“I swear to the Lord I still can't see why democracy means everybody but me”
- Langston Hughes -
Co-creation through Cooperative
With a mission to mobilize and empower the global Afro-community towards co-creating a shared ecosystem that fosters the members' well-being and subsequently our collective growth, AfroCom will be incorporated as a worldwide non-profit cooperative within the Cooperative Act of Ghana (AU), Massachusetts (US), and Belgium (EU).
Our name is "AfroCom Cooperative" or “AfroCom Coop” (or simply AfroCom): where AfroCom is an abbreviation for Afro- or African-community.
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The work we do
We are a workers' cooperative where members contribute and pool together their know-how, passion, and time to co-create AfroCom: platform as a tool to empower and connect the various stakeholders of the afro-community towards reimagining and cocreating better afro-communities for all.
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On a daily basis, our activities include, but are not limited to, software solution design and development, community engagement, and general business activities such as management, legal, finance, publicity, human resource, analysis and development, and the like.
Structure:
Equity Ownership
AfroCom Cooperative is a multi-level cooperative with two main classes of shareholders: a primary class of change-makers (founder, collaborators, investors) and a secondary class of platform-users (the community) with different equity ownership and related requirements using the pareto principle
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Pareto principle
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AfroCom operates and is structured by the Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule: a theory that maintains that 80 percent of the output from a given situation or system is determined by 20 percent of the input.
Thus 80% of AfroCom's equity ownership is owned by the platform users (the communities we serve) and the co-creators in the person of the founder, collaborators, and investors share the remaining 20%
Co-creator
Membership
We exist to build together with the communities we serve, a society of free basic needs, and to foster citizens’ well-being and collective growth. We are a members-owned workers cooperative that is dedicated to improving the quality of life for the members and the communities we serve.
AfroCom’s ability to fulfill this mission comes directly from the support of its members and thus, success is a function of the interdependence between the cooperative and its members
Co-creatorship means becoming a cooperative member with ownership equity within AfroCom.
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Benefits
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​Patronage allowance or dividends
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Patronage Veto
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Prioritization in paid employment and work assignments
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Premium access to AfroCom platform
Members also have the right to:
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Take part in formulating AfroCom policies and work programs; and
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Be appointed or appoint representatives to be elected to AfroCom's Board of directors and supervisory
Requirements:​
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A common stock (bought or contributed equivalent hours)
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12 hours per month co-creation contribution
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Cooperative compliance
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Cooperative Governance
Our leadership and management as a cooperative and by the Cooperative Act, automatically assigns the highest governing body within AfroCom to the general assembly or meeting.
Next in order, is the board of 9 directors chaired by the founder. Following next is a supervisory board of 3 members. These boards are elected every 6 years by the co-op members with 3 years or mid-term reviews to assess eligibility continuation.
The nature of AfroCom's future structure, including the possibility of becoming a worker cooperative, is still under development. We'll continue to refine our approach as we expand and gather feedback from our community.