Welcome

Inspired by the New Economy movement (see: NewEconomy.net), we are organizing our community to cultivate local resilience and implement strategies that invest in regional self-sufficiency while disinvesting from corporate extraction and exploitation.

Our Mission:

Cooperation Eugene collaborates with people, organizations, and networks to cultivate a thriving, local regenerative economy.

We Envision:

  • A world of local regenerative economies in which people cooperatively produce abundance, value people and the rest of the natural world over profit, and actively steward their bioregions.
  • People empowered to participate actively and creatively in rising to the challenges we face by mobilizing our individual and collective resources.
  • Communities empowered to say “no” to extraction and exploitation. All members, especially those who have been marginalized by the systems we are transcending, are actively engaged and uplifted in governance of the commons.

Black Lives

Cooperation Eugene stands in solidarity with our community members of color as the tragedy of the murder of another black man at the hands of white police officers once again dredges up the accumulated pain of hundreds of years of mistreatment and inequality. We need meaningful change and healing, and we need it now!

Stay in touch by reading our news and updates, joining our mailing list, finding us on Facebook, and subscribing to our YouTube channel!

News & Updates

Study Circle

The Cooperation Eugene Study Circle learns about the theory and practice of systems change for the regenerative economy. We organize monthly conversations about books, articles, movies, podcasts, videos, etc. that address “What’s next?” more than “What’s wrong?”

We meet the first Tuesday of the month at 7 pm. For the duration of the period where we are all being called upon to practice social distancing we will be having the meetings online using Zoom. See the description below for the meeting room link.

Membership consists of an email list that will be notified of upcoming titles. To get on the Study Circle mailing list, or if you have any questions send email to: StudyCircle [at] CooperationEugene [dot] org or call Alberta at 818-903-6125. Members can choose to attend only the meetings with topics of interest to them.

Join us for an educational discussion!

Upcoming Meetings

December 1st – The Social Dilemma (Documentary Movie)

On Tuesday, December 1, the Cooperation Eugene Study Circle will view The Social Dilemma, a Netflix documentary that offers an inside look at the tech business and the ways in which it is influencing the populace. It has created quite a stir for its explanation of how social media has popularized conspiracy theories and exacerbated the divisiveness that we see. We will Zoom link the Study Circle and provide all attendees with access. After the film, there will be a discussion.

A Zoom link will be forthcoming on the mailing list during the week before. Hope to see you there!

Previous Readings

  • “Me and White Supremacy Workbook”, by Layla Saad
  • “How to Be an Anti-Racist”, by Ibram X. Kendi
  • “Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone”, by Astra Taylor
  • “Think like a Commoner, A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons”, by David Bollier
  • Cooperatives – The Working World (Video), TESA Collective (Video), Worker Cooperative People Skills (ebook)
  • People’s Economy housing policy section: How We Build Our Neighborhoods
  • “Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation to Join the Conversation on Next-Stage Organizations”, by Frederic Laloux
  • Just Transitions strategy for moving to a regenerative economy – we read these three PDF files and we watched this YouTube video.
  • “Sparking the conversation in your community: A DIY guide to planning your own community wealth building summit“, by Justine Porter
  • “The Making of a Democratic Economy: How to Build Prosperity for the Many, Not the Few”, by Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard
  • “Sacred Economics”, by Charles Eisenstein
  • “The Approaching Great Transformation: Toward a Livable Post Carbon Economy”, by Joel Magnuson
  • “Community: The structure of belonging”, by Peter Block
  • “The Fifth Sacred Thing”, by Starhawk
  • “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World”, by Paul Hawken
  • “Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds”, by Adrienne Maree Brown

Zoom Event Hosting

Cooperation Eugene wants to facilitate collaboration among activists working toward solutions. Our Zoom event hosting service has evolved organically as the pandemic has changed the way we all meet so dramatically and quickly, and is helping us achieve our mission to get people and groups working together for more economic democracy.

If you are planning an online event that falls under the banner of the regenerative economy in our area, and would like someone to provide a Zoom account and the technical expertise to help you run the event smoothly and securely, get in touch with us to discuss the possibility of our involvement. If it seems like a good fit we’ll help out, and at no charge! We can also record the session and make it available to the general public on YouTube so it will be available as a training tool, or to folks who were unable to attend.

Great examples are people working on issues related to housing affordability, houselessness, racial justice, cooperatives, economic localization and resiliency, and community economic development. You can visit our new YouTube channel as well where we’ll be posting videos of online events going forward.

If you are interested send us a message.

Lane Service Sharing Network (Time Bank)

The Lane Service Sharing Network (LSSN) is a concrete manifestation of caring community for Eugene, Springfield, and all of Lane County, Oregon. It’s a way for people to give and receive valuable skills outside the monetary economy along the model of a “neighbors helping neighbors” Time Bank or Hours Exchange.

In this type of system 1 hour always equals 1 hour, no matter the service being exchanged. You give your time and skills to someone in the network and receive time credits which you can then use with anyone else in the network for a service they provide.

LSSN allows us to ask the questions, “How can I serve?” and “What do I need?” rather than “Can I afford it?” and “Does it pay enough?”. It gives us a structure to get our needs met through community, even if the mainstream economic system were to collapse.

If you are 18 years of age or older and live in Eugene, Springfield, or anywhere in Lane County you are eligible to join! See the “How Do I Become a Participant” page of the LSSN time banking website for more details.