The mission of Cooperation Northwest Indiana is building a brighter future in the ruins of the rust belt. We are located in Lake Station, Indiana, just a few steps away from the eastern side of Gary’s city limits. We represent the goal of economic democracy, environmental justice, social health, and healing the deep wounds of racial injustice in NWI. 

We aim to realize our mission of creating institutions and practices of cooperation through the development of direct democracy. Our goal is to create innovative pathways for increasing the empowerment of all workers, distributors, suppliers, consumers, communities and the general public by promoting universal access to common resources, democratizing the ownership of businesses and communal resources, through worker self-management and sustainable consumption.

We will also collaborate with likeminded organizations to build a thriving solidarity economy includes a wide array of socio-economic practices and initiatives that share common values – cooperation and sharing, social responsibility, sustainability, equity and justice. Instead of enforcing a culture of cutthroat competition, it builds cultures and communities of cooperation and care.

Our purpose is to create:

  • A rich tapestry of worker owned enterprises and cooperatives in the region that will create sustainable opportunities for commerce, manufacturing, services, and education.  
  • A community focused on healing the physical and mental wounds of NWI, empowering and creating equity in an area that society has largely given up on.
  • An institution that promotes public understanding of economic democracy, the foundations of solidarity economics and the principles of cooperatives and how cooperative and worker owned and self-managed enterprises work to benefit workers, their families and their communities.
  • A space to educate and connect the people of NWI, to knit a tighter social fabric to build a new community out of the ruins.