211. Developing New Cooperatives Part II: Obtaining Tax Exempt Status for Your Co-op
David Rosebud Sparer, Herrick & Kasdorf, LLP
Not every coop is entitled to exemption from federal taxes, but if your coop is why not take advantage of the exemption. Learn how to obtain tax-exempt status. We will also briefly cover the general requirements for incorporation, though the rules vary state by state.

221. Basic Elements of Housing Coop Finances
Corinna Kimball-Brown, Portland Collective Housing
Mandy Shapiro, ICC Ann Arbor
A finance workshop for non-finance people. This is for folks who want an introduction to the concepts of managing an organization's finances. Participants will leave with a better understanding of how coops of different sizes organize their financial information and present it to members for decisions.

222. Board Roles and Responsibilities
Layla Ananda, NASCO consultant, Arbor Small Business Solutions
Are you a member of your board? Do you understand what you responsibilities are? This workshop will explore the roles and responsibilities of boards and their directors. It will focus on Board governance along with planning, communication, and decision making.

231. Community Asset Mapping
Rebecca Nole, NASCO Education Board, Riverwest Food Co-op, ICC-Ann Arbor Alum
This workshop is an introduction uncovering and highlighting the strengths within your community as a means for sustainable development. Through this course, we will define asset mapping, review various methods and then focus on the community assets approach starting with the resources that we each bring to the table. Our goal is to learn how to ask what your community has to offer in order to begin the process of bringing and developing the knowledge, skills and talents out into the open, where they can work together to everyone's benefit. As the map of assets grows, so does the potential of a community.

232. Tools for Engaging Your Members: Member Education and New Member Orientations
Thomas Butler, College Houses, 21st Street Co-op
Kim Penna, College Houses, NASCO Education Board
Adrien Vlach, MSU Student Housing Cooperative
Alix Black, Berkeley Student Cooperative
A good new member education program can be the cornerstone of an effective membership. Why? Because setting healthy expectations is the key to having members to cooperate, and it's your best inoculation against predictable co-op conflicts and membership problems. Beyond the new member orientation, effective member education is a catalyst for building healthy co-op communities and keeping members engaged in the co-op.

Join us for a participatory session in which we present several models from three different co-op systems for communicating the essentials to members and keeping them engaged in cooperative education. The presenters have experience working with smaller to large student co-op systems, group living co-ops, and apartment co-ops. In addition to the nuts 'n bolts topics-co-op structure, labor system, where to get more information- of new member orientations, some additional topics of interest include dealing with drugs and alcohol, handling emergencies, and creating safe spaces. Presenters will also highlight creative member-driven education projects around sexual assault and harassment, harm reduction, safe space, and environmental education education.

233. Finding Money for Housing in Your City
Brian Donovan, ICC Austin
The course examines sources of funding for new housing projects including corporate structure and how that limits funding possibilities. We will talk about how to learn about funding sources in your community and gain access to the funds for your project. Financing a new co-op or a major renovation is hard work. This course can help make sure you do not overlook any possible funding sources and save you time in your efforts to finance your project.

234. How to Promote Your Co-op for Cheap...or Even for Free!
Jim Ellinger, Austin Airwaves, Inc.
Looking for ways to promote the good work of your co-op or community group. Jim will share years of experience in getting the word out for little, or even NO money, via publicity events, press releases, co-hosting events, radio and TV shows. Plus how to deal with the "straight" corporate-owned media. This workshop has been offered at five previous NASCO Institutes.

241. Anti-Racist Organizing Part 1: People of Color Transcending White Supremacy
kiran nigam, US Solidarity Economy Network, US Social Forum, former NASCO Staff and Board member
How does it affect us as People of Color to live in a culture of white supremacy? How do we join forces to organize for racial justice? How do we reach a healthy balance between saying what's on our mind, educating those with agency, and drawing our own boundaries? In this workshop we will address these questions, counter internalized issues, and share empowering experiences in anti-racist organizing. This workshop space is for persons who identify as People of Color; it is the first part of a two-part workshop and will be followed by a dialogue with White Allies on how to unite our struggles for racial justice.

242. Anti-Racist Organizing Part 1: White Anti-Racist Praxis
Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, New Orleans Anti-Racism Working Group, NASCO Education Board
Rowan Shafer, The Anti-Racism Working Group- New Orleans
In this workshop we will talk about the ways white folks can build together in accountable ways for racial justice. Assuming participants are already working for anti-racism in their communities, we will interrogate the ways white supremacy and other systems of oppression continue to inform our anti-racist work and work to build collective analysis and responses that challenge these systems. Special emphasis will be on anti-racism and environmental justice. This the first part of a two-part workshop; it will be followed by a dialogue with People of Color on how to unite our struggles for racial justice.

Drawing on lessons from these experiences, we will discuss the benefits and challenges of using integrated, collective and co-operative green design processes to both reduce the ecological impact of our houses and constructively engage our broader communities.

243. Restorative Justice in our Communities: Working With Perpetrators of Sexual Assault
Jenna Peters-Golden, Beth Blum, Devin O. Saurus, kane, Esteban Kelly, Philly Stands Up
The violence of our individualistic and alienating society surfaces in even the most radical of spaces. It is imperative that we develop the skills of conflict resolution that strengthen our communities and ground us in our commitment to them. Restorative/transformative justice is the alternative to the state's punitive "justice" that perpetuates cycles and systems of violence without promoting healing. As Philly Stands Up, we work with perpetrators of sexual assault to support them in ending patterns of abuse. This workshop will look at the processes we use to hold perpetrators of sexual violence accountable for their actions, as a model for using restorative/transformative justice in our communities.

We will discuss our philosophies of healing justice; the history, tools, and goals of our group; our methods of sustainability, and how and why all cooperative communities can use restorative justice strategies. We will spend time going over the key elements of establishing a group or process around sexual assault in your community, while honing in on helpful and relevant strategies to create as productive, healing and empowering process as possible.

251. "Green" Worker Owned: Why We Organize for the Planet and the People
Andi Shively, Third Coast Workers for Cooperation
This workshop will explore the intersection of race, class, and ecological sustainability in the development of worker cooperatives. As more and more people gravitate toward the "green economy" as a solution to our economic and ecological woes, it is important for people in the cooperative movement to offer a more democratic and sustainable model for the development of "green-collar jobs" and technology. We face a unique opportunity to link the development of democratic workplaces to the values of social and environmental justice. The planet and the people are not mutually exclusive stakeholders in our changing economic and ecological world.

The workshop will attempt to identify and discuss what the "green" movement is and how it is a natural compliment to the cooperative movement. We will then synthesize as a group how to strategically draw ties between the two through networking the cooperative business community with base building organizations.

253. Reclaiming the Commons Part I: Worker-Owned Cooperatives in a Post-Industrial City
Steve Dubb, The Democracy Collaborative
Jim Anderson, Ohio Employee Ownership Center
Ed Code, Evergreen Cooperative Laundry
Learn how worker co-ops are being used as the centerpiece of a community revitalization strategy in Cleveland, Ohio. The "Evergreen" network of co-ops being established includes a loan fund (patterned after the Caja Laboral of Mondragon, Spain) and an industrial-scale worker co-op laundry that aims to employ 50. Other enterprises, including a community newspaper, a solar cell installation co-op, and an urban greenhouse are in development. Steve Dubb of the Democracy Collaborative will moderate a panel of participants who will discuss how the project has developed and how the co-ops are addressing the many challenges they face.

261. Waste Reduction and Prevention for a More Sustainable Cooperative
Camille Bishop, Berkeley Student Cooperative
Anika Fassia, NASCO Education Board
If you have an interest in sustainable living come listen and talk about what different coops are doing to make themselves more environmentally sustainable. The focus of this discussion will be on waste reduction, reuse and prevention as a part of our daily lives. We will share and collaborate to find strategies to integrate this into the structure of our cooperatives on any scale.

271. The Corporate Takeover of Organics
Will Fantle, The Cornucopia Institute
The meteoric growth of the organic marketplace was built on a loving partnership between consumers and family-scale farmers-but that's now breaking as powerful corporations, enabled by the USDA, hunger for their piece of the organic pie. Find out how consumers, co-ops and farmers can join together to defend the integrity of the organic label.