Co-op Allies Support the Proposal to #BuyTwitter

Dear Twitter shareholders,

We believe you can learn from co-ops and all enterprises that thrive with democratic ownership.

Our organizations work with financially healthy and sustainable cooperatives that range from grocery stores and robotics firms, to electric co-ops with billions of dollars in revenue and credit unions with trillions of dollars in member deposits in the U.S. alone. Many successful examples have been around for decades and centuries, and hold valuable lessons for networked enterprises like Twitter.

Twitter has an enormous opportunity to boost user loyalty and deliver shareholder value. CEO Jack Dorsey calls Twitter the “people’s news network,” and retail shareholders account for 60% of its ownership. But the current business model fails to empower users as true stakeholders in Twitter’s future.

We believe that Twitter would benefit from studying a transition to democratic user ownership.

That is why we support voting YES on the the BuyTwitter proposal.

Moving toward a more sustainable structure could in turn reward current shareholders for their investment. Because cooperatives are bound by their governing bylaws to fulfill the interests of their members, they are strongly incentivized to provide them with the highest quality product. We see scenarios through which all stakeholders can win a better service and greater value.

When you consider the proposal to study broad-based ownership and accountability on Twitter, we urge you to take our support into consideration.

As a coalition of organizations representing and supporting cooperative enterprises, we call on our allies to sign on to this letter, below.

Signed,

Join Us

Sign on to our joint letter