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Let’s keep in touch – Check out our newsletter archive

See what we’ve been up to. Here are our most recent newsletters.

You can also view the full newsletter archive here.

Let’s meet online – weekly at Chi Hack Night

Chi Hack Night (CHN) is a free, weekly “civic-hacking” event in Chicago. People assemble to build, share and learn about tools, services, and strategies that support the public good. ChiCommons actually grew out of a Chi Hack Night collaborative project! We are continuing to support CHN by sponsoring a Chi Hack Night Pre-Party on Tuesday nights from 6:30pm – 7:00pm Central Time via Zoom. Join us online then on the nights that CHN is all-virtual.  Then enjoy the featured Chi Hack Night presentation itself from 7pm onwards. Stay for our ChiCommons breakout at 8pm during that part of the sessions. We onboard new volunteers and work on our projects during our breakout time via Zoom. Note: ChiCommons will NOT be hosting the Zoom Pre-Party on the evenings that CHN meets in person.

Let’s meet regularly at Chicago Co-op Convergence #CCConvergence

We help with a regular forum by Chicago region cooperatives and allies to share experiences and form a stronger ecosystem called Chicago Co-op Convergence (#CCConvergence). It’s open to established and start-up cooperatives, as well as the co-op-curious. Consumer, Producer, Worker, Credit Unions, Multi-stakeholder Co-ops, and Allies are welcome! Chicago Co-op Convergence has just created their own groups.io group email distribution list/ bulletin board. Please click the button below to subscribe for free!

Put me to work – share your skills and we’ll seek opportunities

ChiCommons Consulting is our professional services arm. As a consulting agency, we sustain ourselves and fund our projects by taking on commercial, nonprofit, and cooperative clients. While we already have broad expertise, we seek new owners with skill-sets to meet evolving client needs. Whether you are a sales ace, full-stack developer, or seasoned community organizer, we can help you get work. Interested? Start by filling in our skills survey. We’ll add your skills to our talent list and potentially get work for you subject to needs and availability.

Right now, we need finance, accountant, and bookkeeping help for both internal and paid work

We are also looking for

Join ChiCommons as an owner and build the solidarity economy

We currently have two types of owners, Consumer owners and Worker owners. Both owner classes govern our cooperative and make key decisions via consensus. Each owner gets one vote. Every owner is automatically a Consumer owner that selects the board and votes on cooperative-wide issues. In addition, Worker owners have the protection of a Worker Cooperative form for limited liability. Worker Owners get paid for their billable work and can use our enterprise software tools.

Need help? Have a budget? ChiCommons Consulting offers business, technology, and other services to the community

ChiCommons Consulting is our worker-owned consultancy that provides paid professional services, like business strategy, information technology, web design, app development, and community organizing. Our members have impactful and diverse skills in business, civic, and technical sectors. We excel at bridging the digital divide and modernizing the way clients do business.

We serve the Small Medium Enterprise (SME) market. SMEs play an important role in the economy, employing vast numbers of people and helping to shape innovation, and are often called the heartbeat of the economy. We especially welcome cooperatives as clients. How can we help you?