The main objectives of the project are to promote democratic participation in decision-making processes and to support sustainable working and economic practices. Another goal is to develop fundamentals that combine the legal form of cooperatives with the sociocratic model for governance and self-organization, thereby fostering meaningful and sustainable economics. Ultimately, it aims to strengthen democratic participation in decision-making processes in the workplace. The project seeks to contribute to the priority of "Common Values, Civic Engagement, and Participation." Sub-objectives include building a strong partnership, gathering expertise on the combination of cooperatives and sociocracy, and developing a guide to reach our target groups (trainers, consultants, experts, founders, and decision-makers). The guide will be made available for free to introduce many people to the GenSo model and provide guidance for its implementation.
In recent years, we've observed an increasing popularity of both the legal form of cooperatives and sociocracy as a model for participation and self-organization. There's also a growing intersection of people interested in both. Currently, for practitioners actively involved in founding initiatives, there are neither informational materials nor training programs available. We see this as a gap that our project aims to fill. Our assumption was that GenSo, the combination of cooperatives & sociocracy, would spark significant interest and empower people on the path to cooperative economics. Therefore, we decided to create a foundation for an innovative educational offering that combines the cooperative business form with the sociocracy organizational model. This way, we promote democratic participation in decision-making processes in the workplace and make a direct contribution to the priority of "Common Values, Civic Engagement, and Participation."