Expanding Your Worker Cooperative Business: A Guide to Licensing & Franchising

This Guide is for worker owners, cooperative developers, lawyers, technical assistance providers and others thinking about expanding worker cooperative businesses. We focus specifically on expansion through licensing and franchising. Licensing and franchising are ways to allow another business to use elements of your business. New businesses can grow using elements of your business, and together, you may be able to reach economies of scale.
The Guide explains in detail what licensing and franchising are and how they might apply to worker cooperatives. We also provide descriptions of cooperatives using these models. The Guide lays out questions that will help you determine whether you are ready to expand and what type of approach would be best suited to your cooperative. It also poses questions for you to consider and explains concepts that will help inform conversations with an attorney about expanding. Most importantly, it helps you to consider, How do you expand a worker cooperative while maintaining democratic worker control, autonomy and independence?

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Expanding Your Worker Cooperative Business: A Guide to Licensing & Franchising

DEMOCRACY AT WORK INSTITUTE