A Cooperative Entrepreneurship Curriculum

Collecting Ourselves

The curriculum walks participants through an examination of the philosophy and practice of cooperation, the meaning of "development" and "entrepreneurship" in their lives, the steps required in starting a cooperative business, and an exploration of two of the most important steps - organizing people into a Steering Committee, and creating a Business Plan. All activities use Popular Education methods, drawing directly on the expertise and insight of participants to guide the learning process.

"Collecting Ourselves" is comprised of 9 full workshops encompassing up to 16 hours of cooperative entrepreneurship training - the curriculum can serve as content for a semester class in university, be used in regular community study groups, or be fodder for a retreat-style academy. It was developed for youth (teens to 30s), but is modular and adaptable for most age groups (as well as for identities, experiences, etc).

This license lets others remix, tweak, & build upon work non-commercially - as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under identical terms as this original resource.

LICENSING

"Collecting Ourselves" is open source and free (both its usage and price) - licensed formally with the Creative Commons as a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, & build upon work non-commercially - as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under identical terms as this original resource.

Downloading and Ordering Information

Thanks to the open licensing of this resource, "Collecting Ourselves" is available to everyone for free as a pdf download, as well as for the cost of printing and shipping in hard copy format. If you value the curriculum and the work being done to create more accessible cooperative development resources, please consider donating to Northcountry Cooperative Foundation here via GiveMN.

Order a Hard Copy (at cost)

If you would like a durable, spiral-bound, hard copy booklet of the curriculum at cost, you can purchase it via the online store of Toolbox for Education and Social Action (a worker cooperative of educators). Additionally, keep your eyes out for hard copies being vended at conferences and events near you!

Download a Digital Copy (for free)

You can download the Full Curriculum & Appendix (176 pages).
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