Summary

Sharing Responsibility for the Common Good

1. Statement of Values Regarding Responsibility for the Common Good. Loconomics Cooperative, Inc. aligns itself with the Rochdale cooperative principles, one of which provides that cooperatives shall have concern for and work for the sustainable development of their communities. Although a cooperative corporation, as a legal entity, is designed primarily to serve the interests of its Owners, Loconomics recognizes that the wellbeing of its Owners depends on the economic wellbeing of our communities. Therefore, Loconomics Bylaws, policies, and activities shall also consider and advance the wellbeing of freelance workers as a class of workers in society and the health and vitality of local economies.
2. Mission of Loconomics. Loconomics Cooperative’s mission is to use technology, shared ownership, and community to strengthen local economies. We provide tools, a marketplace, and community to our Owners, empowering them to thrive in their work as local service professionals. We provide their clients an app where they can discover and directly book local service professionals safely and easily, without middle-men.
3. Background on Choice of Cooperative Structure. Loconomics is a California Cooperative Corporation and chose to form as a cooperative in order to steward its tools, platform, services, resources, community, and opportunities as a commons. As writer David Bollier describes, “A commons may arise whenever a group of people decides that it wishes to manage a resource in a collective manner, with a special regard for equitable access […] and long-term stewardship.”¹ As a cooperative, Loconomics is an autonomous organization that is substantially shielded from the lust for wealth accumulation and short-term gain, thereby allowing it to focus on activities that grow and spread benefit among the Owners and communities. Further, it is principally governed by its primary stakeholders – independent entrepreneurs – whose livelihoods Loconomics aims to support and enhance.

A cooperative structure generally demands that every Owner have an equal vote in the election of the Board and in other major decisions. A cooperative structure also generally demands that the profits of the enterprise be returned to the Owners in proportion to each Owners’ participation in generating value for the company. Loconomics believes that its mission will be most effectively advanced by this combination of factors, which distinguish a cooperative from a conventional for-profit corporation.

¹. Recommended reading: Think Like a Commoner, by David Bollier ↩