Templates · Cooperatives

One member, one vote. One ledger everyone sees.

For worker co-ops, housing co-ops, consumer co-ops, and member-owned enterprises. One member, one voice — across decisions and the money those decisions move.

Quick answer

EnDAO is the governance and treasury platform for cooperatives — decisions and the shared funds they authorize, in one place any member can audit. The "one member, one vote" principle is enforced structurally: no single member controls the treasury, approval thresholds match your bylaws, and every vote closes with the tally on the permanent record. Built for worker cooperatives, housing cooperatives, consumer co-ops, purchasing co-ops, and newly forming member-owned enterprises.

What this looks like

A page from one co-op’s ledger.

Edgewood Mutual Aid · Atlanta

Q1 2026 · 47 members
Feb 09Member contributions · 14 members+$1,820.00
Feb 21Emergency rent · request #18−$1,800.00
Mar 04Community fridge restock−$284.50
Mar 18Childcare assistance · request #19−$920.00

The tools you have vs. the tools you need

Decisions in one place, money in another, history in a Google Doc no one reads.

Most cooperatives stitch together Slack, a shared spreadsheet, and a chat app. Decisions don’t connect to the money they’re supposed to move. New members can’t catch up. Treasurer rotation breaks the institutional memory. EnDAO collapses those three into one ledger that any member can audit at any time.

What goes wrong

  • Different tools for decisions, money, and updates — none of them talking to each other
  • Decisions don’t connect to budget actions
  • Treasurer has too much unilateral control
  • New members struggle to catch up on history
  • Accountability gaps when leadership rotates

What EnDAO does

  • Decisions and shared funds in one place
  • Approved decisions can release the spending
  • Multiple approvals required — no single point of failure
  • Complete history any member can review
  • Role-based access that transfers cleanly

What’s built in

The things every cooperative needs, already there.

Shared ledger

Every contribution, every spend, every approval recorded once and visible to all members.

Decision thresholds

Set what fraction of members must approve before money moves. Change it any time with the same vote.

Membership records

Who is in the group, when they joined, what they contributed. Members can leave; the record remains.

Notifications

When a decision needs you, when a contribution arrives, when a transaction is approved.

Works for

All kinds of cooperatives.

  • Worker cooperatives
  • Housing cooperatives
  • Consumer and food cooperatives
  • Purchasing cooperatives
  • Platform cooperatives
  • Agricultural marketing cooperatives
  • Multi-stakeholder cooperatives
  • Newly forming worker-owned startups

Common questions

Questions cooperatives ask first.

Can we use our existing bylaws?
Yes. EnDAO is flexible. Set approval thresholds, minimum participation requirements, and decision rules to match the structure your co-op already runs on.
Can different decisions follow different rules?
Yes. Routine spending might need a simple majority; bylaw changes might need a supermajority; emergency calls might need a quick approval from a smaller group. Set the rules once and they apply automatically going forward.
Do we need to be a registered cooperative?
No. EnDAO works for informal groups, newly forming co-ops, and established cooperatives alike. You can start before incorporation and adapt as your structure formalizes.
Can remote member-owners participate equally?
Yes. Everything works online. Member-owners decide from anywhere, review finances from anywhere, and participate fully without being in the same room.
Can multi-stakeholder co-ops distinguish between member classes?
Member classes (workers, consumers, producers, supporters) can be defined and attributed on the ledger when they participate in votes. Class-specific approval thresholds are configured per decision type at setup — confirm the exact weighting logic with us during onboarding.
How does this compare to Levridge or RedRiver for cooperative accounting?
Levridge and RedRiver specialize in cooperative equity tracking, patronage allocation, and back-office accounting — the financial reconciliation work a co-op's accountant handles. EnDAO is the governance layer: member votes, treasury approvals, and the permanent record of decisions audit-ready operations depend on. If your co-op needs automated patronage computation or NSAC-standard accounting, those tools handle it; EnDAO holds the decisions that authorize those transactions.
How is this different from Loomio or Open Collective?
Loomio is a discussion-and-decision tool — strong for asynchronous proposals and consent rounds, no treasury layer. Open Collective is a transparent-finances platform with a fiscal-host model where one parent entity holds funds for many collectives. EnDAO is each co-op's own treasury plus its own ledger of decisions — votes and the money those votes move, in one place, owned by the co-op itself. Many cooperatives have used Loomio for the deliberation step and moved to EnDAO when they needed the treasury and the decisions to be the same ledger.
We already work with Project Equity, ICA Group, or a local DAWI partner — does EnDAO replace them?
No. Project Equity, ICA Group, and the Democracy at Work Institute network are conversion consultants and technical-assistance providers — they help your business become a co-op (deal structuring, financial modeling, member education). EnDAO is the post-conversion platform the co-op runs on day-to-day: the ledger, the votes, the patronage record. The consultants get you to the structure; EnDAO operates inside it.

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Cooperatives | EnDAO