Democracy at Work Institute

The Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI) is a national field building organization founded in 2013 by the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, the national grassroots membership organization for worker ownership, to ensure the worker cooperative field is adequately resourced and supported. Since their founding DAWI has worked to expand shared business ownership opportunities to benefit workers locked out of good jobs, particularly recent immigrants, BIPOC, and low-wage workers. 

DAWI is based in Southern California and New York City with a remote staff of 16. Their senior leadership team has long experience in worker cooperative development, and their multiracial, multilingual staff and board bring cultural competence and expansive relationships to their work with low-wage workers and communities of color. DAWI’s work demonstrates successful solutions and innovations and provides information and data, training and other support to field partners across the U.S. 

Issue

How can the Democracy at Work Institute prioritize, price and bring to market one or more of three promising earned revenue opportunities?  

Situation 

DAWI has three promising earned-income offerings. They are seeking ACT’s help to determine how to prioritize, price, and bring offerings to market in a way that produces net revenue without compromising core mission and programs.  

Project 

Understand the viability and priority of three potential Earned Income offerings: 1. Advanced on-demand Democratic-Management courses, credentialing and consulting support for worker coop developers and management staff, 2. Learning Management System(LMS) Platform Portal access & white-label flat-fee or revenue-share model for field organizations. 3. Research & Data consulting to organizations looking to build data collection and measurement infrastructure or measure current program success.

Deliverables:

1. Conduct interviews with DAWI community partners to determine interest and ability/willingness to pay and engage with identified earned income opportunities.
2. Identify pricing strategies and approaches that are accessible to community partners and provide the best revenue opportunity for DAWI.  
3. Recommend go-to-market approach and resourcing for highest priority offering(s), e.g. packaging, positioning/messaging, and approach to build awareness and generate sales funnel.