Hi all -
Here at Cleveland Owns, we’ve got lots to celebrate from 2019. We’ve incubated five cooperative businesses, along the way working with some 50 aspiring member-owners. We hosted our first Community Solar Fellowship, and brought together another 50 people at our launch party in October.
Each is a step towards building a city owned by its residents, where people have collective control over financial decisions that affect them, and benefit when those decisions pay off. Thank you for being with us on this journey toward economic democracy in Cleveland!
We have an ambitious agenda for 2020. We’ll continue to organize with people who want to organize their money to demand their share of the region’s prosperity. We’ll conduct our first community capital raises with the Lakewood Community Solar Cooperative and the Detroit Shoreway Solar Investment Cooperative. We plan to launch a new community solar coop in Cleveland Heights, and to publish a policy paper on equitable community solar. We are on pace to acquire land with the Hough Community Solar Garden, launch a cooperative purchasing alliance with faith institutions, and complete a feasibility study for a food coop in Central / Kinsman.
Our focus throughout is on building relationships, culture, and structures that challenge an economic system based on white supremacy and patriarchy, extraction and exploitation.
Your support would help accelerate this work. We’ll put additional resources into training new community organizers to launch new solar cooperatives, jumpstart new community enterprises, and show up with more Cleveland residents who want to practice economic democracy. You can make a tax-deductible contribution here.
Have a great holiday season!
In solidarity,