The Texas Rural Cooperative Center at UTRGV, which offers learning and employment opportunities, is looking for people interested in starting their own business and will conduct a workshop next month on the cooperative business model.
The cooperative center is working on bringing Radiate RGV to the Rio Grande Valley, a project that is ideal for “younger professionals.”
“Radiate RGV is a really amazing network of businesses around the country,” said Annelies Lottmann, the center’s director. “The idea of Radiate RGV is essentially, like, a cooperatively owned staffing agency. So, people who do the work own the agency and get to make decisions about how it works and create fair, safe, stable work for themselves and their colleagues. So, we are putting together workshops now about that project to help folks learn about it and see who might be interested in becoming an owner.”
The center is looking for people in the Valley who would like to start a business.
“Usually these Radiate businesses are providing some kind of small business services, like accounting and bookkeeping or translation and interpretation or marketing and graphic design,” Lottmann said. “We provide a lot of support so that they can experience being entrepreneurs without having to go [through] it alone. You know, it’s like a supported entrepreneurship experience.”
The first informational session for Radiate RGV is planned for late March. For more information, visit the UTRGV Texas Rural Cooperative Center’s Facebook page.
Radiate Consulting, which has offices in the San Francisco Bay Area; North Carolina; Orange County, California; and New York City, provides “a variety of services that assist nonprofit organizations and small businesses achieve their goals,” according to its website.
The Texas Rural Cooperative Center is working on having an office in the Valley, said Blanca Estella Delgado, cooperative development specialist at the center.
“We want this to happen here in the RGV,” Delgado said. “So, we are looking for people that are interested. … The first step is to come over to us and join one of our info sessions. … It’s a great opportunity. … If there’s UTRGV students that [have] already graduated and looking for a job, hey, be your own boss. This is a great opportunity to be your own boss.”
The center offers most workshops through Eventbrite, but some of them are in-person workshops.
An online webinar to introduce the cooperative business model will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. March 22 in Spanish with English interpretation. To register, visit eventbrite.com.
To learn about upcoming workshops, visit the UTRGV Texas Rural Cooperative Center Facebook page.
“All of our workshops are free,” Lottmann said. “For the time being, our services to the public, our coaching, our business, coaching services and consulting services, those are also free. We are part of the university. And so this is part of the work that we do to be part of the university community.
The center’s mission is to help rural businesses, particularly cooperatives and mutually owned enterprises, launch, grow and improve their operational efficiency in order to improve the economic conditions of south Texas.
The Texas Rural Cooperative Center is an outreach project that is supported by the Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Advancement at UTRGV, which focuses on “improving the economic, environmental, and social conditions of rural areas and the well-being of the people that live in rural areas,” according to its website.
“We really exist to make sure that anyone who is interested in starting a co-op knows how to do it,” Lottmann said. “So, we really help people think through an idea for a co-op, then work that idea from the idea stage all the way through to having a fully functioning, thriving business.”
She said having cooperatives will improve the economic success of rural communities.
“The workshops that we provide … are always interactive,” Lottmann said. “It’s like providing a new way of thinking about what a business can be. … So, if people are curious about business, if they have that entrepreneurial spirit, and they are also dedicated to their community, and thinking about how to make work fair for workers, and how to build fair businesses, the co-op is a great model to look at.”
For more information or to request a private presentation on cooperatives, email blanca.delgado01@utrgv.edu or annelies.lottmann@utrgv.edu.
