News

Democratic workers' control is about creating decent jobs and workplaces - and a crucial part of the wider movement to halt the social, economic and environmental devastation being inflicted by private capital on communities everywhere.

The more we're able to grow and strengthen networks of worker cooperatives, the more we can design and provide goods and services in a way that responds to people's real needs and aspirations, instead of the drive for profit.

A tall order? Maybe. Is there an alternative? We don't think so. Solidfund may be a small piece of the jigsaw, but there are plans to do more.

Bryn Davies and Anthony Scott from Kitty's Launderette in Liverpool are being sponsored by Solidfund to go on the next Barefoot co-op adviser training, along with Sam Nordland from our sister organisation workers.coop

The Barefoot training aims to equip those who already have experience of founding or working in a primary co-op, with the skills to become the worker co-op organisers and advisors of the future.

For the first time, we made an open call to members to propose people they thought we should back to go on the programme.

Thanks to our subscribers, this year's Worker Co-op Weekend in Derbyshire was able - for the first time in eleven years - to provide professional childcare and put on a programme of kids' activities over two days. The effect on the whole event was transformative.

Solidfund agreed £2,000 to fully fund two places for worker cooperators on the Barefoot programme, to give them grounding and training to become co-op organisers and business advisors themselves. The programme takes on 15 people in each cohort, and will run for six months starting in September 2025.

Solidfund members approved a £10,000 distribution to Hempen, a worker cooperative based in Oxfordshire whose mission is to grow and cultivate UK based organic hemp "for the health of the people, rural communities and the land."

Solidfund agreed to donate £4,000 to the Gaza Crisis Fund set up by Yalla, a transnational worker co-op based in Palestine. During the emergency and invasion, the co-op's focus shifted from delivering projects to supporting worker members surviving in refuge, and helping rebuild their lives when the war ends.

SF members voted to subscribe €5,000 for co-op shares in GFF (Ex-GKN for Future) shares, to support workers at the former GKN automotive drivetrain factory near Florence to take control and convert the plant to socially useful production.

Independent news channel The Canary, which converted to a worker co-op last year, is using a £3,000 distribution from Solidfund to buy time to navigate a tricky transition from an advertising-based to supporter subscription revenue model.

Fund members voted £2,775 to update and secure Kate Whittle's classic guide on practical governance in cooperatives, 'From Conflict to Cooperation'. Originally published in print only, it has been comprehensively revised.

Members debated and approved a £5,000 distribution to MyCool Class, to help with the growing pains of recruiting new teachers and students to the world's first international platform learning workers' co-op.

Members voted £7,000 towards startup costs for Selgars Mill in Devon - the first residential events and organising space for co-ops in the UK since the Co-operative College sold Stanford Hall more than twenty years ago.

Solidfund members supported and helped organise Cooperation Jackson's UK speaking tour in the spring, and voted money towards startup costs for a new All-Ireland solidarity economy network.