Over the past 12 months, we at TESA have been focused on helping to build the cooperative economy in concrete, practical ways.
And we have to recognize that work hasn’t happened in a vacuum. We’ve been operating amid deepening global instability, widening inequality, and the steady normalization of authoritarian politics. At times, it has felt like pushing against systems designed to exhaust people who are trying to build something different. But if anything, that context has made the work feel more urgent.
So we wanted to share how we’ve been actively strengthening the co-op movement over this past year, what we’ve been building alongside partners, and what we’re learning as we go.
Launch.coop
Launch.coop has been part of TESA’s orbit since 2016. Over the past year, that long, slow groundwork begun to take off.
At its core, Launch.coop exists to lower the barriers to starting cooperatives. Too often, new groups are forced to choose between expensive professional services or generic startup advice that doesn’t reflect cooperative values or structures. Launch.coop was imagined as a third path: a tool that helps groups navigate complexity, not avoid it.
Over the past year, Launch.coop formally organized as a co-op of co-ops, with TESA as a founding member, and secured grant support from One Project to develop a minimum viable product (MVP). That MVP, currently in development, is focused on four interconnected areas: business planning, financial projections, governance, and policy.
Users will be guided through a series of onboarding questions—something closer to a decision tree than a form—connecting them to the right tools and resources, and prompting them, at the right moments, to reach out to lawyers, CPAs, co-op networks, or other service providers. The goal is for groups to come away with a business plan, financial projections, governance documents, and policy proposals they can actually use.
We believe Launch.coop has the potential to meaningfully shift how co-ops get started, and we’re genuinely excited about the work ahead in 2026.
What we’re taking away from this work: Building movement infrastructure takes patience. Tools that actually support co-ops can’t be rushed, and they can’t be built from a purely technical perspective. They have to be grounded in lived experience, shared ownership, and trust between organizations.
How Can We Make More Money? – Financial Education Kit
Another major thread of our work over the past year has been pushing financial education inside organizations beyond surface-level transparency.
The How Can We Make More Money? Financial Education Kit has been years in the making, developed in collaboration with A Bookkeeping Cooperative and kiran nigam (formerly of AORTA). Over the last 12 months, we’ve been deep in testing, refining, and preparing the toolkit for wider release.
The kit is designed for small to midsize organizations (roughly up to 30 people) that want more meaningful participation and shared understanding around financial decision-making, especially when it comes to money, budgets, and resource allocation. It creates structured ways for groups to talk about money, tradeoffs, sustainability, and shared priorities, without requiring everyone to become an individual finance expert.
What we’re taking away from this work: Democratic ownership can break down when money becomes a mystery box. Shared financial understanding isn’t a “nice to have” for co-ops, it has to be viewed as part of the core infrastructure. When people understand how money works, they make better democratic decisions.
Cooperative Development Training Program
TESA has worked as a technical assistance provider for the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI) since 2016, and 2025 marked our second year helping to design and facilitate CDI’s Cooperative Development Training Program.
The program is designed to support people who want to start co-ops, and to build the skills needed to become co-op developers themselves, so they can support others in growing their cooperatives. In 2025, the program expanded from a one-year model to a three-year commitment, with monthly sessions and two in-person, day-long trainings.
We deeply enjoyed our role as designers and facilitators. It was energizing to meet and work alongside so many co-ops and community organizations from around the world, and to learn from the breadth of experiences participants brought with them. We’re looking forward to continuing the program into its second year in 2026.
What we’re taking away from this work: There’s no single “right” way to build a co-op. Training programs work best when they create shared language and frameworks, while leaving room for local adaptation and experimentation.
Co-op Clinic Projects
Over the past year, TESA continued serving as a Peer Advisor in the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives’ Co-op Clinic, supporting both startup and existing cooperatives with technical assistance.
One highlight from the year was our work with a multi-stakeholder flax farming and processing cooperative, where we supported their governance and policy development.
Over the past few years, we’ve become increasingly engaged with multi-stakeholder co-ops (where more than one group democratically owns the business), and that work has been especially energizing. We see enormous potential in this model to reshape our economic landscape, addressing multiple economic and social challenges at once. Our ongoing collaboration with the USFWC continues to be both motivating and deeply inspiring.
What we’re taking away from this work: Complex problems often require complex ownership models. Multi-stakeholder co-ops can sometimes demand more upfront work, but they open the door to deep alignment and long-term resilience.
UHAB Housing Curriculum
Over the last year, we wrapped up a multi-year collaboration with the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) to overhaul and expand their housing co-op curriculum.
UHAB was formed in 1974, and is a city-wide non-profit housing and tenant advocacy group in New York City. This project was at the intersection of a lot of our expertise: co-ops, curriculum audits, and curriculum redesigns. What initially started as a project focused on their NYC based co-op curriculum evolved into a larger project adapting and redesigning their curriculum to suit national audiences and help bring their housing co-op model around the country.
What we’re taking away from this work: Local cooperative knowledge doesn’t automatically scale, but it can travel when intentional work is done to identify what is universal and what’s contextual. Turning deeply local practices into regional or national models requires slowing down, listening closely, and being willing to adapt rather than standardize.
NCBA Co-op Training Portal
Over the past twelve months, we also worked closely with the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) and a national team of co-op developers and educators to build an online training portal aimed at supporting cooperative development in underserved communities.
TESA led portal design and user experience, and developed more than 40 workshops for the platform. The goal has been to create an accessible, practical learning space that meets people where they are, rather than assuming prior knowledge or resources. While it isn’t live yet, we’re looking forward to seeing the project come to fruition later this year.
What we’re taking away from this work: Strong national systems don’t replace local organizing, they amplify it. Our goal has to be to build shared infrastructure that strengthens on-the-ground work (rather than overriding it). The co-op movement in the US doesn’t need one singular model; instead it needs shared tools that can bend, stretch, and respond to the realities of different communities.
Looking Ahead
Across all of this work, one thing has become increasingly clear: building the co-op economy isn’t about a single product or program. It’s about steadily strengthening the connections between people and communities. The only way for us to build a cooperative economy is by connecting all of our cooperative islands.
The past 12 months have reaffirmed our belief that cooperative infrastructure, education, and shared tools are essential to long-term movement building. We’re excited to keep pushing this work forward, alongside partners who are committed to building a cooperative economy together.
Got a project for the cooperative movement that you want to work with us on? Drop us a line here.