Blog

Read about our work building economic democracy in 2025 in our Annual Report. 2025 included progress in co-op housing to Dolphin Tank 2 to our first Power Purchase Agreement with Cleveland Solar Cooperative. Plus check out plans for 2026.

On December 4th it was so exciting to gather with our local co-op community for the second annual Dolphin Tank! We heard pitches from seven new co-ops who graduated from Cleveland Owns’ 16-week incubator program, Co-op U.

It's a season of change and harvest. The trees delight us with their momentary spectacle of warm hues and the weather starts inviting us to burrow. At the same time, tomatoes and other crops are still overflowing with their last bounties of the year. At Cleveland Owns, change and harvest is amidst us as well. It's been an exciting and busy fall for us, filled with celebration, education, hard work, launches, and welcoming new team members.

This Spring/Summer, Cleveland Owns engaged in our biggest educational venture yet…75 participants in three study groups, each highlighting a different “bucket” of focus: cooperative workplaces, cooperative housing, and cooperative energy democracy. Here at Cleveland Owns, we believe that cooperatives are about leveraging collective power, and to leverage collective power, we must build with a basis of collective political education.

In June the Cleveland Owns team joined partners across the state on the Ohio Co-op Solidarity Tour, a journey to visit co-ops in Ohio that are planting the seeds of an economy that works for all.

Learn more about the deep history of Black Freedom and Cooperative Economics with our friends at Cleveland Solar Cooperative

In 2024, Cleveland Owns began delving into the realm of cooperative housing because we know decommodified housing is key to building the solidarity economy. We believe Clevelanders deserve the chance to get out of the rat race of spiraling unaffordability and instead live in at-cost housing they manage for themselves, on their own terms. Plus there is a rich history of co-op housing in Cleveland we wanted to bring forward to point the way.

The Democracy Beyond Elections national campaign recently published a case study on PB CLE's 2023 Issue 38 campaign

We at Cleveland Owns were honored to have Josephine Galdamez on the team as a Yale Environmental Fellow with Emerald Cities Collaborative this summer. Read more about her work with us in her own words!

Last month the ~first ever~ statewide Co-op U started with 18 aspiring worker-owners from Cleveland.

We gathered with dozens friends and comrades in East Cleveland in July to discuss an important part of the solidarity economy: Housing co-ops.

Rust Belt Riders’ warehouse was full of energy and solidarity on May 4th as Cleveland Owns supporters from across the region gathered to celebrate 5 years of blossoming economic democracy. Many thanks to the friends and allies who joined the party - it was fun and restorative to feel the power of our community!