Cooperative & Community Ownership Models: 2026 COO Learning Series presents:
Finance Co-operatives and… Financing Co-Operatives: Innovative Financing Models through Co-Operation
Agenda: Program begins at 6, brief tour of the Cohousing community at 5:30pm
Location: Vashon Cohousing Community common house, 10421 SW Bank Rd, Vashon, WA 98070
From 5:30pm - 6pm, we will tour Vashon Cohousing https://vashoncohousing.com/, guided by one of its founding members. We will learn how this co-housing community collectively lives and governs together and how their co-housing community is organized.
Hear from speakers from Shared Capital Col, Salish Sea Co-Operative, and Washingtonians for Public Banking on models of cooperative finance – including models of member-owner collective finance and models of investment and financing of cooperative housing and enterprise. How can we cooperatively scale community lending and debt relief? What are current financial products that support cooperative ownership of land, property and businesses to scale and thrive? Where are there policy opportunities for increasing financial tools for cooperative models?
Register here: Financing Co-Operatives: Innovative Financing Models through Co-Operation Tickets, Friday, May 29 • 5:30 PM - 8 PM | Eventbrite
Speakers:
Erika Lundahl – Salish Sea Cooperative
Erika Lundahl believes in the transformative power of community ownership and artful co-creation of new paths toward collective thriving. Raised in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, Erika Lundahl is a storyteller, organizer, musician and cooperative development nerd. She serves on the boards of Washington financing co-op Salish Sea Cooperative Finance and also Conor Byrne Cooperative, a community-owned music venue in Seattle. She also works as communications manager at Spark Northwest—a clean energy nonprofit committed to supporting community-led clean energy across the Pacific Northwest. She has over a decade of experience designing multimedia communications campaigns to drive legislative and on-the-ground victories for environmental, social justice and cooperative development. Previously, she helped craft award-winning books, museum exhibits and impact campaigns as the deputy director of nonprofit publisher Braided River, and worked on the IMAX film The Arctic: Our Last Great Wilderness. She is passionate about convening diverse stakeholders, local community leaders and visionary funders to drive solutions to our climate and biodiversity crisis. In her spare time, she makes music and loves to hike, surf, and relish the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.
Links to learn more:
Salish Sea Cooperative Finance: salishseafinance.coop
Conor Byrne Cooperative: https://www.conorbyrnepub.com
Spark Northwest: www.sparknorthwest.org
Michelle Saenz – Loan Officer, Shared Capital CooperativMe
Shared Capital Cooperative is a lending and investment fund for co-ops of all types and sizes. Unlike banks, Shared Capital is cooperatively owned and managed by the co-ops that borrow from and invest in it —generating grassroots community wealth while building social, environmental, economic and racial justice.
Marco Rosaire Rossi - Executive Director, Washingtonians for Public Banking (WPB)
WPB organizes, educates, and advocates for the establishment of public banking in Washington State. We prioritize economic equity, sustainability, and an affordable green economy for Washingtonians over the profits of private financial institutions.