The Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation (“CWCF”) is a national, bilingual grassroots membership organization of and for worker co-operatives, related types of co-operatives (multi-stakeholder co-ops and worker-shareholder co-ops), and organizations that support the growth and development of worker co-operatives. CWCF was incorporated in 1992, has approximately 50 member cooperatives and an annual budget of approximately $300,000. Activities and services include an RRSP program, an annual conference, an investment fund, newsletters and other communications, outreach and advocacy efforts. CWCF has extensive relationships with other co-operative organisations and associations in Canada.

CWCF is financially viable, with a strong staff and a stable membership. CWCF has ambitions of growing the worker co-operative movement in Canada, an ambition which will require new approaches and strategies beyond those that are currently being employed. For background information on a successful worker cooperative movement, see the document: The Worker Co-operative Movements in Italy, Mondragon and France: Context, Success Factors and Lessons. To understand more about the worker co-op model, see: Starting a Worker Co-op: A Canadian Handbook.

CWCF is seeking proposals to engage staff, board, members and friends in an innovative and stimulating process to develop a multi-year strategic plan.

Project details

• Timeline: The strategic plan will be developed between January and November, 2018
• Budget: CWCF is a small organisation with limited financial resources, however CWCF is interested in the quality of the proposals and will seek to provide or secure financial resources to implement the selected proposal.
• Support: CWCF will work with the selected proponent to support the selected proposal.
• Objectives:
  • Identify a multi-year strategic plan that will guide CWCF in growing the worker cooperative movement.
  • Meaningfully engage staff, board, members and friends of CWCF.
  • Build relationships with likely and unlikely allies.

Proposal

The proposal should include:

• Project understanding
• A description of the method
• Team member(s)
• Experience
• Schedule
• Budget
• Three references, including contact information, project descriptions for each of the reference

The proposal should be no longer than 10 pages.

Evaluation

Evaluation will be undertaken by a committee composed of three board members, a staff person and two at-large CWCF members. The evaluation committee will become the steering committee which will support the implementation of the selected proposal.

The following criteria will be used to evaluate the proposals:

Submission and deadline

Bidders should submit proposals to Kaye Grant, communications at canadianworker.coop, by December 15th, 2017.