Northwest Cooperative Development Center

Northwest Cooperative Development Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has helped people start and strengthen cooperative businesses since 1979. Its service area is Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and it gives particular attention to resident-owned communities, home care agencies, and conversions of existing businesses into worker or member-owned cooperatives.

For manufactured housing the work runs through ROC Northwest, which supports residents of manufactured home communities in Washington and Idaho as they form a cooperative business, secure financing, and buy the community they live in. The center provides facilitation, advising, and analysis through each stage of a project: exploration, feasibility, structure, formation, and operations.

After a purchase the center trains boards and members on governance, on member rights and responsibilities, and on reading cooperative financial reports. It also offers bylaws review, budgeting and pro forma work, business and marketing plans, crisis management, and an operational health review using the Co-op Index tool kit. Education runs through the Co-op Academy, homecare cooperative workshops, and cooperative principles training, and a subscription program has been added.

Financing comes from the center's revolving loan fund and partnerships with cooperative lenders, and the site states that personal guarantees are not required. NWCDC is an active member of the National Cooperative Business Association, the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, and CooperationWorks!, and works from a mailing address in Olympia, Washington. Ask which assistance is grant-funded and which is billed before scoping a project.