Cleveland Owns
For a city owned by its residents
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
Read about our work building economic democracy in 2025 in our Annual Report. 2025 included progress in co-op housing to Dolphin Tank 2 to our first Power Purchase Agreement with Cleveland Solar Cooperative. Plus check out plans for 2026.
Read More
On December 4th it was so exciting to gather with our local co-op community for the second annual Dolphin Tank! We heard pitches from seven new co-ops who graduated from Cleveland Owns’ 16-week incubator program, Co-op U.
Read More
It's a season of change and harvest. The trees delight us with their momentary spectacle of warm hues and the weather starts inviting us to burrow. At the same time, tomatoes and other crops are still overflowing with their last bounties of the year. At Cleveland Owns, change and harvest is amidst us as well. It's been an exciting and busy fall for us, filled with celebration, education, hard work, launches, and welcoming new team members.
Read More
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.
Read MoreMedia
People's Budget CLE to Launch $100,000 Participatory Budgeting Pilot Program in Slavic Village
'What should the neighborhood do with $100,000? Slavic Village residents will make that decision.'
Read More
Co-op Forum Highlights Economic Divide and the Fight for City Council
'Over the course of the forum, a theme emerged: the contrast between a downtown flush with development and neighborhoods that feel increasingly abandoned by City Hall.'
Read More
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.'
Read More
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.”'
Read More
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.”'
Read More
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.'
Read More
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.'
Read More
Voices of Unity: Cleveland Owns
'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.'
Read More
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
