Co-operatives Editing and Proofreading Services

A co-operative is a business whose members are also its owners, its customers or its workers, and frequently all three at once. That structure only functions if the members understand it, and most do not — they joined for the shop, the housing, the job or the electricity, and the governance arrived with it. When something contentious happens, the co-op discovers whether its rules were written to be applied or merely to be filed, and whether members ever had a realistic chance of understanding what they had joined.

We edit what co-operatives and their federations produce — member handbooks and welcome material, rules and constitutional documents in plain-language versions, membership application and share documentation, general meeting notices, motions and voting material, board and committee reporting to members, surplus allocation and patronage dividend explanations, worker co-operative employment and governance documents, housing co-operative tenancy and member agreements, community share offer documents, member consultation and engagement material, dispute and grievance procedures, exit, transfer and dissolution provisions, and federation and secondary co-operative documentation. Our editors work to your rules and your tradition rather than importing conventions from company practice.

The decision-making and exit provisions are where a co-operative either holds together under strain or does not, and they are the sections members never read until they need them. One member per vote is easy to state and tells you nothing about what happens when a decision needs to be made quickly, when a general meeting is inquorate, when the board and the membership disagree, or when a member wants their capital back at a moment the co-op cannot afford it. We write these so the categories of decision are separated — what the board may decide, what requires a members' vote, and what threshold applies to each — so the quorum is stated with what happens if it is not met, since the alternative is a co-op that cannot act; so the process for a member leaving states the notice, how their share is valued, when it is repaid and what happens if repayment would leave the co-op unviable; and so the grievance route between members is written down before it is needed. These are uncomfortable to draft and they are the difference between a disagreement and a collapse.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including rules in draft, member records and board papers. We are editors rather than legal, financial or governance advisers, and we offer no view on your rules, on co-operative or company law, or on any decision — a share offer or a rule change should be checked by someone qualified in your jurisdiction. What we can do is make the documents clear enough that members understand what they have joined.