Creating an ecosystem of digital platform cooperatives.
Creating an ecosystem of digital platform cooperatives.
Creating an ecosystem of digital platform cooperatives.
Platform cooperatives are a growing phenomenon that represent an alternative to large, privately owned digital platforms.
Platform cooperatives are a growing phenomenon that represent an alternative to large, privately owned digital platforms. Such cooperatives are an example of how the long history and numerous learnings of grassroots cooperatives can be leveraged with the possibilities presented by digital platforms today; offering decent and responsible work. It is an opportunity also for the cooperative movement to strengthen itself with the great potential for growth and scalability offered by digitization and digital platform models. Platform cooperatives are, in essence, associated individuals coming together in the creation of a digital business model, keeping the basic cooperative principles alive.
Platform cooperative movement
New platform cooperatives are emerging strongly in the state, closely linked to the cooperative movement rooted in the territory and supported by cooperative development entities. Some of these cooperatives have emerged from collaboration with established platform cooperatives, such as the French federation Coopycycle. There are currently around 30 platform cooperatives in various sectors, regions and stages of evolution in Spain and new cooperatives are emerging at an increasing rate.
Although there is a germ of platform cooperatives in Spain, there is still a need for greater articulation, networking and coordinated work in the search for a strengthening of the movement in Spain. A regional ecosystem that supports the creation of new platform cooperatives. There is also a need to understand the formula for the development of digital platform cooperatives, cases of success and failure in other ecosystems, the sectors in which the best practices have occurred and the possibility of developing initiatives in those sectors with greater projection in the national territory. In this way, not only the platform cooperative model is reinforced, but also the connection of these new initiatives with cooperative structures at national and international level.
Designing a Platform Coop Venture Builder based on intercooperation
It was from this perspective that the project "Platform Coop Venture Builder: Dynamization of the cooperative entrepreneurial ecosystem through the dissemination, research and incubation of platform cooperatives" funded in the call for grants of the Integral Plan to Boost the Social Economy for the generation of an economic, inclusive and sustainable fabric of 2022 and 2023, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Labor and Social Economy.
The purpose of the "Platform Coop Venture Builder" project was to articulate and dynamize the cooperative entrepreneurial ecosystem and a national network for research, promotion and acceleration of digital platform cooperatives. With the medium-long term objective of promoting cooperative regeneration and job creation linked to the digital economy and cooperative platforms.
This project was developed in 4 territories simultaneously, with the objective of articulating a regional ecosystem and creating inter-territorial networks that support the creation and consolidation of new digital platform cooperatives. These territories are:
Basque Country: Represented by Mondragon Unibertsitatea- Faculty of Business as a higher education institution that promotes collective team entrepreneurship, Tazebaez S.Coop. worker cooperative that develops innovation activities, consulting and incubation of new cooperative projects.
Catalonia: Represented by Barcelona Activa, an entity for economic promotion and development in Barcelona, as well as the worker cooperatives Suara SCoopCL, Tandem Go SCoopCL and Fasolà SCoopCL.
Valencian Community: Represented by the Lapromotora Association, Venture builder in triple impact entrepreneurship and social franchising for people at risk of exclusion.
Andalusia: Represented by the Andalusian School of Social Economy, an institution for education, training and promotion of cooperativism in Andalusia.
What is a Venture Builder?
A Venture Builder creates projects from scratch, so it generally does not select external projects, proposes a business idea to develop, searches and trains the founding team, validates the business until it works autonomously. In the traditional context, venture builders acquire most or all of the capital of the startup, so its ownership is private.
This project designed a Cooperative Venture Builder, where existing projects have been incubated and accelerated, with potential contribution of cooperative and social character in the field of digital platform cooperatives. Such a Venture Builder has differential values in terms of shared ownership, a co-creation and co-participation process more focused on people and the common good than on technology or capital as sources of power.
Results achieved
Cooperative acceleration of three platform cooperatives: during the last year we co-designed and tested an acceleration process of three Catalan platform cooperatives in different stages of maturity. This process ended in a bootcamp held on November 13-15, 2023 in Donosti - San Sebastian, within the framework of the European Conference on Social Economy. We also participated in the event organized by CICOPA called: "Platform cooperatives and labor rights in the digital economy". The accelerated cooperatives were:
#Benestarum is a platform for short online consultations with professionals who accompany the problems of working people through video calls. Its areas of work are: emotional and physical support, nutrition and personal finances, among others. Benestarum belongs to Suara S. Coop.
#Tandem Go is a flexible remuneration platform in the SSE, which helps to increase the purchasing power of members by allocating part of the salary to daily needs exempt from income tax. In other words, it increases the net salary through tax savings. It belongs to Tandem Social S.Coop.
#Sum sum net is a collaborative platform that connects people, projects, needs in SSE with special emphasis on sustainability and SDGs. It also includes a neighborhood market where its members can sell/buy their products and services. It belongs to Fasolá s.coop.
In summary, the bootcamp included the following indicators:
Network: +of 20 interactions with different people and organizations.
Challenges: 3 challenges, 3 solutions.
Training: + of 15 pitches made by each cooperative.
Crystallization: 3 cross-tools; definition of the 5-year projection of each cooperative, concrete ideas for improvement and growth and visualization of innovation areas.
Venues: 4 locations; MTA Irun Lab, Impact HUB, Tabakalera, Kursaal.
Inspiration: 1 symphony: Humanity at Music, a work that aims to represent the Mondragon cooperative experience through art.
Collaboration: Nera, LEINN's team company in Mondragon Team Academy that solved a communication and marketing challenge in each of the cooperatives, generating original ideas from a young vision to bring the cooperatives closer to their target audience.
Within the framework of the project, more than 10 events have also been held to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem in different formats: sectoral forums, dissemination, networking and research events. The most recent ones, in which Sain López, team coach of Mondragon Team Academy and coordinator of the project, has also participated, have been:
Nova Talks "Present and future of the Valencian cooperativism" organized by Lapromotora and Novaterra Foundation on January 25, 2024 in Valencia. Celebrating that the city was elected Spanish Capital of Social Economy in 2024, this event highlighted the Social Economy as a generator of employment, innovation, social welfare and specifically cooperatives, which are also a model especially rooted in Valencia and the Valencian Community in general. Representatives of Caixa Popular, the Federation of Worker Cooperatives of Valencia FEVECTA and Mondragon Unibertsitatea participated.
Conference "Platform Cooperatives: a tool for intercooperation" organized by the Andalusian School of Social Economy on February 7 in Granada and in collaboration with FAECTA and COVIRAN SCA and the participation of the Chorotega Cooperative of Honduras and Cooperazione Trentina in Italy, REFAS Network of alternative and solidarity finance GIVIT DELIVERY S.Coop. and Mondragon Unibertsitatea. The purpose of this meeting was to learn about and disseminate this strategic and leadership commitment for the revitalization of the cooperative platform movement in Spain and the strengthening of its entrepreneurial ecosystem.
