Cleveland Owns
Power through collective ownership
Events
About Us
We know that in racial capitalism, ownership matters, so we're organizing multiracial, grassroots cooperatives that enable member owners to build wealth and power. We're working towards a Cleveland owned by its residents.
What we do
We start worker- and community-owned co-ops, such as the Cleveland Solar Cooperative, PowerUp Purchasing Cooperative, and the graduates of Co-op U, our 14-week incubator. We are working with residents who want to purchase the building they live in and convert it to co-op housing. We also organize with residents who are demanding control over public resources, as in People's Budget Cleveland, which in 2025 launched a pilot to bring PB, or participatory budgeting, aka community budgeting, to Cleveland.
The common thread of our work is economic democracy--the shared stewardship of economic institutions that impact our lives. We bring 'nothing about us without us' to life as we build economic democracy in the city we love.
Celebrating 5 years of Cleveland Owns!
May 4, 2024. Photos by Mark Silverberg, unless otherwise noted
This Spring/Summer, Cleveland Owns engaged in our biggest educational venture yet…75 participants in three study groups, each highlighting a different “bucket” of focus: cooperative workplaces, cooperative housing, and cooperative energy democracy. Here at Cleveland Owns, we believe that cooperatives are about leveraging collective power, and to leverage collective power, we must build with a basis of collective political education.
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In June the Cleveland Owns team joined partners across the state on the Ohio Co-op Solidarity Tour, a journey to visit co-ops in Ohio that are planting the seeds of an economy that works for all.
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Learn more about the deep history of Black Freedom and Cooperative Economics with our friends at Cleveland Solar Cooperative
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In 2024, Cleveland Owns began delving into the realm of cooperative housing because we know decommodified housing is key to building the solidarity economy. We believe Clevelanders deserve the chance to get out of the rat race of spiraling unaffordability and instead live in at-cost housing they manage for themselves, on their own terms. Plus there is a rich history of co-op housing in Cleveland we wanted to bring forward to point the way.
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Co-op Circle's Candidate Forum
Coverage from Mark Oprea of Cleveland Scene of Co-op Circle's Municipal Economic Policy Candidate Forum. "It was city-subsidized grocery stores versus doubling-down on potholes on display in Tremont."
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Cleveland co-op program fosters worker-owned business growth
'In November, [Cleveland Owns] hosted Dolphin Tank, a night of celebration for graduates of its Co-op U incubator initiative. The 14-week program provided participants with a comprehensive introduction to the financial model, historical background and organizational framework of co-ops. “We are one part community organizer and one part business developer,” said Cleveland Owns lead organizer Jonathan Welle. “We’re at the center of that Venn Diagram.”'
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One community’s journey to create ‘energy democracy’ through solar
By Julie Grant 'When Deborah Lewis moved from Silicon Valley back to her parents’ house in Hough, on the east side of Cleveland, one issue she thought about a lot was climate change: the increase in temperatures, drought, and wildfires. “Fossil fuels will make us fossils,” she said. “We need to step up. We’re bigger than that. We were created for more than that.”'
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Opinion: What it would take for the fans to own the Browns
"Through community ownership, Browns fans would be able to contribute to the team they love and ensure the Browns stay in Cleveland permanently. Fans make the team what it is. It’s always belonged to them. Community ownership just makes it official."
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Cleveland Owns’ incubator promotes economic democracy
'Cleveland Owns, incorporated as a 501(c)3 in 2019 and located at 4241 Lorain Ave., supports five cooperatives working in clean energy, food access, digital access, and collective purchasing. They work with grassroots groups to deepen their capacity to organize and develop businesses. “We are an economic democracy. We incubate projects that build democracy in our economic system, mostly by starting cooperatively owned businesses that serve their members. We also focus on solar cooperatives to promote energy democracy,” said Welle.'
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Voices of Unity: Cleveland Owns
CLEVELAND (WJW) – Solar energy is already on the ground in East Cleveland at the Medical Center Company’s (MCCo) solar field. Soon, even more panels could make their way to a nearby roof. “It’s a way to one, put more solar on the on the grid, two, have democratic ownership, and three, get people actually invested and participating in the clean energy economy so that the clean energy economy is not something that only happens to those with access to privilege and wealth,” said Jonathan Welle, lead organizer for Cleveland Owns.
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Energy News Network
"Craig Ickler is an energy democracy organizer for Cleveland Owns, which was among the groups organizing the protest."
Read MoreThe Energy Democracy Initiative at Cleveland Owns
