Governance Info / Legal Documents

Bylaws - Qumbya Co-op

These are the bylaws for Qumbya Housing Cooperative (Chicago, IL).  Qumbya is a multi-house system with 3 houses and about 50 members. It has one part-time staff person.

Rent Payment Policy - Qumbya Co-op

The is the Payment Policy from Qumbya Housing Co-op (Chicago, IL) as of 2013.  This policy was created in 2008 out of a response to series of siginificant member debt losses. The policy is relatively strict by co-op standards. It does allow for payment plans, which may be up to 2 months in duration, and must be approved before a debt is accrued, not after. The wisdom gained from the series of losses which we attempted to base this polic on are:

* If a member gets more than 2 months behind on rent, they are very unlikely to ever catch up.

Leadership Cycle

Finding good leaders in a student co-op is not an accidental process.  If your methods for finding and nurturing new leaders are haphazard and less than successful you must institute change or the future of your co-op is at stake.  Good leaders are not found, they are grown. Potential leaders must be identified early in their time in the co-op, they must be encouraged and nurtured.  Most of all they must be rewarded for their involvement through success and recognition.

Sample Co-op Bylaws

These sample bylaw can give you an idea of some simple boilerplate language for incorporating your coop.  Of course, a coop should get these bylaws looked at before submitting them, but these should give you a good idea of what you may want to do, and let you change things where you need to do so in order to make these match your needs.