Co-ops:

Cooperatives typically are a form of non-profit where the workers are the owners of the company. But there are many other models that Co-ops can take on including equity based co-ops. The primary definition of a Cooperative is the policies and decision making systems, typically consensus or supermajority, as well as how the Co-op benefits its membership. An organization that uses COOP in its name, but doesn’t function as a CO-OP, can and will be sued by the International Cooperative Alliance, so it is important if you want to create a COOP to ensure that it follows the basic model of how a coop is actually supposed to function. Many times coops can also take the form of a multi-organizational-entity (MOE), where it will have multiple branches that deal with different parts of its functions, sometimes with a non-profit that oversees the membership, and a company branch that does some type of business, product, or service.