Newest Resources

Mutual Aid and Cooperatives: Weaving a Lineage of Resistance in Futurework

This collaborative roundtable session engages the principles of solidarity, collectivity, and shared power and equity across mutual aid groups and community cooperatives. Building on lineages of resistance, the facilitators will co-create a discussion of the celebrations and challenges in futurework. This includes knowledge and skill sharing practices in food sovereignty, direct action, and consensus building, etc. and organizing within and beyond the nonprofit industrial complex. 

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PDF icon Nasco2025_Collapse2Cooperation (1) Heather Scarborough.pdf

Flattening the Pyramid: Establishing Non-Hierarchy in Traditionally Hierarchical Staff Structures

Cooperatives exist in a liminal space within American capitalist socio-economic structures. Externally, hierarchy is seen as a norm and standard to uphold. Internally, strong democratic currents demand individual accountability and participation. Staff can be stuck in the middle, relying on structures familiar to external partners in order to generate relationships while at the same time ensuring the mission and culture of the cooperative is maintained to member standards.

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File Flattening the Pyramid_ Establishing Non-Hierarchy in Traditionally Hierarchical Staff Structures Kyle LaChance.pptx

Where do co-ops cooperate best? Real-life case studies of effective coordination, and dangerous terrain

When do cooperatives work well together, and when do they run into problems? This session uses real stories to explore how co-ops can build stronger networks—and what happens when good intentions hit democratic roadblocks.

We'll dig into the activities that make cooperative federations thrive, like shared buying power, pooled resources, joint advocacy, and member education. But we'll also look at the flip side—times when democratic decision-making led to crippling paralysis.

When Boundaries Get Crossed: A Transformative Justice Approach to Consent Violations

Most co-ops strive to be places of care, community, and consensus, but even in co-ops, boundary crossings happen. How do we handle them in a way that prioritizes safety while treating everyone with fairness and respect? How can we create cultures where consent is so normal that major incidents are rare? We want to hear what happens in your co-ops, cross-pollinate ideas, and share our experience running non-punitive Consent Teams that provide communities with education, emotional support, and mediation.

Not Just a Joke or a Question: Unpacking Microaggressions in Cooperative Communication

In co-ops, we often pride ourselves on being inclusive and equitable—but what happens when harm shows up in the form of a joke, a question, or an everyday comment?

This session invites cooperative members to reckon with microaggressions as real structural cracks within our supposedly safe spaces. Drawing from personal experience navigating coded bias, racialized communication, and deflection within cooperative housing, the session will unpack how "small" slights carry big consequences—especially for marginalized members.

Together, we'll explore:

Creating a Co-op Course Track

Session materials from the Creating a Co-op Course Track at NASCO Institute 2024.

With the cost of living constantly on the rise, the demand for affordable housing solutions—like housing co-ops—is greater than ever. NASCO has pulled together a team of experts to take future co-op founders through the process of starting a new housing co-op, from clarifying the initial concept to drafting your business plan. Workshops in this series provide a comprehensive, step-by-step training program on the development process.

Storytelling Time!

Session materials from “Storytelling Time!” presented by Bronwyn Walls at NASCO Institute 2024. In this workshop, we'll discuss how storytelling is a tool for social change and we'll explore a storytelling framework that connects our own personal narratives to the social change work that we are embedded within in our co-ops and beyond. We'll then work together to develop and refine our public narratives related to the power of cooperation. P.S. The stories we create in this workshop can be used for member recruitment, fundraising, grant writing, education, and more! 

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PDF icon Public_Narrative_Worksheet Bronwyn Walls.pdf

Cultivating Connection: Principles to support Facilitation

Session materials from “Cultivating Connection: Principles to support Facilitation” presented by Adrian Roman at NASCO Institute 2024. Facilitation is an important skill in any cooperative. The practical skills are very important, as are the intuitive elements - like when someone may not have felt heard, or when things need to shift direction, how to adapt or allowing emergence. In this session we will experience a Listening Circle. A Listening Circle is an intentional space where we gather to build relation, connection, trust and practice being seen, heard, seeing and hearing.

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PDF icon Listening Circle Coops-1 Adrian Roman.pdf