CoMinnesota’s Own It! A Co-op Fest was a lively gathering of co-ops, cooperative-development organizations, and co-op enthusiasts to connect, share, and support each other in our local cooperative ecosystem.
“It was exciting to share Minnesota Black cooperative history and current local co-op stories through North Star’s Cooperative Gallery Walk, a reflective, interactive experience that engages participants in important moments, people, and cooperative groups in Black cooperative economics,” Leanna says. “I highlighted stories such as Credjafawn, one of the oldest Black social clubs, formed in 1928 and based in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood, and Rootsprings, a Black- and LGBTQ-led cooperative retreat center in Annandale, Minnesota, on 36 acres of biodiverse farmland. I also uplifted YO MAMA’S HOUSE Cooperative to honor the late Ìyá Amoké Kubat, who founded this art and healing space co-op for mothers of all ages to mother, mentor, and make.”
Also spotted at the Fest was Eme Coffee & Tea handing out samples of cold brew, matcha, and sweet treats. They’re a new worker-owned St. Paul co-op, a 2026 North Star alum, and one of Nexus’ LOCAL Fund grantees!
And facilitating the Fest’s collaborative art project was Branch Out and Bloom, a 2025 North Star alum and emerging cooperative that provides after-school creative programming for Black youth.
Almost 200 co-op curious folks came through. We had a blast hearing people’s big co-op ideas and seeing our co-op friends! The event was such a hit that CoMinnesota is doing it again next year. We can’t wait!
In loving memory of artist, writer, and Yoruba priestess Amoké Awele Kubat
How do you even begin to capture the legacy of someone who lived so many lives in one lifetime?
We keep thinking about her stories: the ones that left us laughing, sometimes in disbelief, wondering how one person could have known so many people and experienced so much. The places she had been, the things she had seen and done. She carried so much history and wisdom, and she knew how to tell a story. You could be laughing with her one moment and thinking about something she said long after the conversation ended.
Iya Amoké was part of our Nexus community for many years. We knew her as an artist, educator, organizer, elder, auntie, and friend. She shared her time and knowledge generously, returning as a speaker, storyteller, and someone who helped us hold space for one another. She was part of so many gatherings, conversations, and relationships here. Her place in our community was bigger than any one program.
She cared about people, and she paid attention. She could be tender and encouraging, and she would also tell you what she thought. She had strong convictions and asked questions that made us pause. We are grateful for the care she gave us, including the times she challenged us.
Her creativity showed up in so many ways. She wrote, wove, made dolls, and performed. Her work drew on her experiences, her spiritual practice as a Yoruba priestess, and her connection to the earth. Through art, she explored things that mattered deeply to her: Black life, injustice, healing, and our relationships with ourselves and one another.
Her care for mothers was at the heart of her YO MAMA’S HOUSE Cooperative and YO MAMA’s Art of Mothering Workshops. She understood how much mothers give and how little support they often receive. She wanted them to have somewhere to come together, make art, share what they knew, and have their own needs and dreams taken seriously. She saw mothers as artists, activists, and healers whose work deserved support and recognition for being vital to the strength and power of our communities.
She brought that vision into the second cohort of our North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship, where she connected with other Black cooperators and accessed support to grow YO MAMA’S HOUSE. After the fellowship, she kept coming back to share stories, offer guidance, and hold space. We continued learning from her, just as we had before she became a fellow.
In 2023, she joined our Black Community Trust Fund advisory committee and helped give our Open Road Fund its name. She shared the meaning of Ejio Ogbe: an open road leads to the fulfillment of destiny. She also spoke about her belief in what Black people deserve: “It is one’s birthright to live a long life, in good health, and live abundantly.”
Iya Amoké helped shape Nexus in ways we can name and in ways we are still remembering. She helped us tell our story by sharing her own. Her experiences and ideas brought so much to our conversations about cooperation, community, and Black wealth. And there were all the moments in between: checking in with people, sharing a memory, making someone laugh, or saying something that helped us see a situation differently.
We will miss being in a room with her. We will miss her humor, her honesty, her care, and hearing her begin another story.
Our love is with her family, her loved ones, and everyone who is missing her. We are grateful we got to know her and that she shared so much of herself with us.
Thank you, Iya Amoké.
Celebrations of Life
Friday, Nov. 13, 2026
Great is Thy Faithfulness Church, 10 am – 12:30 pm 1115 30th Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55411
“It wasn’t just focused on research or policy,” reflected Nkuli Tabata, Nexus Director of Community Wealth Building. “It created space for people doing the work on the ground to share what they’re seeing alongside academics and decision-makers. It was a chance to learn from one another, build relationships, and have honest conversations about what it takes to create more equitable economic systems.”
Nkuli (center) with other conference participants.
Leadership and Democracy Building through Boards and Commissions
Presented by BCLI Program Director Chai Lee and Program Assistant Christine Lian
Publicly appointed boards, committees, and commissions are a hidden layer of government and political power that most people don’t know about or consider. But public bodies at all levels of government play a critical role in decision-making that impacts your life and every matter of public policy. How do you engage with boards, and how can you affect policy change through service on a board or commission?
Chai (right) and Christine (left) presenting.
Chai and Christine shared powerful stories of BCLI alumni who have affected policy change through board service, highlighting an alum whose work on the Minneapolis Task Force for Earned Safe and Sick Time (ESST) inspired statewide legislation for Minnesota’s laws on ESST a decade later. Chai and Christine gave a Boards 101 breakdown on basic board structures and governance, meeting calendars, positions and titles, and meeting rules and terms. They ended by sharing the story of Minneapolis Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey, who, 90 years ago, used local boards to study racial tensions and acts of discrimination across the city. With the fact findings of these boards and their policy recommendations, he made history passing some of the first municipal civil and human rights laws in the country, and propelled his leadership profile to national prominence.
“Now more than ever, improving civic institutions and engaging broader communities in democracy building are so important,” Chai said.
From Survival to Solidarity: Reclaiming Cooperative Traditions to Build Collective Futures
Presented by North Star Program Director Nonkululeko (Nkuli) Tabata and Program Manager Leanna Browne
Nkuli (left) and Leanna (right) presenting.
“We shared how cooperative development can be a pathway to economic opportunity, community ownership, and self-determination, particularly for communities that have historically been excluded from traditional economic systems,” Nkuli said. “We highlighted the work of North Star and reflected on what we’ve learned about supporting people as they build cooperative businesses and strengthen their communities.”
Key Conference Takeaways
There isn’t one solution to addressing economic inequality, but there are shared values and practices that can guide the work. Learning from one another across disciplines and across borders is how some of the most meaningful innovation happens.
The people closest to the challenges are often closest to the solutions.
We’re part of a much larger movement, and staying connected helps all of us do better work.
Photos by Atomickphotography.
At Nexus Community Partners, we take joy in witnessing what can unfold when people reconnect with their own power. Victoria McWane-Creek has been part of the Nexus community in many ways, and their words invite us to think differently about how change happens.
Written by Victoria McWane-Creek
My relationship with Nexus has shaped me in ways that continue to unfold.
As a Boards & Commissions Leadership Institute fellow, I reencountered the idea that “the state holds the power over life and death.” I rejected that then, and I reject it now. By choosing to arrive in this form (the form of a woman with brown skin) I actively proclaim the right to live, and to live well. Ease, dignity, and harmony are not aspirations; they are an unshakeable truth the state is obligated to uphold. The state must allow that truth to breathe, take root, and grow. My life and my work are an ongoing movement toward that reality.
As a North Star fellow, I confronted how far I had drifted from the Earth that feeds and holds me. Remembering my way back to land, to Earth Mother, required awakening across lifetimes. It meant recognizing that connection, belonging, and nourishment are not privileges; they are my moral, natural, and spiritual birthright.
Through my Open Road Fund gift, I came to understand that joy is also inherited. Just as trauma travels through DNA, so does joy. Experiencing joy, and witnessing the joy of others, heals me, heals my ancestors, and pre‑codes future generations to expect joy and extend it. That is the work I do through Onyx Collective: designing conditions where joy is not accidental, but intentional, communal, and abundant.
Nexus has been a companion in my remembering of power, of land, of joy, and I am grateful to stand in that lineage today.
What are we really doing when we remember?
Victoria’s story reminds us that the work of creating more liberated communities does not always begin with something new. It begins by remembering the power and possibility that have been present all along.
By Nonkululeko Tabata, Director of Community Wealth Building
At the end of July, the Association of Cooperative Educators Institute brought together cooperative practitioners, organizers, researchers, and people who are building co-ops in their own communities. It was a space to share ideas, learn from one another, and strengthen relationships across the cooperative movement. One of my favorite things about these conferences is being around people who genuinely believe another economy is possible.
I served as a keynote panelist for Celebrating 75 Years: Shaping the Future of Co-operative Education alongside Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard (John Jay College) and Electra Skrzydlewski (Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers). We reflected on how cooperative education has evolved over the years, what we can learn from the movement’s history, and what the next generation of cooperative leaders will need.
I shared how Nexus’ North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship uses storytelling, political education, and relationship building to help communities reclaim cooperative traditions and build community wealth. It was a thoughtful conversation about how education can move beyond teaching business models to building leadership and movements.
I also co-facilitated with Nexus’ Cooperative Developer, Christina Nicholson, about how we approach cooperative development and humanize the experience as an accessible approach to building the cooperative ecosystem.
Why Co-op Education Matters
Education is one of the most important investments we can make in the cooperative movement. Strong cooperatives don’t just happen because people have a good business idea. They grow because people build trust, learn together, and develop the skills to lead collectively. I left thinking about the importance of preserving the history of cooperative movements while making sure we’re creating space for new voices, especially young people and communities that have always practiced cooperation—even if it wasn’t always recognized by that name.
Co-op education is not simply about teaching people how to run cooperatives. It’s about helping people imagine different possibilities for their communities and giving them the tools to make those possibilities real.
Our movements become stronger when we learn across generations. The conference celebrated decades of experience while also making space for emerging leaders to shape what comes next.
By Nonkululeko Tabata, Director of Community Wealth Building
The second annual Minnesota Cooperative Summit brought together people from across Minnesota’s cooperative ecosystem, including cooperative businesses, community organizations, funders, educators, technical assistance providers, and advocates. It was a space to learn from one another, share what’s working, build relationships, and think about how cooperatives can create more economic opportunity and community wealth.
I co-presented Cooperatives as a Path to Economic Opportunity with Denise Butler from African Career Education & Resources (ACER) and Victoria McWane-Creek from Onyx Collective. We talked about how cooperatives create real opportunities for communities to build wealth through ownership rather than simply access. I shared the work Nexus is doing through the North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship and how investing in leadership, relationships, and community is just as important as supporting businesses. There is a lot to be said by having three Black women leading Black cooperatives in the Metro, surburbs, and rural Minnesota. It was a powerful moment.
Left to right: Nexus’ Nkuli Tabata, ACER’s Denise Butler, and Onyx Collective’s Victoria McWane-Creek present stories about Black cooperative development.A mini North Star reunion! Community Wealth Building Director Nkuli (right), reunites with program alumni Shétu Rose, Alicia Rufus, and Victoria McWane-Creek.
I also attended the Indigenous Cooperative Perspectives session, which provided a powerful reminder that cooperative ways of living and working have existed long before many of our modern systems. It was a meaningful opportunity to learn from Indigenous leaders and reflect on the different ways communities practice collective ownership and stewardship.
Key Takeaways
Cooperative development is really about people. We spend a lot of time talking about financing, legal structures, and business planning, but relationships, trust, and community are what make cooperatives sustainable.
I was in awe of how much cooperative work continues to grow in Minnesota. We had incredible representation from people who play different roles in the ecosystem.
The conversations about ownership really stayed with me. We often focus on helping people access opportunities, but ownership changes what’s possible. When people own businesses, land, housing, or other assets together, they build long-term wealth and have more power to shape their own futures.
Building an ecosystem requires all of us. No single organization can do this work alone. We need collaboration, trust, and a willingness to invest in one another over the long term.
Conferences like this are a great starting point, but the real work happens afterward through collaboration, sharing resources, and continuing to support cooperative leaders as they build in their own communities. I hope people left feeling inspired to take action. Whether that’s supporting an existing co-op, exploring a cooperative model for their own work, or investing in community ownership, I hope this encourages people to reach across sectors to build a stronger and more connected cooperative movement.
Photos by Heather Elaine Fotography.
North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship applications are open now through Aug. 24! Interested in applying? Watch our information session below, where we share a brief history of North Star, discuss fellowship requirements, provide a curriculum overview, and answer questions.
North Star is a place for Black-led cooperatives, collectives, housing, commercial, and land trusts to learn and reclaim the history of Black cooperative economics. Fellows come together for seven months of co-learning, storytelling, and skill-building. If you’re part of a Black-led co-op—or dreaming of starting one—this fellowship is for you!
Are you passionate about Black economic justice? Are you part of a Black-led collective, cooperative, or land trust—or dreaming of starting one? Then our North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship is for you! Together, we will learn and reclaim the history of Black cooperative economics over seven months of co-learning, storytelling, and skill-building. Apply to join our 10th cohort by Monday, Aug. 24, 11:59 pm CT!
How It Works
Nexus’ North Star curriculum grounds fellows in Black cooperative economic history locally and nationally, challenges them to analyze and rethink capitalism, and supports them in building their own cooperatives, leadership skills, and networks.
As a cohort, fellows explore and receive:
Grounding in the history of Black cooperative economics in the US and a history of cooperation and Black feminism
Cooperative skills and tools, like governance, decision-making structures, and conflict resolution
Support in designing and creating a strategy for a cooperative economic project
A $1,000 stipend for participating in the fellowship
Access to alumni funds post-fellowship
Time Commitment
October 2026 – May 2027
Saturdays, 10 am – 2 pm, one to two sessions per month
Wednesday Black Study Sessions, 5 – 7 pm, two per cohort year
Total time: Approximately 85-100 hours, including reflection, co-op work, and research outside of meetings
It is important that our program participants have not only the passion and willingness to join North Star, but also the time and capacity to fully participate. We understand that life can be a lot of things for us, including stressful, traumatic, and isolating. Our staff work hard to cultivate a sacred Black space for cohort members to participate as fully as they can.
Information Session
Interested in applying? Watch our information session below!
Applications for our 10th North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship cohort open onAug. 3!
North Star is a space for political education, strategy, and collective learning rooted in Black cooperative economics and Black feminist practice. We ground people in the history of how Black communities have always built together, even in the face of systemic harm, extraction, and exclusion. At the same time, North Star creates space for people to reclaim that history and put it into practice. Through the seven-month fellowship, participants deepen their understanding of cooperation, strengthen governance and decision-making practices, and develop models that reflect their values and the realities of their communities.
North Star is also about shifting how people move from isolation into relationship and collective power. It connects people to one another and to a broader ecosystem of support, creating the conditions for cooperative ideas to take root and grow.
Interested in applying? Sign up for our information session below!
2026-2027 North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship Information Session: Cohort 10
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By: Nonkululeko (Nkuli) Tabata, Director of Community Wealth Building, and Leanna Browne, North Star Program Manager
We began our ninthNorth Star Black Cooperative Fellowship cohort by grounding ourselves in the rich history of Black cooperative economics and the generations of Black people who have used cooperation as a tool for survival, resistance, and self-determination.
Fellows explored not only what cooperatives are, but why they matter. Together, we examined systems that often leave our communities behind and explored what becomes possible when we center collective ownership, shared governance, and community wealth building.
As the sessions progressed, we moved from vision into practice. Fellows wrestled with questions of feasibility, financing, governance, and conflict. There were moments of excitement and moments where the work felt overwhelming. Yet again and again, people showed up willing to ask difficult questions, refine their ideas, and support one another through the process.
Our conversations around governance and conflict were especially important reminders that cooperation is not the absence of disagreement. Building collective power requires us to develop the skills to navigate tension, share leadership, and remain accountable to one another. Those lessons are just as important as any business plan or financial model.
What stood out most was the willingness of participants to think beyond individual success and toward collective liberation. Whether discussing housing, food sovereignty, worker ownership, land stewardship, healing spaces, or community investment, fellows consistently returned to a shared question: How do we create systems that allow our communities not just to survive, but to thrive?
This fellowship also unfolded during a time of uncertainty. Many participants were navigating political challenges, funding concerns, personal responsibilities, and the realities of doing social justice work in a moment that often feels heavy.
“When we launched Cohort 9 in October 2025, we couldn’t have foreseen navigating a federal occupation during our seven-month journey,” Leanna reflects. “There were times we needed to pivot to tend to ourselves, each other, and our communities.”
Created by Cohort 3 Alum Duaba Unenra
Yet despite those realities, people continued to show up. North Star became a space where we could practice hope together: where Black people could gather, learn from one another, and continue imagining futures rooted in abundance rather than scarcity.
The importance of Black cooperative economics is as evident as ever. As Gwendolyn Brooks reminds us in her poem Paul Robeson:
we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.
Each year, we gift fellows notebooks with this excerpt on the cover, along with the Pamoja glyph, which means “together” in Kiswahili.
Cohort 9’s Lasting Impact
“As we celebrated the graduation of 14 cooperative groups and 33 fellows, I was reminded that the true success of North Star is not measured only by the projects launched or the plans developed. It is measured by the relationships built, the confidence strengthened, the ideas nurtured, and the growing network of Black cooperators who now know they are part of something larger than themselves.
This cohort reminded me that our ancestors left us a legacy of cooperation, and our responsibility is to continue carrying that legacy forward. I am deeply grateful to every fellow, speaker, partner, alum, and community member who contributed to this year’s journey. The future we are building together is possible because people continue to choose cooperation, courage, and collective care.” — Nkuli Tabata
“North Star, where we center Black people and experiences while learning together about Black cooperative history and Black cooperative economics, is powerful. Being surrounded by amazing Black people committed to imagining and building our Black cooperative present and futures is inspiring. Much gratitude for our 2025-26 North Stars!” — Leanna Browne
What’s Next
As we approach the 10th anniversary of the North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship, we’re reflecting on both our roots and our future. Ten years represents more than a milestone. It is a testament to the vision of those who believed that investing in Black cooperative economics was essential to building self-determined communities. It is also an invitation to ask what the next decade can look like.
The need for spaces like North Star remains as urgent as ever. As communities continue to face economic inequality, displacement, and disinvestment, cooperative models offer a pathway toward ownership, democratic participation, and shared prosperity. We are excited to continue deepening our commitment to political education, community wealth building, and creating spaces where Black people can dream boldly and build collectively.
Top row, left to right: Nexus Community Wealth Building Director Nonkululeko Tabata, fellows Precious Wallace, Jonathan A. Osei, Laura Mann Hill, Blessing Chirimbani, DeAnna Smith, Dawn Burns, Sammie Joseph-Fredericks, Cayden Black, and North Star Program Manager Leanna Browne. Bottom row, left to right: Fellows Shétu Rose, Tapiwa Manjengwa, and Sumer Powell.
Nexus’ North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship is a space for political education, strategy, and collective learning rooted in Black cooperative economics and Black feminist practice. We ground people in the history of how Black communities have always built together, even in the face of systemic harm, extraction, and exclusion.
Each year, we welcome a new group of fellows ready to reclaim this history and put it into practice. Below, three fellows from our 2025-26 cohort share their experiences!
“North Star has been a much-needed cooperative education space for our small (but growing) co-op. Each presenter felt hand-selected based on expertise and relevance to the cohort. We even witnessed impressive, responsive, and emergent facilitation from [Nexus staff] Nkuli and Leanna when it was clear we fellows needed more time and space to grieve, process, and tap into care during the necessary upheaval taking place throughout the U.S.”
Alicia Rufus, S.E.W. Cooperative
“Being a part of North Star has been a rewarding experience. S.E.W. Cooperative is focused on creating spaces for Black people living in the rural parts of Minnesota, where social isolation is high and opportunities for culture and connection is low. Through this fellowship, I have been able to slow down and really think about what we are building. I have been given the tools to build a cooperative that will really embody our vision: a strong, self-sustaining, Black rural community where social, economic, and cultural wholeness thrive. This is the spirit of Ubuntu in action. Looking forward, our focus is solidifying our governance and bylaws, growing our membership, creating programming, funding our vision, and securing land.”
Jeanine Wiley, S.E.W. Cooperative
“My experience in North Star was truly meaningful to me. I came into the program curious, but I’m leaving with a much deeper understanding of what it really means to build and sustain cooperative values in real life.
One of the biggest takeaways for me was learning how important solidarity, democracy, and respect for the world’s ecosystems are—not just as ideas, but as practices we have to be intentional about every day. The virtual cooperative tours helped me see these values in action, which made everything feel more real and possible.
I also really valued the hands-on work we did, especially creating bylaws and thinking through governance and decision-making. This was challenging, but it pushed me to think more critically about what fair and inclusive structures actually look like. It made me realize that strong cooperatives don’t just happen—they’re built with care, clarity, and shared responsibility.
The breakout sessions were a highlight for me. Being able to have honest conversations and hear about others’ real experiences helped me connect more deeply to the work. It reminded me that cooperative values are lived through people, relationships, and trust.
As I move forward with S.E.W. Cooperative, I want to carry these lessons with me in a real way. I plan to be more intentional about supporting democratic decision-making and making sure everyone’s voice is heard and respected. I also want to help build structures that are clear, fair, and rooted in our shared values. Most importantly, I want to contribute to a cooperative culture that reflects care—for each other, our community, and the environment.
This fellowship didn’t just teach me new skills—it shifted how I think about working with others and what it means to build something collectively. I’m grateful for the experience and excited to keep growing from it.”
