Colmenar Cooperative Consulting

We are a bilingual (Spanish / English) worker cooperative managed and operated by its workers. We offer education and resources for the sustainable development of worker cooperatives and democratic workplaces. Our work focuses on racial and gender equity, we use popular education methodologies in which we value the experience and contribution of each of the participants. Through these values, at Colmenar, we seek to change the paradigm of the workspace, providing advice, curriculums, and customized mentoring programs for members of the Black Indigenous People of Color communities.

Worker cooperatives are on the rise as an economic model that centers on equity, ownership, and democratic participation at the workplace. We are experts in supporting cooperative capacity and education. We walk our talk, as a worker cooperative we ourselves experience day-to-day the empowerment of democratic leadership and ownership in the workplace. If you are a new Startup, an established business, a business exploring conversion to a worker cooperative, an organization looking into developing cooperative development capacity or an organization adopting workplace democracy structures, we would be happy to support you and your team.

We are experienced cooperators that center people’s needs through the art of facilitation. Our experience comes from our deep active participation in the cooperative ecosystems at the national and international levels. We practice popular education and support our clients to grow their own capacities.


As members of Colmenar Cooperative Consulting, we truly embrace the Principle 7 Concern for Community. Our approach centers practices of collective care in our facilitation and curriculum. We support our clients in building practices of collective accountability and care to improve their experience growing practices towards advancing equity and dignity in the workplace.


We work with

Cooperatives and Democratic Workplaces

We support your team to grow best practices for accountability, democratic participation, collective culture, worker ownership, financial literacy, and other skills to support workplace democracy.

Startups, and Traditional Businesses exploring a Conversion

We support you to build your business plan, design your democratic governance and management, open books, and explore the process of a conversion to a worker cooperative.

Non-profits and other Social Justice Organizations

We support you to grow cooperative development capacity and democratic workplace best practices for your own organization.


Past Clients

Here is a small sampling of the clients that we have worked with over the past year.

Living out principles of equity, democracy, solidarity, and care

What I’ve been especially impressed by is that cooperation is not only a principle of Colmenar’s, but a deep practice – from our generative conversations in planning meetings to working together in setting up the space for our in-person workshops.  It brings me a lot of joy knowing there’s a group like Colmenar out there channeling the wisdom of our ancestors and living out principles of equity, democracy, solidarity, and care.

Hải Võ, Organizational Nurturer/Administrative Wizard

Visualize myself as a worker-owner

I had not thought that I was already part of a cooperative and this training helped me to visualize myself not only as a worker but also as a owner of the business.

 

Worker-owner
Promotoras Activas de San Francisco


We Are Members of