Rob Brown of the Cooperative Development Institute will speak on Saturday, April 6, at 11 a.m. at the Lincolnville Community Library.  Brown is a housing program organizer at the institute, which supports cooperative business development in New England and New York.

According to Brown, co-ops are business enterprises formed by groups of people who voluntarily develop, jointly own and democratically control the enterprise to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs. He will give an overview of the variety of co-ops in Maine, the United States, and across the globe, examine how they improve economic and community development, and provide practical information on how individuals can join together to start new co-ops.

“The cooperative enterprise sector nationally is comprised of 29,000 businesses with 2 million jobs, 130 million members, $652 billion in annual sales and assets of $3 trillion,” Brown said. “Perhaps more than any other policy innovation, cooperative enterprises hold the greatest potential to simultaneously advance economic opportunity, social justice and environmental sustainability, offering fresh thinking beyond the traditional prescriptions of the left and right that usually accompany our country and state’s stale economic debates.”  

Brown has a background in community organizing, communications, nonprofit and for-profit business development, and policy development and advocacy in the fields of education and workforce development, economic development, energy, and tax and budget. He has been a speaker at numerous state and national conferences and was a William Jefferson Clinton Distinguished Lecturer at the Clinton Presidential Library and School of Public Service. He studied economics and public policy at the University of Maine and College of the Atlantic and lives with his wife in Northport.

There will be plenty of time for discussion following Brown’s talk and the farmers market will also be open for people to shop until noon. The Lincolnville Community Library is located at the corner of Main Street and Heal Road in Lincolnville Center. For more information, e-mail fireweed@tidewater.net.