The Loomio team. Photo: Loomio.coop

Loomio is a worker-owned cooperative building open-source software to help organizations and communities with collaborative decision making. Based in New Zealand, the co-op is part of Enspiral, a collaborative network of social enterprises. Loomio’s vision is to create a world where it’s easy for anyone to participate in decisions that affect them.

The Loomio Co-op Handbook provides a behind-the-scenes look at the co-op: what inspired it, how the organization plans and implements its work, how it is organized, and its values as a co-operative social enterprise.

The handbook serves as an overview of a pioneering digital cooperative and a roadmap for other worker-owned cooperatives. It details how the organization strategizes and plans, how it uses work sprints to “maintain agility, clarity and accountability,” how it self organizes into working groups and how it uses a collaborative process to prioritize product development.

In addition to the practicalities of running a worker-owned cooperative, the Co-op Handbook also offers insights into how Loomio looks after its people, from prioritizing well-being and conflict resolution to professional development, and more.

If you’re creating a worker-owned co-op, or platform co-op, this will be a good resource to have in your toolbox. In the following video, Loomio's co-founder Ben Knight shares his story and some insights into self-organizing communities.

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