The Brooklyn Student Credit Union

We will learn to build a sustainable cooperative business, which will be a student run and owned credit union. It will address economic justice issues like student debt and green community development.

Leader

Kimberly and Eric White-Carlsen

Location

Bedford Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11210

Impact areas

Climate Change

Open Space & Greening

Education

Public Health & Nutrition

About the project

We have decided to leave the campaign up till we reach our goal. Our team wants to lay the groundwork for what will be the Brooklyn Student Credit Union (BSCU), the first step of which is attending the Green Worker Cooperatives “Coop Academy.” The BSCU will be a nonprofit consumer cooperative, the first of its kind being founded, managed and owned by students. The BSCU, the first part of the long term project called the New York City Student Credit Union (NYCSCU), will be launched within the CUNY university system. As a community of students working together with shared experience, this credit union will have the kind of understanding and sensitivity needed to best serve its special membership. As a nonprofit it will be a model for true community investment and shared success. As a democratically governed organization the members of the credit union will decide together how best to use their combined resources.

The environmental mission of the organization will be to promote the greening of our campuses, as a living model and investor. The union will be founded with rules governing its sustainable life, including sourcing its energy from renewable energy providers, using green administrative products, and composting any food and paper waste that is generated by operations. The organization will also be founded on the value of investing in community grassroots initiatives, guiding the use of its collective financial power to influence sustainable change in its surrounding area.

The Steps

The GWC encourages community dialogue and interaction through this process of fundraising, creating partnership with community right from the start of the project. So, the first step is raising $3,000 to attend the academy, and that is where your support and generosity comes in. Your tax-deductible donations will cover the cost of the class, filing fees, promotion materials and transportation expenses for 6 months. These are some of the things the academy offers:

One-on-One mentoring with a successful entrepreneur
Legal assistance with business incorporation and structuring
Web site and promotion strategy development
Greater visibility and name recognition for our cooperative

For the remainder of 2013 we will continue our grassroots promotion, legal establishment of the organization, board recruitment and the drafting of bylaws, and gaining nonprofit status. But the most important element of this all will be the members, who will have participation throughout this process.

Why we‘re doing it

UPDATE: Our team has grown by one! So we have extended the campaign one more week, have grown the budget a bit. We will be accepting tax deductible contributions until January 25th!

The Project:

It may not be the sexiest idea, but it is a foundational one. We believe in the power of collective organizing, and the need for financial capacity building to make it happen. It has an empowering effect on people, inspiring each of us to determine our lives for ourselves. Economic self-determination and independence, as well as communal economic interdependence, are the community strengthening potentials of cooperative economic development.

We are students who know what it is like to live on the edge of economic instability. The answer for most people is to take out more and more loans that they will never have the ability to pay back. Still others cannot even take out loans, and are not eligible for grants. The realities of attending college in this country are sobering - the cost of college has risen nearly 1120% in the last 35 years, 94% of college attendees now borrow, and student debt has climbed above $1trillion. We wish for more alternatives to going into debt and doing business with corrupt banks. A credit union is that alternative choice.

This project will address both environmental and social concerns of the community by its very nature being a cooperative organization. All cooperatives adhere to the seven cooperative principles developed by the International Cooperative Alliance. Three principles in particular stand out as beneficial for the community: democratic member control, member economic participation, and concern for community. The democratic member control principle requires that all members have an equal say in the decision making and in the construction of policy for the cooperative. This is a deliberate act of civic participation and self-determination, as individuals and as a community. The member economic control principle makes financial power shared by member-owners since all members are required to contribute equal amounts to the cooperative and to collectively decide how to allocate the capital that the cooperative accumulates. Profits are shared amongst the members of the community. Special scholarships, local business investments and development funds can be created if the membership wishes. This brings us the third principle, the concern for community principle which requires the cooperatives to invest in the local community and to work towards sustainable development. The collective decision making and financial power of the college community has great potential for bringing sustainable change to Brooklyn that encompasses the social, the environmental, and the economical. Being a living model for sustainable business practices will make the Brooklyn Student Credit Union influential in the business and professional communities.

$3,019.67

Raised

$3,019.67 / $3,000.00

Ended