CO-ACTIONS, a social and solidarity economy enterprise

Who we are?
Born in 2011, Co-actions is a CAE, Cooperative of Activity and Employment, located in the South West of France (ex-Aquitaine region). The cooperative employs people who want to create their own job in a collective framework. Co-actions supports the entrepreneurs in experimenting the viability of their own business project with safety, freedom, solidarity, and taking part in the life of the social enterprise. This model is a source of capacity building for the people and for their potential of creativity and innovation. Co-actions gathers about 80 entrepreneurs who generate a 1 million euros turnover.

The cooperative hosts very different professions, isn’t specialized in a specific sector: some of us are consultant and trainers others are artisan, urban gardener, web programmer, designer, chef… Each entrepreneur gives a financial participation to pay for the support permanent staff. The regional authority and European Social Fund finance the activities of collective interest. The support staff helps the entrepreneurs to develop their business, competencies, and handle the administrative part and accounting.

This collective project and its mechanism of sharing aim to offer higher work conditions that are not possible as a freelancer/self-employed:

  • cooperation between entrepreneurs
  • professional co-development
  • mutual communication and sales strategy
  • forecast cash needs
  • etc.

Our shared enterprise is an example of social innovation. Indeed, the CAE aims not only to secure the job and individual business creation, it is also an alternative to build a collective entrepreneurship project. Invested in the long term, the self-employed-entrepreneurs contribute to the development of the collective and cooperative project on a human and financial way. The cooperative has a scale development, which allows the necessary self-financing to its construction.

BEST PRACTICE OF INCLUSIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

In 2020, Co-actions was awarded as the best practice of inclusive entrepreneurship by the European Network of Innovation for Inclusion.
http://www.europeannetforinclusion.org/call-good-practices-2020-1

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION: A WAY TO EXCHANGE PRACTICES AND DEVELOP INNOVATIVE TOOLS

To share our values and experimentations, and promote entrepreneurship in cooperative, social and solidarity economy, and more broadly local and sustainable development, Co-actions is involved in various international cooperation’s projects and partnerships with European organisations and organisations form Quebec (Canada) since 2016. The purpose of these collaborations is to inspire ourselves, discovering other contexts and approaches, to exchange good practices and to develop innovative tools with foreign organisations (whether they are non-for-profit organisations, companies, public bodies, universities..).

Our topics of interest
Entrepreneurship
Social and solidarity economy
Social and environmental transition
Local and sustainable development
Shared governance

Our partners
Non-Governmental Organisations
Local authorities
Other cooperatives
Research centers

Contact:
Noémie Escortell
Cooperation project manager
nescortell[at]co-actions.coop