Now in its 12th year, the Co-op Innovation Awards provide catalytic funding to organizations developing creative approaches to cooperative ownership and addressing barriers to economic participation. This year’s recipients will receive a combined $135,000 to advance initiatives spanning artist ownership, youth entrepreneurship, affordable cooperative homeownership, and community-based fisheries.
“At National Cooperative Bank, we believe cooperative ownership is one of the most effective tools for creating economic opportunity and community wealth,” said Casey Fannon, President and CEO of National Cooperative Bank. “The 2026 award recipients are advancing bold ideas that empower people, strengthen local economies, and demonstrate the enduring value of the cooperative business model.”
“Cooperatives give people the opportunity to share in the ownership, decision-making, and economic benefits of the businesses and communities they help build,” said Ellis Carr, President and CEO of Capital Impact Partners. “This year’s award recipients demonstrate the extraordinary range of challenges that cooperative models can help address. Our recipients have created tools, infrastructure, and approaches that have the potential to make a long-term impact for the people and communities they serve.”
The 2026 Co-op Innovation Award recipients are:
Amerge Music Cooperative; Los Angeles, California – $25,000
New Economy Works West Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia – $30,000
Frolic Institute; Seattle, Washington – $30,000
East Bay Fishermen’s Cooperative; East Greenwich, Rhode Island – $50,000
How the 2026 Co-op Innovation Awards will support innovation and shared ownership
Amerge Music Cooperative
Amerge Music Cooperative in Los Angeles is an artist-owned music licensing cooperative creating an alternative to an industry model in which labels, publishers, and licensing libraries can own the rights to artists’ music and retain significant portions of the resulting revenue. Amerge is building a more transparent ecosystem in which music creators retain ownership of their work and share more directly in the value it generates.
Amerge will use its $25,000 award to onboard 50 musicians, songwriters, and producers with low incomes into the cooperative. The organization will also develop and publish an open-source playbook documenting its legal, governance, ownership, and revenue-sharing model so that the approach can be replicated by music creators across the country.
“The Co-op Innovation Award is a true catalyst for us! It helps our community of musicians and music supervisors demonstrate a more transparent and more cooperative way to do business. It's inspiring evidence for our members that a fairer way of working is worth investing in,” said Levi Downey, President of Amerge Music Cooperative.
New Economy Works West Virginia
New Economy Works West Virginia (NEW WV) in Charleston works to build a more democratic economy by supporting the development of worker-owned businesses in underserved communities throughout West Virginia.
NEW WV will use its $30,000 award to launch the Firsthand Cooperative Lab, which will introduce young people in communities with low incomes to cooperative entrepreneurship and ownership. Participants will complete 32 hours of training in cooperative entrepreneurship, financial literacy, leadership, and democratic governance, followed by a 16-week apprenticeship experience.
In addition to directly serving participating youth, the Firsthand Cooperative Lab will produce a curriculum, apprenticeship model, implementation toolkit, and evaluation report that can be adapted by schools, community organizations, and cooperative developers throughout Appalachia.
“The 2026 Co-op Innovation Award gives us an opportunity to invest in young people not simply as future workers, but as future owners, entrepreneurs and community leaders. Through the Firsthand Cooperative Lab, we’re connecting West Virginia’s deep history of cooperative enterprise with a new generation – giving young people the opportunity to learn by doing, build real businesses, practice shared ownership and create wealth that can remain rooted in their communities,” said Mavery Davis, Director of Lending at New Economy Works West Virginia.
“The Firsthand Cooperative Lab represents exactly the kind of ecosystem we need to build if we want cooperative ownership to become a real economic pathway for the next generation. Young people need more than education about entrepreneurship – they need opportunities to practice ownership, develop viable enterprises and ultimately access capital on terms designed to help those businesses and communities thrive. Seed Commons is excited to support NEW WV and its partners in building that pathway in West Virginia,” said Brendan Martin, Co-Director of Seed Commons.
Frolic Institute
Frolic Institute in Seattle is building the research, educational infrastructure, and mission-driven capital needed to make permanently affordable cooperative homeownership accessible to generational renters and households with limited wealth.
In 2024, Frolic Institute supported the founding of Corvidae Co-op, Seattle’s first new limited-equity cooperative in a generation and Frolic’s first completed project.
Frolic will use its $30,000 award to undertake a structured co-design process with Corvidae Co-op residents to develop the Frolic Co-op Stewardship App. The resident-facing platform will support cooperative governance, financial transparency, community calendars, maintenance coordination, and vendor management, creating infrastructure that can ultimately serve future Frolic communities as the organization expands its model.
“Through the Co-op Innovation Award, we will be creating replicable education and stewardship tools for purchasers of cooperative units and residents that live in cooperative communities. This will help set a foundation for scaling access to homeownership to 49 million American renters who currently can't make a downpayment on typical homes in cities like Seattle and provide the support system for cooperative owners after they move in,” said Joshua Morrison, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Frolic Institute.
East Bay Fishermen’s Cooperative
East Bay Fishermen’s Cooperative (EBFC) in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, is a new producer cooperative working to sustain and grow local small-boat fisheries and create a model for revitalizing local fishing industries.
EBFC is being developed in response to challenges facing the fishing industry in Rhode Island’s East Bay, including the loss of critical infrastructure and increasing market consolidation. Through cooperative ownership, the organization aims to preserve and strengthen local fishing communities, make locally caught fish more accessible and affordable, improve the economic sustainability of independent fishermen and aquaculturists, and support the restoration and stewardship of fishery ecosystems.
EBFC will use its $50,000 award as crucial startup capital to purchase essential equipment and launch revenue-producing services. In addition to strengthening the East Bay fishing community, the cooperative is being designed as a model that can help sustain and expand local fisheries across Rhode Island.
“Over the last several decades we, the members of East Bay Fishermen’s Cooperative, have watched as the infrastructure that fishermen and aquaculturists rely on to make a living and feed our community has disappeared. The Cooperative Innovation Award will play an enormous role in supporting the launch of our co-op; enabling us to purchase essential equipment, rebuild the infrastructure we have lost, and sustain the local fishing communities at the heart of Rhode Island – the Ocean State,” said Richard Fuka, Independent Director of East Bay Fishermen’s Cooperative.
This year, the award pool was expanded through sponsorships from National Co-op Grocers, Ford & Paulekas, LLC, Gallagher Evelius, Jones LLP, and Loeb & Loeb LLP.