Think of us as venture capitalists with a radical social mission: to lend people the tools to democratically build lasting wealth for themselves, their businesses, and their communities.

The Working World is a non-profit organization that provides investment capital and technical support for worker cooperatives using an innovative finance model.

Worker cooperatives represent a valuable alternative to more traditional business structures. All members of a cooperatively-run business share the labor, decisions, responsibilities, profits, and ownership shares. The result is a democratic workplace that encourages active participation and shared wealth creation. And as a model based around its members’ desires and needs, worker cooperatives are deeply rooted in local communities, growing out of and in turn nurturing the neighborhoods that surround them.

We support worker cooperatives using a finance model that puts money at the service of people, not the other way around. We help design, fund, and carry out productive projects, only requiring that cooperatives pay us back with the revenues the investments generate. As active partners, we are more motivated to ensure that these projects are successful, or in other words, that finance is only used as a tool to create real, lasting wealth for those that it serves.

Upon return, all investment money is reintegrated to our locally-based revolving loan fund to be overseen by the cooperatives and the community it serves.