Solidfund for the movement 2022

Just to add my 10p, As useful as it is to focus on: The what - "The Product" It's also useful to clarify The Who, who will contribute, why will they contribute what is the size and nature of that market. In cheezy business speak what is the "product market fit". Solidfund is built to appeal to a worker co-op type person, so be clear what type of person you want to appeal to (hopefully not the exact same type) and build a model that appeals to that type of person.

Totally agree. Product market fit is not at all cheesy, and highly important.

My recollection is that the fund was to be a Co-operative Development Solidarity Fund for co-operative development. The what, is a fund to pay for Co-operative Development and the who (will contribute) is those who have a Solidarity commitment to the Cooperative Movement - ie co-operative businesses. I think the fit is good - though as Martin mentions Richard Bickle and Vivian Woodell haven't been able to get this through their Board's (if they have tried?).

I have mentioned at Co-op events (AGMs, Conferences etc) for some years that in Italy, since 1992, three percent of a co-op’s profits have been placed into co-operative development funds. These funds are used to help create new co-operatives, develop existing ones, and to convert private firms into worker co-operatives. It offers practical solidarity and a good way to evidence Co-operation among Co-operatives.

I think this is worth continuing as an ask individual Societies and to continue to try and get the idea adopted across the movement.

Development Coop have a Share Offer https://development.coop/share-offer/ which is aimed at Coop Development funded by individuals and it may be the Solidarity fund could get some philanthropic deposits. However, self-help within the movement seems appropriate.

@John Merritt the Development Coop share offer document specifies a minimum of £75K to be raised by 11 October - was this achieved?

@Martin Meteyard the date has been put back but the document not yet changed. I am not sure of the current level and will try to get it posted in the Dev Coop Loomio thread

For clarity. There was a desire that whatever we created in terms of a common fund would be attractive to retail societies and their members. The point hasn't been reached where it was felt that there was something that could yet be marketed to that constituency. In effect what P6 has done so far has been a minimum viable product to test the ideas and process. So there hasn't been a failure to connect with retail societies as no attempt has been made.

Another question: will this fund be simply a grant-making body (like SolidFund), or look at the provision of finance more widely (e.g. loans, which has also been raised as a possibility on occasion in SolidFund)? If so - or even if not - is there a connection to be made with Co-operative & Community Finance as part of this discussion? Loan finance (or a blend) may be something that retail societies would be more interested in. These thoughts arise from coming across Shared Capital Cooperative in the USA, a fund owned by and primarily invested in by cooperatives: https://sharedcapital.coop

I must admit that I thought that this fund was aimed very much at co-op development.

For anyone that doesn't know, the large retail societies set up and continue to support the Co-op Loan Fund which supports existing and new start co-operatives, often lending at high risk and with little security. This fund will only lend to co-operatives, has about £1.6m available to lend and is managed by Co-operative & Community Finance. I've always seen us (Co-op Finance and Co-op loan Fund), the P6 fund and Solidfund as being complementary to each other with P6 providing development expertise, Solidfund training and perhaps small grants with CCF/Co-op Loan Fund coming in to provide larger amounts of debt finance.

@Ian and @Martin the fund was originally envisaged as a grant fund to support co-op development - ie the money that could get a group to the stage of taking on loan finance. So yes it could work like the REACH fund with CCF or the ancillary developmental support for LEAP (Loans for enlightened agriculture).

However it's all up for discussion and everything is on the table.

I would like to throw onto the table that hopefully, Development Coop would provide the Development expertise rather than P6. It would be a duplication if both were offering Coop Development services. Currently, P6 and DC have two joint Directors (Graham M and Josef CD) and each co-op is a reciprocal member of each other.

I would not like to close down provision to one organisation. Some P6 Members are not Development Coop Members but are providers of co-op development expertise. Not just Co-op Development Bodies but also co-ops who are leaders in their sector and might be able to provide the right technical support.

I don't think that P6 is proposing that it should provide the development expertise, which exists across the movement rather than within any one organisation.

@Nathan Brown (Co-op Culture) The thrust of my point is that Dev Coop is a multi-stakeholder Consortium Coop for Development Bodies, Co-operative Development Workers and supporters, created to deliver Coop Development Services, Platform 6 was created to provide resources (especially finance) for Co-op Development. Duplicating roles and services can be less effective than specialisation, though of course, not always.

As a consortium DC has many bodies, and is not just one. Furtther the multi-stakeholder rules allow for other Development Service providers to be members (we have so far unsuccessfully tried to attract legal and accounting services), so perhaps the sector leaders of co-op development services in tech, housing, agriculture etc. should be encouraged to join DC as well. However, I do think some of the funds should be accessible by organisations that arent members of DC (including coops that arent CDB's) and my point was P6 was not created to deliver Cooperative Development Services (though I know at times the thought has been discussed).

I still do think that Dev Coop members should be prioritised or be in some beneficial position vis a vie P6, in order to encourage co-operative working amongst CDB's, Coop development service providers and supporters.

However, it may be that like Trade Unions and Credit Unions there will be various groups that align and dont align to a mainstream associations, and I do think we should be looking at DC and P6 being mainstream leaders of English Co-operative Development workers and resources.

Although I was not 'in the room' when DC was set up, I am sure I am revisiting some of the same things that were discussed at the time. My understanding is that P6 was set up to address the short comings that lack of contracts created for DC and I think it would be helpful to stay with these purposes for the time being.

I never understood that P6 was set up to address shortcomings in DC.

Telling my co-op - a Co-op Development Body - that it has to sign up to DC to provide services to P6 of which it was a founder member is coercive IMO. I have other words to describe it

Hi Nathan and all,

I think the short comings were in coop development income streams not in DC.

Also, there was no intention of implying only members of DC can provide CDB services to P6 or anyone else. The thread, I believe is about the 'Solid Fund for the co-operative movement'. My position remains that the fund should be ambitious in its attraction to the wider cooperative movement and should support Co-operative Development on a wide scale.

DC was created to provide that bigger scale co-operative development offer and Platform 6 and DC should be working together to make this work.

I don't disagree that DC and P6 should work together but I don't subscribe to prioritisation for DC Members. Being a P6 Member should be enough.