The Center for Family Life (CFL) is a nonprofit, social service organization focused on promoting positive outcomes for children, adults, and families in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. Aiming to help area residents secure fair wages and dignified employment, CFL began incubating worker-owned cooperatives eight years ago. Recognizing the potential of the model to create job opportunities for hard-to-employ populations, in 2012 CFL launched a NYC Worker Cooperative Development Initiative, which provides 12 months of training and technical assistance to other community-based groups interested in incubating worker cooperatives in their neighborhoods. In 2014, CFL was awarded grant money from New York City’s Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative, to be used to provide a year of training and technical assistance to community groups to launch new co-ops, with the goal of establishing 28 new businesses and 234 new jobs. To date, CFL has incubated five successful cooperative businesses, together creating nearly 150 jobs for area residents, many of whom are Latina immigrants.
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