We did it! We cooperated. We cooperate. We are a cooperative. Almost six and a half years after filing our Dojo4 articles of organization as a Limited Liability Company, we've converted to being a Limited Cooperative Association (LCA).
We're getting close but need to make a foundational decision before the deal can be done - we have to make a choice about what kind of entity this cooperative is going to be. Shall we be Cooperative Corporation or Cooperative Partnership LLC?
Wow, this is taking us a really long time to do. Granted, I had a baby and we bought our building since we first started the process to transition to a cooperative 6 months ago. But, this process takes serious attention, commitment, and buy-in, all of which can be in short supply when you are also trying to run a business, even a small business like Dojo4.
For years, we've talked about how we might diversify ownership of Dojo4. Ara and I have been 50/50 owners of this little company for several years now, but have recently decided to move ahead and substantively explore transforming Dojo4 into a worker-owned co-op.