coordinate - economically and politically
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Matchmaking - Invitations for groups to prioritize working and doing business with one another, plus tailoring their pitches to get it done
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Rosa Franco - Neighborhood Trust Federal Credit Union, Washington Heights - “Our cooperative movement is bigger and broader than I ever knew. Learning more about the cooperative principles made me realize that we need to keep educating our membership to make them more active and committed. Working with CEANYC has been a real eye-opener and we have so many ideas about how to collaborate with worker owners, cooperative housing and bring awareness to Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx. Let’s stay connected!”
CEANYC provides direct services to people building community wealth now through our 6-month Cooperative Leadership Intensive (CLI) which uses a peer-to-peer model that is such a core part of the cooperative tradition that its mentioned in two of the principles: “member education” and “cooperation among cooperatives.”
This year’s 2023 CLI cohort - our 4th - has been our most ambitious, bilingual and successful. It includes 6 affordable housing co-ops, 5 worker cooperatives, 3 community development credit unions, and an event space co-op - all firsts for the CLI.
But what has this amazing cohort worked on these past six months?
- Finding common challenges and solutions for the problems they face
- (Re)grounding their work in cooperative and solidarity economy principles
- Matching group needs to group offers and centering that vast potential for mutual aid within our movement
- Leaders telling the story of their leadership: how we got here and where we’re going. i.e - “Where am I in this movement and where else do I want to be?”
- Planning walking tours in the neighborhoods where these groups are the densest
- Building concrete economic ties and joint purchasing plans between groups
- And so much more
Denise Hernandez - Cooperative Homecare Associates, The Bronx - “CEANYC's Cooperative Leadership Intensive (CLI) was an incredible opportunity to learn about other co-op sectors, like food, housing, and finance, and appreciate the commitment and passion of the people that manage them. We often struggle with a lack of resources in our cooperatives, but now I see our fellow co-ops are a key part of the resources we’ve needed all along.”
Your generous gift supports things like:
- the essentials for our convenings - space, food, facilitators, interpreters, stipends for working-class participants for our upcoming 2024 Cooperative Leadership Intensive, and ongoing post CLI 2023 cohort meetups
- our ongoing NYC Solidarity Economy Digital Storytelling Project
- a newly hired Program Associate and other future CEANY staff
- 2024 CEANYC shwag to get our movement’s message out there
The 2023 CLI cohort - May 3rd, 2023 @Prime Produce - Hell’s Kitchen
Your gift of
- $100 - gets us one hour of Spanish-language interpretation
- $500 - one delicious lunch for a 20 person cohort to re-energize
- $1000 - 25 awesome CEANYC t-shirts to spread the word about our unique work
- $2500 - production costs of one of our videos featuring the our member-leaders
- $5000 - five stipends for working-class participants to be compensated for their time and take on the role of peer educators
Join us and make a powerful impact toward our $80,000 fundraising goal. We all have a role to play in releasing the abundance of cooperation.
We're also happy to join The NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives (NYC NoWC) in inviting you to our “Spring Into The Solidarity Economy” Co-op Fair and Mixer happening on June 28th at The People’s Forum from 6-8pm! Please RSVP here.
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT US
- Donate. Every dollar counts.
- Sustain. Become a regular CEANYC monthly supporter.
- Share. Pass this page along to your friends and networks.
To learn more, visit gocoopnyc.org.
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