Founders

Local Authority Founders

A founder is often thought of as being an independent person unaffiliated to any organisation, but we think great importance should be attached to people within councils who get these ideas off the ground. Some fantastic co-ops have been started by councils or with council members playing leading roles. As long as the representation principle remains sacrosanct, with people giving and getting support part of it at every step of the way, there is no reason why councils can't start this work themselves.

In 2022 we were approached by two people living in Middleton, Mark and Kallum. They wanted to turn Middleton into a co-operative town and had big ideas about how to go about this. Kallum, as a councillor, engaged the leader of Rochdale Council on the project.

With Kallum and the Council’s lead officer for community wealth building on the founding group that eventually became Middleton Co-operating, a small amount of financial support from the Council at the very start enabled the founding group to establish themselves as a properly constituted organisation. Since then, some co-operative working relationships with Council officers has helped the work of Middleton Cooperating to progress – in particular, in the areas of community energy, and arts and culture.

When contemplating beginning a co-op or launching a new service model in your area, consider the levels of autonomy and support the founding group might need to start. The public social intrapreneur may or may not be a helpful framing for this work.

Leading Lives, a social care worker cooperative, was established in July 2012 as a spin-out from Suffolk County Council. It was formed with the goal of providing high-quality social care support for people with learning disabilities, autism, and complex needs. The cooperative is employee-owned and not-for-profit, reinvesting any surplus back into services or the local community. The founder members of Leading Lives were council employees who formed the initial leadership team and staff base. The co-op continues to grow and go strong. It hugely benefited in its early years from council support, enabling it to launch as a fully fledged organisation from a standing start.

Community Founders

For community founders (ie, people not working within the shelter of or with access to the resources of a larger organisation), the journey is different and there is more work to do to build a good support network for yourself. Personal boundaries around time, effort and work will likely be crossed more frequently but it is also likely that you will be your own worst master. Founder burnout is real and happens regardless of which sector or organisation type you're working in.

At the beginning of the founder's journey, it is essential to ask penetrating questions about yourself, your motivations, and the support you have. Creating any care organisation is a challenge and involves deep and continual emotional labour. This is especially so for those using alternative governance models such as co-operation, sociocracy and commoning, which all prioritise relationship-building, authenticity and empathy.

Questions to ask of yourself and your co-founders

Goals and Ethos of the Organisation

"What kind of co-operative do you wish to found?"

• What are the primary goals?

• How will people relate to one another?

• How will problems be noticed, raised and solved?

• What do you want to achieve for your community?

• What governance model do you want to follow?

• Does this concept work with the current Local Authority strategic plan?

• What are the first people working with the founder(s) going to do?

• What do you want to achieve for your staff?

• Who is the organisation going to serve?

• What red lines and boundaries will you not cross?

• What are your growth ambitions?

• Who are your members? Who owns the organisation?

Even though this playbook provides possible answers for all of these questions, your responses to each of them must be a clear choice.

The Founders Bargain

At the very, very beginning of starting Equal Care, Emma and Kate had a frank and fruitful conversation with each other about what they both needed in working together: financially, emotionally, pragmatically and where the boundary lines were.

Once the wider founding group came together, they spent two workshop sessions talking solely about money, their personal relationships with it, and what they hoped the new organisation might provide (expectations were low!).

This clarity from all members helped guide the direction of funding bids and the development of the initial freelance contracts to get things off the ground. By putting everything on the table, members’ personal motivations and expectations could be met - or, more importantly, not met - with visibility and honesty from the outset.