Cooperative Development Institute

Last night, the homeowners of Hidden Circle Residents Cooperative celebrated the purchase of their community with an event attended by Maine Gov. Janet Mills. Congratulations to these residents again for their amazing feat!

Hidden Circle in Jay is the first community to benefit from a strengthened ‘Right of First Refusal’ state law that went into effect last October, making it easier for residents to purchase their communities when they go up for sale.

The residents closed on the purchase of their community on July 30, 2026. Read more here: https://cdi.coop/maine-residents-purchase-community-for-1-million-preserving-affordable-housing/

As the cost of healthcare in the U.S. continues to rise, a group of local herbalists launched a co-op to help community members harness the power of herbs to support their health at home.

“Providence is a highly diverse urban city. A lot of communities lean on herbal remedies to support their health,” said Erin Soule, one of four worker-owners of Gentle Strength Herbal Co-op, which sells its locally grown herbs, tea blends, and tinctures at the Armory Park Farmers Market in Providence and the Garden City Farmers Market in Cranston. They also host herb workshops at the Urban Greens Co-op Market in Providence.

“The healthcare system is being stripped away and it’s a crucial time to share education about herbalism that historically has been used by many cultures,” Erin continued.

The worker-owners of Gentle Strength – Narcissa Segura, Chandelle Wilson, Erin Soule, and Tammy Kim – began working on the idea for the business about three years ago. Then, they got the help of CDI to turn their vision into a reality, formally incorporating as a co-op, and setting up their governance structure and policies. The co-op soft launched in April.

Read the full story here: https://cdi.coop/as-healthcare-costs-rise-rhode-island-co-op-increases-access-to-herbal-remedies/

Today, the residents of The Hidden Circle Mobile Home Park in Jay, Maine can call themselves owners of the community. Please join us in congratulating these residents who met obstacle after obstacle with perseverance, and made what seemed impossible happen!

The Hidden Circle Residents Cooperative purchased its manufactured home community for $1 million, ensuring the land beneath 31 homes in Jay can remain locally owned and affordable for years to come.

“It hasn’t been an easy process, but we never gave up” said Travis, a resident of Hidden Circle Mobile Home Park and president of the cooperative’s volunteer board. “We had to purchase the park because the alternative could be worse. Someone could come in here and hike up the rents and eventually push people out of their homes. Now, people can feel financially safe and safe in their homes.”

Read their story here: https://cdi.coop/maine-residents-purchase-community-for-1-million-preserving-affordable-housing/

In this third installment of our Cooperative Resilience video series, CDI’s Pável Uranga interviews Javier Ruiz Tagle, Ph.D, a cooperative housing expert and Assistant Professor at the Institute of Urban and Territorial Studies in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

Watch the video as Dr. Ruiz Tagle covers topics including:
1. How different countries finance housing co-ops
2. How the U.S. can support the creation of housing co-ops
3. How to expand support for co-op residents beyond housing
4. Importance of promoting successes far and wide

In this video series, Pável interviews members of cooperatives and experts in countries facing conflict to understand how they support their communities and thrive in times of adversity. Stay tuned in for future videos!

Watch the video here: https://cdi.coop/video-series-cooperative-resilience/

"Over the next decade, roughly six million baby boomer small business owners are expected to exit their companies, according to a recent McKinsey study. Over one million of these businesses, representing $5 trillion in value, will enter the market.

"At a time when wealth inequality in the US just hit a 30-year high, some owners are converting into employee-owned cooperatives that transfer wealth to workers rather than selling to private equity firms or shutting down.

"'There’s a big opportunity for a racial wealth transfer as well as a generational one because of the demographics of who’s in the workforce versus who the owning group is,” said Carolyn Edsell-Vetter, program director at the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast (CFNE).'"
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Thank you NCRC for highlighting worker cooperatives as a solution for keeping jobs and small businesses alive and thriving in our communities -- not to mention giving wealth building opportunities for workers often left behind!

Read the full story by NCRC here: https://ncrc.org/as-small-business-owners-retire-worker-cooperatives-could-help-close-wealth-gap/

Meet Crystal! In our latest CDI Donor Spotlight, we chatted with Dr. Crystal L. Brandow, an entrepreneur from Upstate New York who donated to the Cooperative Development Institute last year.

Crystal believes that confidence, health and well-being are basic needs that are too often denied to communities. As her own business grows, she wants to give back to organizations that uplift black and brown people, women, children, and communities kept in poverty.

“A core belief of mine is that service to others is service to self,” she said. “All of CDI’s efforts to empower communities; transfer ownership to The People; and foster healthy, safe communities align with my values.”

Read more about Crystal and her unique way of finding organizations to support: https://cdi.coop/entrepreneur-supports-cooperative-solutions-as-her-own-business-grows/

"The Lewiston Auburn Community Market may not have broken ground, but it is quickly gaining ground as membership grows and as organizers work through environmental reviews, financing and site plans."

“This is a community-led project … not folks coming from the outside saying, ‘This is what this community needs,’” said Katherine Bessey, Director of CDI's Cooperative Business Services Program. “This is the community itself saying, ‘This is what we envision to be a solution to some of the problems we face in our community and barriers we face in our community.'”

Read the full story in the Sun Journal here: https://www.sunjournal.com/?p=11259557&uuid=89dcf5ea-842e-47f4-b1e1-a75d90c2e553&lid=237390

Today, we want to take a moment to recognize one of our funders who is making a big impact in the Lewiston-Auburn community in Maine!

In 2025, CDI received a two-year New England Food Vision Prize from the Henry P. Kendall Foundation. This support will increase the production of locally sourced halal meals for schools in Lewiston and Auburn. The project launched last year with two participating schools and 143 students served through pilot events.

CDI is working with Haali’s Halal Cuisine, a Lewiston-based women-owned cooperative, to increase their capacity to develop halal products from local foods sourced from underserved farmers. These foods will be distributed to partnering schools in the Auburn and Waterford School Districts.

This work will provide stable revenue for the farmers while enabling local schools to provide much-needed access to culturally supportive food for students, contributing to a food system that is more resilient and inclusive.

Thank you Henry P. Kendall Foundation for your support of our communities!

Learn more about CDI's work here: https://cdi.coop/category/cdi-blog/

It's finally here --- ROUND 2 of our Co-op Navigator Fellowship (CNF) program starts this fall and applications go live later this week.

Learn more about the program and the success of the 1st cohort on our newly launched CNF webpage: https://hubs.la/Q04m-6hx0

If you didn't know already - CDI is a leading partner of the Northeast Transition Initiative (NETI), a region-wide partnership of business experts and lenders who are working together to raise awareness and provide tools for supporting small businesses that want to make the transition to employee ownership.

NETI holds an annual fellowship program that brings the economic development community together to learn how to better support business owners in succession planning and employee ownership transitions.

We are so proud of our NETI fellows who organized an amazing event in Cambridge City Hall last month to pass on their knowledge to more businesses in Cambridge.

During the event, business owners who went through successful employee ownership or other transitions were invited to share how and why they did it.

Congrats to our NETI fellows Sarah Jane Huber, Associate Economic Development Specialist with the City of Cambridge Economic Opportunity and Development Division (EODD) and John R. Allen, III, President of Allen Business Advisors!

Thank you Porter Square Books, Formaggio Kitchen, Circus Cooperative Cafe, and 1369 Coffee House for sharing your stories so that others can learn from them!

Read more about the event here: https://ownershiptransition.org/2026/06/18/cambridge-succession-stories-2026/