Cooperacion Santa Ana

Cooperación Santa Ana (CSA) envisions a strong, locally owned, shared economy where products and services are created with dignity and respect for the people that work them and the planet that sustains us. In Santa Ana and Orange County, we envision collectively addressing the needs of people of color and low-income families excluded from the economy through enterprises and businesses democratically owned and operated by them, networked in solidarity with each other, and supportive of their communities. We offer training, coaching and incubation, and host a cooperative network and fund governed by the cooperatives that form in Orange County. We are a worker self-directed nonprofit and share decision-making power amongst our staff, Board, and the cooperatives we incubate.

Cooperación Santa Ana was founded in 2019 to build upon a strong trajectory of community organizing and advocacy for resident driven economic development in Santa Ana. For years, resident leaders from the lowest-income neighborhoods led the fight against gentrification and displacement, and envisioned alternatives. Among these alternatives arose worker cooperatives, and many attempts to launch cooperatives began as early as 2015. We lacked, however, a dedicated organization and incubator for cooperative development in Orange County-- until Cooperación Santa Ana was born.