It has been a busy year for the team at DotCooperation (DotCoop), the registry of the .coop and .creditunion domain names.
In February, DotCoop relaunched Stories.coop, a platform that shares information about the cooperative model, its values and principles and its impact on local communities. And this month they announced the launch of a regularly updated global map of co-op businesses and organizations.
DotCoop says the map is “the first step in revolutionizing how cooperatives connect, communicate and showcase their global impact.”
Developed with the support of the Oxford-based Digital Commons Cooperative, the map uses open software to merge data from numerous organizations in the world.
More than 12,000 co-ops have already been added to the map, which will provide information on co-ops by name, sector or type through tailored search functionalities, including country, primary activity, DotCooperation registration and International Cooperative Alliance membership.
DotCoop, which is jointly owned by NCBA CLUSA and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), is driven by a mission to unite and strengthen the cooperative community through a shared and recognized online identity.
“The map has got its use at all levels,” said Tom Ivey, Community Development Manager at DotCoop. Consumers as well as co-ops can use it locally to find bonafide co-ops to source products or services from, he added. The project aims to promote Principle 6, or cooperation among cooperatives, in a digital era. Users can also browse the map to find cooperative federations in their country or region.
Membership bodies can also use the map in their advocacy efforts, to showcase the co-op ecosystem on a regional or global scale. Apexes can also use it to search for potential members by checking what co-ops exist in their area.
“This is a tool that we are giving to the movement to make use of,” Ivey said. With the 2025 International Year of Cooperatives on the horizon, DotCoop wanted to leverage next year to showcase co-ops around the world.
“The International Year of Cooperatives is our excuse to do this, but it’s not why we’re doing this. [The map] is a tool that will last long into the future,” he added.
DotCoop hopes the map will also enable co-ops to build circular economies. Post launch, it will be updated regularly, continuing to merge data and statistics from different organizations.
“By focusing on member-based organizations, we ensured that the data would be accurate and continuously updated, providing a reliable resource for cooperatives worldwide,” said Tamela Blalock, Vice President of Cooperative Relations at NCBA CLUSA, who led NCBA CLUSA’s work on the map.
“The digital infrastructure we’ve built will not only strengthen cooperative connections but sustain them long into the future,” she added.
“The digital infrastructure we’ve built will not only strengthen cooperative connections but sustain them long into the future.” – Tamela Blalock, Vice President of Cooperative Relations, NCBA CLUSA
DotCoop, which is jointly owned by NCBA CLUSA and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), is driven by a mission to unite and strengthen the cooperative community through a shared and recognized online identity.
The Global Cooperative Map is a self-funded project that feeds into this mission to develop tools to help people celebrate the co-op difference and identity, Ivey said.
The DotCoop team is inviting co-ops worldwide to contribute to and use the map to help gather, harness and own their data, gain visibility and collectively showcase the movement’s impact on a global stage.
“This map is a sustainable, inclusive resource that not only documents the cooperative landscape and evolves with it, but also fosters a vibrant community of co-ops,” Blalock said.
DotCoop announce the launch of the map at NCBA CLUSA’s Co-op IMPACT Conference in Washington, DC earlier this month. A demo site of the Cooperative World Map will be launched during the ICA Global Cooperative Conference in New Delhi in November, with a full launch planned in 2025.