Author: Nia Hunter

  • Cooperative Real Estate Series

    Cooperative Real Estate Series

    Are you interested in learning how you can pursue real estate but want to know what your options are to stay grounded in the community?
We are hosting this free 3-part series to help cooperatives and cooperative centered communities learn more about what it takes to form, maintain, and and build different types of real estate models such as:
-Community Land Trusts
-Real Estate Cooperatives
-Community Investment Vehicle

    *** This is a 3-part series so feel free to attend one or more session ***

    Join us May 23, June 6, and July 11 from 5-7 pm. Register HERE

    May 23rd: 5-7 pm

    Red Clover Collective – Housing Collective
    Red Clover Collective is a small intentional community and cooperative, with horizontal democratic governance. For 20 years they have been dedicated to building relationships and lifestyles centered around sustainable living, social justice, and centered values in artistic creation. Christina and Nicholas, members and residents of the community will be presenting this session to dive deeper into the history of Red Clover and how this structure has been a resource for their community.

    South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT) – Community Land Trust
    Founded in 2019, SBCLT is a community-led organization that believes in dignified housing. Their focus is on environmental justice and housing in the process of developing homes to be owned in the Cherry Hill and Curtis Bay areas. They develop quality homes that stay affordable and offer support to homeowner applicants to prevent involuntary displacement within communities that face risk. Makayla, who is involved with the Housing Stewardship will be sharing the in and outs of what this organization does, and offer other resources to connect people to education on Land Trusts within their communities.

    June 6th: 5-7 pm
    Network for Developing Conscious Communities (NDCC)
    A spiritually based leadership and community development network organization. Their focus is in creating strategic-planning efforts to lead a diverse perspective in strengthening the Black governed community development ecosystem. Ron Hantz will be leading this conversation and it will focus on low-income cooperative housing strategies.

    July 11th: 5-7 pm
    Invest York Road (IYR)
    A local project to create community-owned commercial real estate for the purpose of revitalizing the York Road corridor and building community wealth. Join Stephanie Geller and learn about how this Community Investment Vehicle helped the surrounding neighborhoods of York Road as they developed and maintained this project

  • Jim

    Jim

    Jim has worked in small businesses and micro-enterprises for over forty years, and has spent over twenty of those years working with and for worker co-ops and other types of co-ops. From 1999 thru 2009 he served at a DC-area worker co-op as a software engineer, worker-owner, and co-facilitator of its conversion from a conventional enterprise. He’s been a full-time free-lance co-op developer since 2009, actively providing technical assistance to worker co-ops, start-ups, and conventional businesses exploring conversion to worker-ownership. Jim is also a co-founder of the Democracy at Work Network, the technical assistance service of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives from 2011 thru 2018, and supported DAWN as a Peer Advisor and Governor.


    Email Jim
  • Nia

    Nia

    Originally from Colorado, Nia (they/them) has lived in Baltimore since 2005. BRED has been a part of their life since 2017 and they are also a worker-owner of Red Emma’s. Red Emma’s is a cooperatively-owned bookstore, coffee house, and restaurant located in Baltimore Maryland. Through both types of work they hope to provide spaces where statistically marginalized groups of people can feel safe, be seen, and grow through the resources provided by both businesses. Nia is also a muralist and a custom art maker, centering her art around wild and domesticated animals, queerness, and nature. They are a graduate of University of Maryland Baltimore County and currently live in Seton Hill with their daughter and their rescue animals.


    Email Emily
  • Anna

    Anna

    Anna is a Baltimore native with a deep love for the city and dreams for its future as a model of cooperative organization for others. She recently spent time engaged in movement work in Los Angeles, fighting for workers with the labor union Unite Here and toward deconstructing the carceral state through various prison abolition groups. She earned a master’s degree in urban planning and a bachelor’s degree in religious studies, and she recently completed training to become a death doula. When she needs to take a break and reset, she can be found with her massive beast of a cow (dog) Rhea, gently tending her indoor and outdoor gardens, drawing and painting, or escaping on various adventures in the great outdoors.


    Email Anna

    Project Officer

  • How To Give Public Testimony

    Have you ever wanted to propose a bill for something that you are passionate about, but don’t know how to talk about it in front of officials? Public Justice Center has you covered! BRED has partnered with PJC to bring you an event called Giving Public Testimony. The event will show attendees how to give effective public testimony to elected officials by using a bill that BRED introduced in Annapolis earlier this month as an example. The event will take place in the Baltimore Free School located in Red Emma’s. No registration is required.

  • Christa

    Christa

    Christa Daring (they/them) has been with BRED since 2020. Having grown up in Baltimore City they are deeply dedicated to providing equitable and just solutions to local businesses and changemakers. Christa is deeply passionate about popular and participatory organizing models, believing that community knowledge and wisdom is key to building a new world in the shell of the old. They served as the interim Executive Director of SWOP-USA from 2018-2020. They worked at Red Emma’s Bookstore and Coffeehouse from 2011-2017 and Impact Hub Baltimore from 2017-2018. When not pouring over spreadsheets and governance models – Christa can be found snuggled up with a stack of speculative fiction; snuggling various cats or chickens; trying to create the perfect elderberry syrup; or just digging in the garden.



    Email Christa
  • Taji

    Taji

    Taji moved to his father’s hometown of Baltimore in 2016. He has worked in digital marketing, private wealth management, microfinance and small business technical assistance. Today, at Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy (BRED), Taji works with seasoned business owners who are selling ownership of their businesses to their employees, forming employee-owned businesses. He also works with startup businesses that plan to develop as employee-owned cooperatives.

    Recognizing the relationship between the distribution of power in the private sector and that of the public sector, Taji is motivated by the solidarity economy movement to realize economic democracy and deeper, political democracy. To that end, he spent over five years volunteering on the board of an effort to start a community-owned food cooperative in Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood. Taji likes to bike, jog, swim and play basketball. He has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations with a specialization in international political economy from Stanford University.


    Email Taji

    Business Relationship Steward

  • Reflections From BRED’s 2023 Apprenticeship And Academy Programs

    Reflections From BRED’s 2023 Apprenticeship And Academy Programs

    On Friday, December 15th, participants in our apprenticeship and academy programs met in the Baltimore Free School to reflect on how it went and what the next round could look like. These two programs were headlined by BRED members Trish and Jim, and have been taking place in person and virtually since July. Trish and Jim facilitated the final meeting for the cohorts full of reflection, feedback, and future planning.

    The group invited other BRED members to attend the meeting, and we thought we’d share some takeaways. Overall, these programs had a positive impact, and everyone seemed to enjoy learning, sharing, visiting co-ops in New York, and expanding their co-op knowledge. Other things the cohorts loved were:

    • The stipend provided to the participants was much needed and appreciated by everyone.

    • The flexibility of having online and in-person meetings.

    • seeing so many different size co-ops

    Several people agreed that they wished the programs lasted longer.

    Moving forward there is a plan to explore things like a final project, communication between participants about their co-op events, co-op visits, a weekly email and so much more. Congratulations to the 2023 Apprenticeship and Academy cohorts.

    2023 BRED Apprenticeship and Academy
    2023 BRED Apprenticeship and Academy

  • NY Co-op Tour

    Jim and Trish, two of our project stewards, took our Apprentice and academy cohorts to New York for a tour of some cooperatives. They visited Brooklyn Stone and Tile, Donna, Radix Media, and Cooperative Home Care Associates. The cohort members are from several cooperatives that BRED works with, and they asked if they could visit some cooperatives that they aren’t familiar with. A field trip was planned, and off they went! Here are some pictures below, and if you ever have a chance to visit these New York co-ops, please do!

  • Advanced Cooperator Apprenticeship Training

    We help worker co-ops in the greater Baltimore area get the capital they need to start and grow. Our non-extractive lending process helps prioritize inclusion and equity, rather than locking communities out of the funding they need to start owning their economy. Most of us BRED staffers are current or former worker-owners; by combining the financing we offer with in-depth assistance and cooperative mentoring, we support worker-owned businesses and help them get what they need to thrive. By joining with other community loan funds around the country (as a member of the Seed Commons Community Wealth Cooperative), we can unlock more funding and knowledge for Baltimore cooperatives.

    The Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy (BRED) is offering an “Advanced Cooperator Apprenticeship” training to two people in our local co-op network. BRED has obtained funding for this, so these two apprentices will be compensated at $30 per hour for the time they spend learning. 

    Synopsis: We want to give you a front-row seat to everything that Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy (BRED) folks do: fielding requests for loans from co-ops, working with co-ops to develop solid business plans, coaching co-ops in making strategic pivots, workshopping scenarios and challenges with each other, sitting in on some BRED staff meetings, etc. Our intent is to first give you a sample of all aspects to help them get the big picture, then focus on an approach that is more about the program’s goals. BRED has obtained funding for this, so apprentices will be compensated at $30 per hour for the time they spend learning. 

    Selection: As we hear back from interested folks, we will be interviewing applicants and selecting two, based on our sense of how the development of their knowledge and skills can best serve the needs and the growth of local co-ops. 

    Self-assessment: Those two apprentices will be asked to complete a self-assessment tool that helps us to understand their skills, interests, and needs. We will then use those self-assessments to refine and customize each apprentice’s curriculum. 

    Overview of curriculum:

    • General overview of BRED activities 

    • “Meet & greet” with the entire BRED team 

    • Shadowing/ sitting in on a sampling of BRED Project Steward activities, BRED meetings, Seed Commons network meetings

    • Trainings in BRED tools:

      • Business Model Canvas

      • Break-Even Analysis

      • Steps To Start-Up 

      • Governance/ Power-Sharing Matrix

      • Bylaws Development/ Questions To Inform Your Legal Documents 

      • Financials

        • Financial Terminology 101

        • Interpreting Profit And Loss Statements 

    • Multiple deep dives on specific topics, based on apprentice self-assessment and assessment of outcomes of tools trainings

    • Participation in some of BRED’s public events, including at least one presentation 

    • Making connections to BRED co-ops not yet acquainted

    • Making connections to 3-5 other co-ops in Seed Commons

    • Making connections to 3-5 other peer funds in Seed Commons

    • Periodic reflections and evaluations from apprentices 

    • Final reflection and evaluation from apprentices, discussions about potential future engagement 

      Cool! Why is BRED doing this? We have a number of goals that we hope to achieve with this program – we want: 

    • to train more folks in how to grow strong co-ops (of course) 

    • to train folks in exactly the sorts of things that we might do with a new co-op, but take them deeper into it, in amore focused way 

    • co-op workers in our network who really want to do a deep dive, to have the opportunity to get paid for building skills and knowledge around the finer points of co-op development in Baltimore 

    • to support the development of a “spokescouncil” of local co-ops, to catalyze more solidarity and mutual aid between our local co-ops 

    • to train more people who can go out and talk about and promote our movement, explain the why and the how of co-ops, to ideally build an ongoing team of paid speakers/ presenters 

    Awesome! So…when/ where/ how is this training going to happen? And how do folks apply? 

    This is a part-time program, with a rough average of 12 hours per week for 6 months, June thru December, 2023. 

    • We’ll be applying the principles of Popular Education to the greatest extent possible. 

    • Many activities will take place over Zoom, but there will also be in-person meetings and activities. 

    • The 12 hours per week includes some self-study/ homework. 

    • For more details on the curriculum, see the program description on the other side of this sheet. 

    Email HERE and give us a few sentences about: 

    • yourself, your experiences, interests, passions

    • what brought you to your co-op 

    • what you find attractive about this opportunity

    • what you would hope to do with what you learn 

    Please reply by May 29th, 2023. Thanks!