Gregory's ServerAnybody know of a #cooperative (#coop) that has members around the world, in several jurisdictions? How would one go about that?
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 @J12t not sure what kind of coops you're looking for but I was just listening to a conference talk about Igalia, a coop with people across the globe https://www.igalia.com/  @J12t you can just start a California coop. Non-residents can be members. For #CoSocialCa we restrict membership to Canadian residents because most privacy, copyright, consumer protection etc. laws apply nationally. It's hard enough to run a good service domestically without having to deal with remote members. But different coops have different needs. @evan Are you certain about out-of-state (out-of-country?) members? I seem to have read something in the statute that sounded very much it was an in-state only thing under california state law, but then I'm not a lawyer and have not spent much time on it yet. WA state per advice of our lawyer, Michael Droke, who wrote this book Cooperative Business Law: A Practical Guide to the Special Laws Governing Cooperatives https://a.co/d/9tCi7z5 Looking forward to reading more about @HelloCoop 's employee member class for our international worker cooperative @agaric, and more about the user member class for Drutopia #LibreSaaS websites cooperative! (Sounds like most of the complexity is for investors, which is vital for many but probably isn't in the cards for us.) Are there public bylaws or similar for hello.coop? (What do people or organizations looking to join get shown?)   @J12t @evan https://site.techsupport.coop/about/ appears to have members in both the US and Canada (I don’t know if those two countries in particular make it easier?) - One of the founders is giving a presentation on #COOP’s at #FOSSY right now! that's a salient question! there ought to be a Mondragon style coop run as anarcho-syndicalist international voluntary consortium. something that does not automatically pump dollars to the usual banks and moguls, but rather feeds, clothes, and nourishes people everywhere.  Do you know about https://www.sange.fi/en/info, @osma? (I see you're listed as board member for 2019 but no updates on what happened after that.) :D |
@J12t As a maybe somewhat unusual (but huge!) example, there is SWIFT: https://ncbaclusa.coop/blog/did-you-know-swift-is-a-cooperative/
Also, the European Union has established a legal form specifically for cooperatives with members in more than one EU country: the European Cooperative Society (SCE), https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/proximity-and-social-economy/social-economy-eu/cooperatives/european-cooperative-society-sce_en