US News Covers Cleveland's Evergreen Cooperatives
Executive Director
In a July 21 opinion piece by David Brodwin, US News and World Report described the Evergreen Cooperatives—three worker-owned businesses employing 120 people—as "an innovative model of job creation with the potential to scale up and improve lives across America." That model is based on creating jobs through organizations that will be profitable and therefore self-sustaining and ensuring that those organizations are worker-owned. The model depends on active involvement by "anchor institutions," such as local hospitals and universities, which provided seed capital and contracts for the fledgling cooperatives.
After its 2008 launch attracted national attention, the Evergreen Cooperatives later struggled, but a new management team and an infusion of capital has led to greater success: two of the three businesses, a commercial laundry and a solar retrofitting business, are now profitable, and the third, a hydroponic farm, is expected to reach break-even this year.