In an increasingly connected digital world, an international community – Patio Cooperative – is bringing together worker co-ops to support one another and collaborate on digital technology, communication and design projects.
The network’s origins go back to a realisation by co-founder Naska Yankova that her co-op, Camplight, based in Bulgaria, was the only software co-op in her region – and the team decided it needed to make connections. She soon discovered that there were others in the sector with a similar urge, including the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), ICA Asia – Pacific, Cicopa, and the Argentine Federation of Technology, Innovation and Knowledge Work Cooperatives (Facttic).
Other co-ops from Argentina, plus more from Mexico, Turkey, Japan, Russia, the US and Spain, came together to lay the foundations for Patio, which now represents 102 co-ops and over 2,000 people across 26 countries.
Through this network, Patio facilitates inter co-operation between its members, says Yankova. “This is where we take some work that we cannot handle – we don’t have enough people, or maybe we don’t have the knowledge in the domain. So what we do is we establish interdisciplinary teams that can close the cycle from an idea, design and development to maintenance and even marketing strategies.”
This could look like a project team composed entirely of Patio members, or an existing team drawing on the Patio network to find someone with the relevant skills to join their project, says Yankova. “Those interdisciplinary teams are, I think, our greatest success, because it’s really easy to move in the right direction when you have the right team.”
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Patio member Steve Ediger of ChiCommons Limited Worker Cooperative Association, based in Chicago, got involved after being invited to one of Patio’s monthly meetings, and ended up volunteering to facilitate a series of sessions in 2023 to set goals and create an action plan.
Patio also brings social connections, says Ediger. “I’ve met a wonderful group of people, mostly virtually at this point, but starting to meet in real life. These folks know their technology, are committed to the co-operative ecosystem and know how to enjoy life.”
Yuliy Lobarev, from Rapid Assessment Delivery Cooperative, based in the Russian city of Krasnogorsk, highlighted the quality of its members, saying: “Of all the dozen or so projects I have going in the co-operative and solidarity ecosystems, Patio members are the funnest and most professional people … I have found a great international community with different perspectives and points of view.
“But all these people share the same values. It is a great feeling to know that co-operatives and their workers exist in many countries, it helps to motivate my daily work. People from my co-op can also share their cybersecurity expertise.”
Collaborating across 26 countries brings its challenges. “Imagine people that are so different in terms of culture, ways of running businesses, understanding of co-operativism in general,” says Yankova. “When you dive deep, there’s so many things we do differently. For example, do we have equal salaries? Is that fair? Should we have another way of distributing salaries internally? All this stuff is discussed quite often in Patio, and one achievement is that we managed to create space for those topics to be there … We want people to feel that it’s okay for them to have different opinions.”
Cultural differences can also be a challenge, such as communication styles. “Let’s say, some nations are more emotional. Imagine if … you raise your voice because this is part of your culture. Other people can accept it as you are a little bit pushy, more violent, until we get the sense of, okay, what’s actually going on?”
From such experiences Patio has developed policies around decision making, conflict resolution and feedback, to ensure everyone is on the same page. These policies can then be reworked by the collective as things change.
Patio is managed via a circles structure, with a circle for each area of work, such as job opportunities, business development, and communication. Circles come together at monthly assemblies to share updates.
Yankova explains that, of Patio’s members, around 30 are classed as “active members” fulfilling regular duties within these circles. There are also opportunities for “passive members” to get involved in one-off projects such as running a workshop.
One of the main challenges Patio now faces is funding, as all of its active members are volunteers. “Although we are committed to a certain amount of self-funding by donating to a common fund … we could use some startup funding to pay our members for the internal work they do,” says Ediger.
Yankova says that Patio’s initial years were focused on creating its branding and narrative, while 2025 sees them in a good place to “make it more complete”, and ensure people are being paid for their labour.
Within the next two to three years, Ediger expects Patio to become “the first stop when any co-operative is considering the purchase or development of technology solutions to meet their operational needs”.
Patio also hopes to play a major role in helping further the growth and sustainability of the co-operative ecosystem, by advising the apex bodies on strategies for technological innovation.
Towards this aim, Patio joined international conversations about technological innovation at several recent co-op gatherings.
“Last year Cicopa and Cecop organised an event called Cooding,” says Yankova. “They wanted to talk about the digitalisation and technical bridge between the social sector and tech innovation.”
This year, Patio was invited to the ICA Global Cooperative Conference in New Delhi, where it delivered the Cooperative Digital Infrastructure Manifesto. It warns that the co-op ecosystem relies too heavily on commercial products that disrespect privacy concerns and are owned by profit-motivated corporates. The manifesto asks the ICA and other co-op apexes to: call for and support tech development based on open standards; promote solutions that are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable; create knowledge hubs that educate co-operators and developers; and call upon governments for support.
As Patio continues to grow, it is also developing as a source of support and knowledge for others, says Yankova. “There are so many teams that could benefit from self-managed structures … Now, with the perspective of 26 countries, we can share a lot of knowledge about it.”
