Obran Membership

Obran is a worker-owned cooperative conglomerate. We’re redefining what it means to work together. Our mission is simple: empowering our members to thrive through ownership, shared responsibility, and collective success.

Own Your Work

We grow our cooperative by converting small, successful businesses, and into worker-owned businesses. Obran is owned by its workers, also known as members. If you decide to elect membership, you can become a worker-owner as well.

Becoming a member at Obran is a choice, and you’re under no obligation to join. But as a member of Obran, you’ll help advance  our mission and values,  influence important business decisions, and have a stake in the cooperative’s financial success.

  • An Obran Cooperative Member is a worker-owner.

    But members aren’t just owners of their specific business. Instead, members own a part of the full Obran Cooperative made up of 6 businesses and 350 workers. While our members all have different roles as workers—such as clinicians, artists, executives, and HR administrators—we have just one title as Obran Cooperative worker-owners: Member.

    Each Obran member owns the exact same stake in the Cooperative. One worker, one vote, one share, regardless of your position and tenure.

  • Membership means sharing ownership of something much bigger than yourself.  Cooperative membership comes with rights, responsibilities and rewards. 

    As a cooperative member, you’ll receive all of your regular benefits, plus:

    • The right to vote in elections for your company’s Board, the Obran Board, and certain major member-wide decisions

    • Annual profit sharing across all Obran companies, (once applicable)

    • The right to run for positions on your company’s Board and the Obran Board, and to join Obran Committees 

    • Full transparency of the Cooperatives’ financials and overall strategy

    • Access to free personal enrichment classes

    • Discounted Financial Planning Services

    • Financial Assistance Resources

    As we grow together, Obran will seek to provide additional benefits based on member preferences. Our team is continually working on developing and rolling out additional member benefits. Decisions around member benefits are just one example of how your voice can help drive change and shape the future of the cooperative!

  • Sharing in the ownership of Obran comes with certain Member responsibilities:


    • Retain a $250 minimum investment as your membership share (can be financed) * 

    • Contribute 1% of your pay to your Obran savings account, also know as Internal Capital Account (ICA)* 

    • Work a minimum of 10 hours per year

    • Attend at least 3 member meetings each year

    Workers can leave membership at any time during their employment with the company. Should a worker leave the organization, their ICA and membership share will be returned to them. 

  • Choosing to become an Obran Member is the first step in taking ownership of your work. To become a member, you’ll need to:


    1. Sign a Membership Agreement

    2. Buy a membership share in Obran: $250 * (Can be paid over time) 

    3. Elect your on-going contributions to your  Obran savings account (ICA). Must be at least 1% of your wages *

    4. Pass a 90 day waiting period to gain voting rights

    5. Optional but highly recommended: Complete member training

* These contributions are not dues. They do not disappear but rather sit in an account that is reserved for you. These are withheld post-tax and placed into your personal internal capital account, a savings account within Obran. If you ever leave, you will be able to withdraw all of your deposits. The minimum balance for this account is $250 which is your ownership share.  Learn more about ICA Accounts here.

Get Started

If you’re ready to join us on this exciting journey, we encourage you to sign up today! Here’s just some of what you can expect after you sign up….

Deductions

Your membership share purchase and on-going ICA deductions will be reflected in your upcoming paycheck. Although this may be delayed, we will notify you prior to this deduction.

Learn

Check out trainings on Obran, employee ownership and financial reporting

Meetings

We encourage you to be involved and participate in at least three member meetings each year. 

Events

You’ll be invited to a diverse array of events, including Member Forums, exclusive trainings, board meetings, and more. 

Updates

We’ll keep you updated on all things Obran, be on the lookout for our member newsletters and text communications.

Learn More 

We want you to be fully informed about what it means to be an Obran Member. If you’re interested in understanding the details, here are a few ways of learning more.

Sometimes, it’s easiest to just talk to someone. Let us know here if you’d like to chat with an Obran Member to learn more.

Membership Overview

For an overview of membership please visit: docs.obran.coop.

About Obran

Learn about Obran’s history and business model, cooperative economics and more in our Training modules and by reading our bylaws. 

Our Bylaws are the rules of our Cooperative and a great place to learn more about how we do things. Those can be viewed here.

Upcoming Events

Stay tuned! We’ll notify you of more great ways to learn about Obran and membership.