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

Starting any business is a big step and anyone doing it will do so with certain expectations about how much they're willing to work and how much they want in return, even if the rewards are far in the future or equivalent to a warm fuzzy feeling.

It is absurdly easy to immediately cross any and all of your personal boundaries in the process and to do this consistently for years. We recommend asking yourself these questions to ensure you know what you want your side of the bargain to be. Even if that's crossed or not achieved, knowing what you are aiming for on a personal level is essential to articulate and get into the light of day.

• What are your personal goals for the organisation?

• If you are a solo founder, who else will you ask to join you and what do you want their roles to be?

• If you have co-founders, are you and your co-founder(s) aligned and what do you each want out of the project and what are your expectations of each other? The more you share at the start, the easier it is.

• What role do you want to play in the organisation, in the short, medium and long term?

• How is the initial unpaid effort going to be rewarded? Will it? (For non Local Authority supported founders).

• What kind of day-to-day governance model would you like to use?

• What are your own skills and experience gaps and your strengths - what do you bring? What do you need from others?

• Do you have the time, energy and resources to commit to the work required? This will be a long-term and effortful endeavor. Are your family okay with it? What are their boundaries and needs?

• What are the likely financial impacts on you and your co-founder(s)? Can you afford to commit to the work?

• Do you want to be in charge and how much do you want to be paid?

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.