We are employee-owned
Gimme Coffee was established in 2000 as a sole proprietor business, and reestablished in 2022 as an employee-owned company.
Employee ownership can come in a few different forms, the two primary ways being employee stock ownership programs (ESOPs) or cooperatives. Both pathways empower employees and share the net profit of the business. For our business we chose the cooperative model as we wanted employee owners to have more say in the strategy of the business, not just access to the profits of the business.
We're a Democracy
Employee owners are not expected to make day-to-day decisions about the Gimme Coffee Cooperative. We have a management structure for operational decision-making.
For larger strategic decisions, a representative democracy is achieved through employee owners voting at Member Meetings, a Board of Directors elected by the full membership, committee work, financial transparency, and profit sharing. Employee owners vote to elect Board members, change Bylaws, change Articles of Organization, change the decision matrix, change membership criteria and processes, and determine to dissolve or sell the Cooperative.