Community Revitalization

We create initiatives that increase assets, resources, and economic opportunities in the communities we serve. Urban Upbound’s Worker Cooperative Program works with local entrepreneurs to incubate worker-owned businesses.

“[Worker cooperatives] have the objective of creating and maintaining sustainable jobs and generating wealth, in order to improve the quality of life of the worker members, dignify human work, allow workers’ democratic self-management and promote community and local development.” World Declaration on Cooperative Worker Ownership – CICOPA, Cartagena, Colombia, 2005.   We accomplish this by conducting specialized classes and workshops, and by offering technical assistance services in several areas of business development: governance, marketing and design, research, and strategic planning, among others. In addition to creating jobs, our worker cooperative initiatives are vehicles that increase the volume of assets and the availability of resources within the communities we serve. Urban Upbound currently supports the development of two worker-owned businesses – OnPoint Security NYC and OSHA Solutions – and plans to launch a third one in 2018. In 2016, Urban Upbound’s Worker Cooperative Initiative provided thirty-five direct services to three organizations, reached 171 entrepreneurs, and created eighteen jobs.