Our Shared Ownership Center is hosting a free business planning webinar series for cooperatives this April through June! Sessions will take place (almost) every other Thursday, 3-4:30 pm CT, on Zoom. Each webinar builds upon the last and is aligned with the LOCAL Fund application. By the end of the series, if the LOCAL Fund is a good fit for you and your team, you will be ready to apply!
Fill out the form below to register for our first session, Concept to Business Plan.
Christina Nicholson and Mara O’Neill will guide you through the necessary foundations in starting a business. They will go over how to assess the feasibility of a business plan and different types of cooperative businesses. This will be an interactive session with time for a robust Q&A.
Meet the Facilitators
Christina Nicholson, Cooperative Finance Developer – Worker Owner Initiative
In my role at Nexus, I serve as the Cooperative Finance Developer for the Worker Owner Initiative (WOI), which is part of Nexus’ Community Wealth Building Strategy. I help both start-ups and existing businesses understand the role worker ownership can play in successful owner retirement strategies as well as improved workplace cultures for teams. With solid technical assistance and organizational support, worker-owner cooperatives can grow and perpetuate community wealth by expanding opportunities for local business ownership.
I have been working in cooperatives in Minnesota for 25 years in a wide range of roles, from front-of-house retail to construction to cooperative consulting. In all of my endeavors, the thread has been working to connect communities to each other through common cause. This has been framed for me as a shared economy that questions the normative culture of the unequal exploitation of labor. Rather than focus on what is wrong, cooperatives look to inspire a shared sense of success and equity among community members within the cooperative.
When done well, cooperatives celebrate the unique contributions of individuals while challenging assumptions about how we perpetuate destructive myths around gender, race, and class. I am so excited to be a part of Nexus and look forward to learning from my peers who continue to inspire me with their vast knowledge of community wealth building, leadership, and development of strategic partnerships!
Mara O’Neill, Consultant
Mara O’Neill has over four decades of experience in the field of community economic development providing technical assistance and underwriting loans to new and expanding small businesses. She is also experienced in managing and operating all aspects of a revolving loan fund including loan documentation and closing, perfecting liens on collateral, loan servicing, and tracking loan funds. She currently provides consulting services to small nonprofit organizations in the areas of small business loan program development and management.
From 2011 until 2020, Mara was the Loan Program Director for Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers (MCCD). Before joining MCCD, Mara was Director of Capital Investments for First Children’s Finance (FCF), a nonprofit organization supporting the business side of childcare, where she oversaw the loan and grant program and developed FCF’s childcare business training program. She was Chief Operating Officer at Neighborhood Development Center, a community–based non-profit organization providing training, financing and ongoing technical assistance to new micro-businesses in Saint Paul and Minneapolis. She also worked for the Saint Paul Department of Planning and Economic Development for 12 years providing financing and technical assistance to small businesses and developers.
Mara has a BS Degree in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is certified as an Economic Development Financing Professional by the National Development Council, now known as Grow America. She is a recipient of the Top Women in Finance Award from Finance and Commerce Magazine and in 2019 she received the Champion Award from Credit Builders Alliance.
Business Planning Webinar Series
Session 1: Concept to Business Plan