[HCoop-Discuss] Financial situation

[Michael Potter]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 08:34:22PM -0400, Nathan Kennedy wrote:
> In my view cooperatives and businesses are mostly overlapping sets.  We 
> are a cooperative and a business--a cooperative business.  According to 
> our founding document (articles of incorporation), we are incorporated 
> as a nonprofit corporation for the purpose of "provid[ing] Internet 
> hosting services for the mutual improvement of its members ..."  In 
> other words, we are a business sans profit motive.  As the old credit 
> union saw goes, "not for profit, not for charity, but for service."  The 
> cooperative or business angles may be more or less important to one 
> member or another.  But a lot of the same principles that are required 
> for business success carry over to cooperatives.
<SNIP>

This rather highlights some confusion of purpose. A consumer
cooperative exists to provide its members with goods or services,
using combined buying-power to lower costs. Savvy choices needs to be
made, like in any other area of life, but that doesn't make it a
business.

Even a worker co-op's purpose is to provide its members, all of them,
with a benefit: jobs. These are also businesses and need to be run as
such, but Hcoop isn't a worker co-op.

A standard business exists to make money for its owners, usually just
a few in power. The faster they grow, the more money is made. All want
to appear warm and fuzzy, but it's about money and power. 

Which are we, exactly? I can't tell. It's looking more and more like
an entity designed to provide jobs for a few people. How big do we
need to get to pay salaries? IMO, too big, too fast.

-- 
Michael Potter
mpotter at hcoop.net