Investing with the Poor

As many of you know, for more than two years now the CDCA has been working to help set up a spinning plant with the Genesis Cooperative and its 35 members. Although the members have committed themselves to working without pay for the past two years in construction of their building, organizing their co-op and training members, it’s been hard to find groups willing to commit funding to the project. Still, we have done what seemed impossible: through mainly individual donations to our Shared Risk Investment Fund, the CDCA has so far loaned more than $130,000 in materials to Genesis for construction, money that the co-op will pay back so that they and other groups can start and improve worker-owned businesses through the CDCA Fund. Unfortunately, we’re still lacking around $100,000 to loan to Genesis to finish the building, and we need that urgently because we hope that we have finally found a group that can loan them the $300,000 needed for machinery. We have looked for funding everywhere, and so many groups have said to us, “It’s a great project, but we can’t afford that risk.” While we understand that any start up is a risk, it’s hard for us to conceive of a greater risk that that already taken by the co-op members themselves. Over the next few weeks we’ll give you a glimpse into the lives of a few of the Genesis members:

At 64, Petrona Valle is one of the oldest members of the Genesis cooperative, and her son Geovany is one of the youngest. Petrona’s husband was a security guard in the process of trying to get a retirement pension when he passed away in November. Now there is no one in their household earning a salary, yet Petrona and Geovany continue to come to the cooperative every day, working without pay as they have for the past two years, working to build a better future. Currently Genesis is giving them each a “help” of about $15 per week for their work, and that is how Petrona and her son are surviving. “I came to the project when I heard it was for housewives, the unemployed of all ages, all religions and politics,” Petrona says. Until Genesis begins production – hopefully in June – and they start earning a salary, Petrona and Geovany, will find a way to continue to come to the cooperative because they can’t afford to lose the two years and nearly 2,000 hours they have invested in their business.

Petrona, Geovany and all the other members of the co-op need people to think big with them.

That’s what we mean by shared risk: they have risked their families’ futures in a way that most of us cannot imagine, and now they need other people to take a risk by helping finance their project.

If you know anyone with “patient capital” willing to invest with the poor, we are looking for folks to lend money to the CDCA’s Shared Risk Investment Fund for 5 years at 0-5% interest. Please have them write us at jhc@jhc-cdca.org

-- Becca