Different types of cooperatives

The members/owners of a community cooperative are those living in that community. This could mean jointly running a farm shop, a school, or a health centre.

There are many different types of worker cooperatives. Preschools are often run as worker cooperatives. But there are also communication agencies, architecture firms and other service sector businesses owned by staff.

Care assistance is often provided through user cooperatives. The users, i.e. the care assistance clients, are members/owners of the user cooperative. Another example is parent cooperative preschools, which are run to provide childcare for the preschool-age children of the users. 

The members of a consumer cooperative buy goods and services from the cooperative. A car cooperative, where a number of people or companies share one or more cars, is also a form of consumer cooperative.

A producer cooperative is an association of producers in a particular sector. The members of a producer cooperative sell to the cooperative.

Sharing premises, joint marketing and securing business deals together are examples of business collaboration. It is a smart way to both develop and grow as a business. Equality and empowerment are important keys to business collaboration – just like in cooperative enterprise.

In the social cooperative, shared responsibility has a rehabilitative function. Many social enterprises are run as a cooperative.

A cooperative tenancy association is a type of economic association that rents out apartments to its members. There must be at least three members. A cooperative tenancy can be described as a mixture of a tenant-owned apartment and a standard rental apartment. A cooperative tenancy association has been established when the Swedish Companies Registration Office has registered the association.

Cooperative tenancy association, Swedish Companies Registration Office (in Swedish)