Platform Co-op Directory
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At a glance

Co-op types

Worker cooperative with a digital platform

Sectors

Community Organizing Consulting Co-op Development Design Technology: Data Processing Technology: Internet Service Providers Technology: Software Engineering Technology: Web Service Providers Translation

Stage of development

Phase 3: Growth and glory

Number of workers

8

Worker distribution

Co-located

Number of members

11

Years in operation

5

Legal status

None provided.

Scope and impact

Geographical scope of users/clients

Regional

Number of people impacted

50000

Description

ChiCommons LWCA is a worker-owned, multi-stakeholder cooperative, registered as a Limited Worker Cooperative Association in the state of Illinois. We are a) documenting and developing the cooperative movement in the Chicago region and b) rebuilding the Internet from from the ground up. Our cooperative map and directory lists over 800 cooperatives, solidarity organizations, and associated organizations in the Chicago region. We started building this resource in 2016 from a variety of local source material and have maintained and grown it for the past five years. A major development project is underway to build a platform for owners to enter their own data. ChiCommons data is shared with Data Commons Cooperative, so that users of find.coop can find cooperatives around the world BlockShare envisions a neighborhood-scale communications platform built, owned, operated, and trusted by its stakeholders that provides solidarity, shared benefits, and digital equity. Our mission is to seed and foster technology tools for a local peer-to-peer economy. We are piloting a project in the South Shore Community Area of Chicago, IL USA to provide wifi connections to the Internet. Along with access to the Internet, we plan on developing hyper-local platforms to provide tools for neighbors to share their garden produce, time, talents, tools and rides with each other. We support these projects by offering business and technology services to the small and medium enterprise market as a consulting agency (https://chicommons.com). Our works possess broad and deep skills in all aspects of business and technology, and we have successfully attracted our first clients.

Challenges

Developing cooperative best practices

Finding funding

Competing for market share

Founders and members

Founders

  • Steve Ediger

    roles:

    Coop Founder

    Coop Member

    Researcher

    Community Builder

    Service Provider

    location: Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
    languages spoken: English

Members

  • Steve Ediger

    roles:

    Coop Founder

    Coop Member

    Researcher

    Community Builder

    Service Provider

    location: Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
    languages spoken: English

Tools used

  • Paypal

    Finances - Payment from customers
    8 organizations use this
    Pricing: Not provided
    License: Not provided
    Languages: None provided
  • WordPress

    Developer tools
    14 organizations use this
    Pricing: Free
    License: GPL-2.0
    Languages: English
  • Zoho

    Customer or member relations
    2 organizations use this
    Pricing: Paid (one-time)
    License: Not provided
    Languages: English

Source code

https://github.com/chicommons

Last updated: March 5, 2021

Contact

Business address

2619 E 76th Ave
Chicago, IL 60649
United States of America