Investing in the Cooperative Model to Scale Social Impact
Cooperatives are an integral part of the fabric of our economy and have real power to transform communities into strong, vibrant places of opportunity.
With momentum growing around the ability of cooperatives to create economic opportunity for communities, Capital Impact Partners created the Co-op Innovation Award in 2015, designed to further this movement and the impact that cooperative organizations are creating nationwide. Organizations are chosen yearly to receive up to a $50,000, one-year grant to recognize innovative strategies to increase the number of food, housing, and worker co-ops serving communities.
Applications Now Open – Apply by June 12th!
11th Annual Co-op Innovation Award
Through this award, we aim to fund organizations and businesses that are using the cooperative model to foster economic opportunity and address issues facing their community. Priority will be given to co-ops where the majority of members of the community served are living with low incomes.
Winning organizations will receive a one-year grant of up to $50,000 to amplify innovative models that can be replicated locally, regionally, or nationally.
*Eligibility criteria can be found in the application form.
Questions about the 2025 Co-op Innovation Award application? Browse our frequently asked questions or join an upcoming webinar to learn more about our program, application process, and requirements.
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
@ 2:00 p.m. ET
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
@ 1:00 p.m. ET
Interested in sponsoring the award? There are exciting sponsorship opportunities (PDF) for organizations that would like to support the Co-op Innovation Award. For more information or questions, please contact Director of Economic Opportunities, Alison Powers at apowers@capitalimpact.org.
Program Overview
Bringing Co-ops to Scale
Co-ops afford communities nationwide the opportunity to break barriers to success and pursue shared prosperity and self-determination. Capital Impact Partners supports Co-op Innovation Award winners that focus on methods for expanding innovation and impact for communities nationwide through food, housing, and worker co-ops, that drive economic development and job creation.
Active Partnerships
Capital Impact Partners’ community development work is based in the cooperative model. Our history of amplifying the potential of the co-op model for all people – through strategic financing and capacity building – positions us well to work directly with cooperatives to activate and mobilize their models for food, housing, and worker collectives.
Connecting Communities with Influencers
Through the award, Capital Impact Partners acts as a bridge between the co-op community and foundations, impact investors, community development organizations, and policy makers. This provides a platform on which to showcase promising models and attract other grant dollars, policy change, and public interest.
Proud Sponsors of the Co-op Innovation Awards
Changemaker
Cooperator
Sponsorship opportunities are available for organizations that would like to support the Co-op Innovation Award. Contact us to learn more.
Measured Impact
We track and measure transformation in and among the communities we support. This ensures that the investment of capital and commitment translates into real, sustainable change. Ultimately, these efforts support the work of cooperatives to build communities of opportunity.
Financing
$300M+
Projects
219
Customers
870,000
Meet Our 2024 Co-op Innovation Award Winners
Community Purchasing Alliance Cooperative
Community Purchasing Alliance Cooperative is a network of local cooperatives that leverage the buying power of community institutions. They have local co-ops in Washington D.C., Massachusetts, and Ohio as well as cooperative purchasing in Connecticut, Illinois, and across the country.
Montana Cooperative Development Center
Montana Cooperative Development Center (MCDC) is a statewide resource for cooperative development working to build and enhance the cooperative ecosystem in Montana. MCDC’s work includes the formation of new cooperatives to meet economic and community needs, and providing quality services to the existing cooperative community.
Red Emma’s Cooperative Corporation & Red Emma’s Education Fund
Red Emma’s Cooperative Corporation and Red Emma’s Education Fund are a 20-year worker-owned cooperative restaurant and bookstore in Baltimore, as well as an education 501(c)(3) established in 2023.
Commongrounds Cooperative
Commongrounds Cooperative uses real estate to support communities in Northern Michigan through properties owned cooperatively by local communities, expanding ownership and wealth building opportunities for local residents.
Previous Year Awardees
2023
2023
The Compost Cooperative
The Compost Cooperative in Greenfield, MA, is a worker-owned cooperative that turns food waste into compost. The cooperative provides job training and ownership opportunities to formerly incarcerated individuals.
Northwest Cooperative Development Center
Northwest Cooperative Development Center is an organization based in Washington state that is devoted to assisting new and existing cooperative businesses in every sector with a special emphasis on Resident Owned Communities, home care agencies, and converting existing businesses into worker-owned or community-owned cooperatives.
Rock Steady Farm
Rock Steady Farm in New York sustainably grows high-quality produce and makes it available to communities in the Hudson Valley and New York City that lack access to fresh, healthy foods. The farm seeks to disrupt and address the interconnected issues facing community-rooted farmers in a way that supports the prosperity of the communities they serve.
Birthmark Doula Collective
Birthmark Doula Collective is a grassroots worker-owned cooperative focused on improving maternal health and perinatal outcomes for communities in New Orleans. The collective, which operates as New Orleans Breastfeeding Center, centers and uplifts the experiences of people who experience issues accessing maternal and reproductive health care.
2022
2022
Northside Residents Redevelopment Council
Northside Residents Redevelopment Council based in Chicago is an alliance of housing cooperatives helping to build a world where every community benefits from resident-controlled housing. They are establishing a pilot housing cooperative working with residents of apartment buildings facing displacement and gentrification to provide training, and give them the tools to buy the properties and create cooperatives.
North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO)
North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) based in Chicago is an alliance of group-equity housing cooperatives helping to build a world where every community benefits from resident-controlled housing. They are establishing a group-equity cooperative for housing primarily for Cambodian refugees and their families in Stockton, California. This pilot works with tenants’ unions and residents of apartment buildings facing displacement and gentrification to provide training, and give them the tools to buy the properties and own them through the group-equity model.
The Industrial Commons
The Industrial Commons in Morganton, NC funds and scales employee-owned social enterprises and industrial cooperatives. Their project, Seat at the Table, takes the need for skilled labor and turns it into a multi-layered business that trains workers to become upholsterers, one of the highest paid jobs in furniture. Their long-term vision is to create a direct-to-consumer furniture manufacturing co-op whose member-owners will come from the training program.
Pilsen Housing Cooperative (PIHCO)
Pilsen Housing Cooperative (PIHCO) – started by artists and families in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood – helps owner families secure affordable homes, earn equity and build wealth, and build leadership skills. To support its expansion, PIHCO is acquiring a third property, a “generator building” that will help make the co-op’s ongoing growth sustainable. By buying the building via donations rather than debt, PIHCO can then use the building to help fund subsequent acquisitions and supplement capital improvements across its portfolio.
Beloved Community Incubator
Beloved Community Incubator is a nonprofit co-op incubator in Washington, D.C. They support the Vendors United Food Cooperative, a group of street food vendors in Washington, D.C., starting an online, cooperatively-owned marketplace to sell their food.
2021
2021
Co-op Cincy
Co-op Cincy is an organization that fosters cooperative development in Greater Cincinnati. They are piloting a three-month co-op development course enabling co-op entrepreneur teams to launch their worker-owned businesses successfully and provide feedback to create a “train-the-trainer” course..
Co-op Dayton
Co-op Dayton is an organization that fosters cooperative development in Dayton, Ohio. They are supporting Unified Power, a real estate investment co-op that organizes the residents of West Dayton to own and control land and development in their neighborhoods; create quality, affordable rental and homeownership opportunities; and revitalize commercial and residential streets.
Collective Remake
Collective Remake in Los Angeles is an organization that supports the creation of worker-owned businesses and other kinds of cooperatives for people who have been incarcerated and/or excluded from the mainstream economy. Their programs include a Train the Trainers Program that will engage trainers with lived experience to facilitate participatory cooperative workshops; a Co-op Development Program to support start-up cooperatives; and a Wellness Hub that will focus on barriers to reentry and mental health services.
Custom Collaborative
Custom Collaborative in New York City is an organization that supports workers with the tools and platform to lead in the creation of new solutions for the fashion industry. Custom Collaborative launched Fashion That Works Production (FTWP) that will be used as a pilot for the fashion industry, expanding the capacity of their visual education platform which includes on-demand and live interactive lessons.
Cooperation Humboldt
Cooperation Humboldt is an organization based on California’s North Coast that runs a no-cost, six-week, project-based educational program for aspiring cooperative entrepreneurs. It will train cooperative business advisors from rural communities. In addition, the program will include supportive services like childcare subsidies, remedial education, trauma-informed support, remote community access, and direct capital infusion that will mitigate barriers to worker ownership.
2020
2020
The ChiFresh Kitchen
ChiFresh Kitchen is a Chicago-based worker cooperative delivering prepared meals that are freshly cooked, healthy, delicious, and rooted in the history of the people being served.
The Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative
The Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative is a community-led economic development organization focused on building an economy that creates shared wealth and ownership. BCDI is supporting the creation of a worker-owned integrated pest management (IPM) co-op that provides living wages and the opportunity to scale through demand from institutional purchasers.
The Guild
The Guild in Atlanta is focused on building community wealth through real estate, entrepreneurship programs, and access to capital. The Guild is providing technical assistance through its Community Wealth Building Accelerator; launching its Integrated Capital Fund that will coordinate and deploy different types of capital and investments to entrepreneurs; and launching the Groundcover Community Investment Trust to introduce an alternative real estate development model to the Atlanta community.
2019-2015
2019-2015
Community Labor Environment Action Network
The Community Labor Environment Action Network (CLEAN) is a grassroots, car wash worker-led organization that seeks transformative change to the car wash industry. CLEAN is establishing CLEAN Carwash, a worker-owned car wash cooperative in Los Angeles that prioritizes worker rights, while working for improved pay and working conditions.
Independent Drivers Guild
The Independent Drivers Guild (IDG) represents more than 85,000 for-hire vehicle drivers in New York City. IDG plans to launch a purchasing cooperative that will reduce expenses for drivers, and a worker cooperative to provide community-rooted meals-on-the-go for drivers.
Centro de Trabajadores Unidos
Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: United Workers’ Center (Centro)’s goal is to transform the local economy in Chicago by helping workers to achieve economic resilience through cooperative ownership. Centro is funding a dual-language, train-the-trainer curriculum for both worker cooperative developers and individuals seeking to start worker cooperatives..
Sustainable Economies Law Center (2018)
Supporting residents in the Oakland area, the Sustainable Economies Law Center is incubating the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative. EBPREC is piloting an innovative model that engages everyday people to organize, finance, acquire, and steward land and housing, particularly important for communities in and around Oakland, California that are experiencing rapid gentrification.
Association for Black Economic Power (2018)
Working to disrupt predatory lending practices in communities, the Association for Black Economic Power will create a financial cooperative credit union on the northside of Minneapolis called Village Trust Financial Cooperative. The credit union will provide consumer loans to residents in the local area, as well as technical assistance and financial support for cooperatives throughout Minnesota..
Food Co-op Initiative (2017)
Food Co-op Initiative used its award to establish a program providing support and guidance to the most promising urban food startup efforts. The program includes seed grants, technical assistance, and the creation of a strong support network among participating co-ops.
Project Equity (2017, 2016)
Focusing on expanding its efforts to convert successful businesses to worker ownership, Project Equity seeks to increase access to quality jobs and create wealth building opportunities for workers.
Democracy at Work Institute (2016, 2015)
With more than $40,000 in grants through our Co-op Innovation Award, The Democracy at Work Initiative has spearheaded a national effort to help small businesses transition to worker-owned cooperatives.
We’re here to answer your questions.
Alison Powers
Director of Economic Opportunities
