Austin Co-ops and Communities
Cooperative Organizations
Austin Cooperative Business Association (ACBA)
The ACBA is dedicated to growing and strengthening the Austin-area cooperative community through accessible cooperative education, inter-cooperative support, and advocacy to make it easier to start and expand cooperatives.
Central Texas Farmers Co-op
The Central Texas Farmers Co-op is owned and democratically controlled by small, sustainable farmers in Hays, Caldwell, Blanco, Bastrop and Travis County. Our mission is to improve the lives of local, small, and beginning farmers who produce food in an environmentally responsible way while also providing safe, delicious, and nutrient dense food to our community.
Cooperation Texas
community-wealth.org/content/cooperation-texas
Cooperation Texas is a nonprofit, Austin-based incubator for worker-owned cooperatives that provides education, training and technical assistance. Since its creation in 2009, it has been committed to cooperative development, support and promotion.
Texas Rural Cooperative Center
facebook.com/TexasRuralCooperativeCenter
The Texas Rural Cooperative Center exists to improve the economic conditions of rural Texas by assisting with the start-up, expansion, and operational improvement of rural businesses, especially cooperatives and mutually-owned businesses.
Cooperative Housing and Intentional Communties
College Houses
College Houses is a registered 501c3 nonprofit that is cooperatively managed by our student members. Each of our seven west campus co-ops is maintained by its members – we do everything from maintenance to cooking meals (17/week included). Every week, houses hold meetings to discuss policies and plan for the future.
Deutsches Haus Co-op
deutscheshaus.wixsite.com/dhaus
The Deutsches Haus (German House) is an international co-op located two blocks from the University of Texas at Austin, in the West Campus neighborhood.
Hardy House Co-op
sites.google.com/view/hardyhousecoop/home
Our house in North Central Austin began as a conversation at the Austin Cooperative Business Association (ACBA). When word spread and interest grew, Hardy House was realized as a housing cooperative in August of 2019. Today, the Hardy House is an extension of the thriving cooperative movement in Austin, Texas, which features numerous member-owned and democratically-operated businesses and housing organizations.
ICC Austin
The purpose of ICC Austin is to create a mutually beneficial, diverse and inclusive community so as to promote the transformation of society towards cooperation, justice and non-exploitation. To achieve this vision, ICC Austin provides affordable housing to students, on a cooperative basis, in an environment that enhances member education, encourages the formation of long lasting communities, and foster responsible citizenship.
Roots Ecovillage
Roots Ecovillage is an environmentally focused housing cooperative in Austin, Texas founded in 2012. Their focus is on environmental sustainability and community building. They are governed through consensus process and highly value communication. They aim to generate awareness of societally generated oppression and create non-hierarchical relationships in our community.-corporations.
Rosewood Co-op
rosewoodcooperative.mystrikingly.com
Since its inception in 2011, Rosewood has had many folks live within its walls. Throughout each of our iterations, however, we have emphasized affordable housing, sustainability, the arts, and activism.
Sunflower Co-op
sunflowercoop.com
Sunflower Co-op is a member owned housing co-op located in Austin, TX.
The Treehouse
eastsidetreehouse.com
A nonprofit housing cooperative in the Cherrywood neighborhood in east Austin, TX.
Whitehill Co-op
Established 1949, Whitehall Cooperative is a vegetarian, consensus-run, multi-generational community housing coop located in West Campus.
WildCraft EcoVillage
wildcraftecovillage.weebly.com
WildCraft EcoVillage is a concept under design that seeks to facilitate people to build healthy, sustainable, and 'Thriving' Intentional Communities of the future.
Cooperative Businesses
4th Tap Brewing
4th Tap is the first worker-owned cooperatively-governed production brewery in Texas, and one of the first in the United States. 4th Tap is 100% owned by the people who work on the floor day-in and day-out. We believe that having a stake in the success and failings of our brewery make our people happier and our beer taste better.
All Austin Cooperative Nursery School
All Austin Cooperative Nursery School is a part-time preschool program in Central Austin created and supported by a community of parents, teachers, and children, working together to provide high-quality experiential learning for our children in a secular environment.
Artists Screen Printing Co-op
The Artists Screen Printing Co-op is a non-profit co-op serving the needs of artists and designers who desire to share a common screenprinting workspace and studio in which to collaborate and create original works.
Austin Art Coop
All Austin Coop includes a variety of artists that have crossed paths & continue to encourage, inspire and support each others creative endeavors. There is no physical gallery space however our website will be updated as often as possible to include current art, upcoming exhibitions and artist updates.
Black Star Co-op
Black Star Co-op is the world’s first cooperatively-owned and worker self-managed brewpub. We are owned by a community of more than 3,000 individuals and organizations, and we’re democratically managed by our Workers’ Assembly.
Collective Campaigns
Collective Campaigns is the first political consultant firm in the country organized as a worker cooperative. All of their workers are union-members through United Professional Organizers and employees of the cooperative. As a worker cooperative, they put their workers’ well being ahead of all else. They believe in what they promote and are more interested in winning than collecting big checks from their clients. Collective Campaigns is passionate about the issues they promote and will work to enact their shared goals.
eQuality HomeCarre
eQuality HomeCare Co-op is a licensed, bonded in-home senior care agency serving Comal, Hays, and Guadalupe Counties in Central Texas. The first worker-owned caregiver cooperative in Texas, eQuality HomeCare has offices in downtown New Braunfels, right in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. Our team helps elderly and disabled people to have high quality of life while remaining in their own homes. In an industry known for underpaid workers and high turnover, worker-owners of the eQuality HomeCare Cooperative chart their own course by working together as a team of equals without syphoning off dollars to a big care franchise or private owner.
Key Figures
Key Figures is a worker-owned company, providing reliable, professional bookkeeping and financial management solutions to small businesses, non-profits, and cooperatives in central Texas and nationwide.
KOOP Radio
KOOP (pronounced koh-op) is a community radio station in Austin, TX, owned and operated by its members in a cooperative structure depending primarily upon its volunteers and supporters for all operations of the station. KOOP provides a diverse array of programming, emphasizing programs that deal with local issues and/or serve communities which are under-served by the mainstream media.
Money Positive
Money Positive offers fee-only financial planning services. We’re based in Austin, TX, and work with clients nationwide. Money Positive Cooperative is employee-owned and operated. Employee ownership means we can focus on clients interests without worrying what Wall Street thinks; we are not beholden to maximizing shareholder value.
Our Taco House Cooperative
Our Taco House is the first worker-owned Tex-Mex cooperative in Austin, Texas. It’s all about cracking eggs, homemade salsa and keeping Austin real.
Polycot Associates
Polycot Associates is a mission-driven, employee-owned cooperative business offering web consulting and managed web development/design services. Our preferred clients are other mission driven organizations, including nonprofits, other co-ops, green and sustainable organizations and businesses, and B-corporations.
Treasure City Thrift
Treasure City Thrift, a worker-run nonprofit, supports local groups working for grassroots change. We provide material, financial, and promotional support to groups working for grassroots change, helping them to become more sustainable and continue their work in our communities. We transform waste into resources that benefit our communities; we link economic and environmental sustainability. We support local communities in our East Austin neighborhood, many of whom are historically marginalized and neglected, by providing community space, educational resources, and inspiration, and by making local and donated goods available and affordable to all. We are a radical economic experiment based on a collective model, using consensus decision making. There are no bosses here!
Vulk Co-op
Vulk Coop is a worker-owned, full stack development consultancy based in Austin, TX. Vulk offers a full range of software development services, including design, user interaction/user experience, agile project management, frontend/backend/API development, and infrastructure scaling.
Webhosting.coop
Webhosting.coop is the world’s first completely transparent, socially democratic, internet-run web hosting cooperative association. WebHosting.coop services its members all over the globe with fully transparent and honest website hosting solutions. Town Hall meetings and WebHosting.coops digital voting platform are some of the ways we give our members the ability to vote on important issues relating to WebHosting.coop’s operations and service offerings. This innovative approach will help increase confidence in business, leverage the evolution of the internet, and raise the bar for service-based organizations of the future.
Wheatsville Food Co-op
Wheatsville Food Co-op is a full service, natural foods cooperative grocery store, which has been serving the central Austin community since 1976. Wheatsville is the only retail food cooperative in Texas and has over 20,000 invested owners. Invested owners participate democratically and financially in the co-op. In 2013, we were proud to have realized our dream of opening a second store.
Yard to Market
Yard to market co-op, founded in 2013, is a cooperative business, owned by and serving the needs of independent, home-scale food producers. By combining resources, we are able to access the local food market and reduce marketing, sales and distribution costs for all owners, thus improving the economic benefit of home-based food production.
Are you an Austin co-op or community…
…and you would like to be represented on this webpage?
Reach out to us and let us know!