About
Spring Up is a worker cooperative and transformative justice collective that provides curriculum, mediation, training, and coaching focused on interrupting gender-based violence and building the ability for people to collaborate. The company is structured as a multi-member LLC that is governed like a cooperative. The shift to a formal cooperative model was motivated by the desire to institutionalize shared power, address power dynamics and inconsistencies faced with contractors, and ensure long-term employees felt intuitive ownership over the business.
The company currently has nine team members, with six being co-owners and three on a trial membership track, aiming for all nine to be co-owners by 2026.
1. Organization of the Spring Up Worker Cooperative
Spring Up's organization is deeply rooted in principles of democratic governance, with a specific focus on sociocracy and transparent processes.
| Organizational Aspect |
Details |
| Legal Structure |
A multi-member LLC that is governed like a cooperative. |
| Ownership Acquisition |
Co-owners do not have to buy in with money. They are seen as having "bought in" through their time and energy spent as a contractor (typically two to three years). |
| Membership Track |
Employees join on a trial membership track (provisional period) that lasts about a year. This period focuses on co-learning essential business skills and systems to ensure they are full peers in translating data into strategic plans before becoming full co-owners. |
| Governance Structure |
The co-op utilizes a Sociocratic structure. The "Member Owner Circle" operates like a board, focusing on financial and long-term strategic planning decisions. Employees move in and out of different "circles" (project teams, general circle, member owner circle) across three terms a year, and their job description is a synthesis of responsibilities across these circles. |
| Decision-Making |
Decisions are made using consent-based principles, not consensus. While the governance adheres to one owner, one vote, the design process acknowledges different levels of background and expertise. |
| Job Security |
Ownership agreements are grounded in trust. Co-owners cannot be fired. If there is a need to step back, they can be asked to take an unpaid leave. The expectation is that if colleagues agree they cannot work together, the co-owner will agree to withdraw, aligning with the company's abolitionist, non-punitive approach to harm response. |
| Financial Transparency |
The co-op operates with open books. The full team is involved in analyzing financial data and strategic reports, including revenue and budget adjustments. |
2. Financial Benefits Offered to Employee Owners
The co-op structure enhances financial security by creating a sustainable pay model for gig work, providing stability, and defining clear channels for future profit distribution.
- Sustainable, High Hourly Pay: Spring Up has succeeded in creating a sustainable pricing model that includes administrative time. This has raised the effective hourly rate for co-owners to approximately $50.71 per hour (as of 2025), which is considerably higher than what members previously earned as solo consultants and is viewed as a key financial success.
- Equitable Gig Distribution: The formal co-op structure mandated that the founders transition to the same hourly pay rates as contractors and split gigs more equitably. This has provided more sustainable income for other members, although it introduced volatility for the founders.
- Dividend Distribution: While the company has not yet achieved the profitability required to distribute dividends, the framework is set: dividends are determined by the number of hours worked in the entire history of the company.
- Paid Administrative Time: A key principle at Spring Up is that all internal labor, co-learning time, and design time is paid (e.g., $30 per hour), ensuring that administrative or educational responsibilities do not become unpaid labor.
3. Emotional and Cultural Benefits
The transition to a formal cooperative has significantly improved the workplace experience by fostering peer relationships, distributing emotional labor, and instilling high levels of pride and responsibility.
- Shift in Power Dynamics and Peer Relationships: The co-op structure dismantled the perception of the founders as the "boss" and created relationships where members feel "more human and way more like a peer".
- Reduced Emotional Labor for Founders: Previously, the founders had to handle all internal and external conflict. Now, other co-owners recognize conflict resolution as their shared responsibility, significantly reducing the founders' workload and emotional burden.
- Increased Initiative and Responsibility: Formal ownership dramatically changed the mindset of members, leading to a greater sense of personal responsibility and initiative. This is fostered by the explicit agreement that the workers, not outside funders or managers, are the primary accountability mechanism.
- High Trust and Security: The commitment to the worker-owner model, coupled with the agreement that co-owners cannot be fired, builds a high level of trust and addresses the "instability of being a contractor in the gig economy".
- "Prefigurative Organizing": The company's structure acts as an incubator for experimentation, allowing members to pursue entrepreneurial visions (like dance-based programming or tabletop RPG design) within the safety of the cooperative umbrella. The co-op embodies the belief that cooperatives are doing "prefigurative organizing," modeling the structures that should be normalized in a future, more reciprocal economy.
- Empowerment through Financial Fluency: The process of co-operating forced all members to gain fluency in finance and legal matters (a "very particular group of people" doing "intense research"). This knowledge reduces the exploitation and manipulation often faced by queer people of color due to a "lack of information and understanding" of legal and financial structures.