Build a More Equitable Economy with Cooperative Business Funding

The solidarity economy movement is gaining momentum, and cooperatives are at its heart. Whether you're launching a worker-owned cafe, scaling a housing cooperative, or building a platform co-op, securing the right funding can make all the difference. This Solidarity Economy Grant Application template helps cooperative businesses, mutual aid networks, and community-owned enterprises apply for funding that aligns with democratic values and shared ownership principles.

Why Use Paperform for Your Grant Application?

Traditional grant applications often feel like they're designed for traditional businesses—rigid, impersonal, and disconnected from the values of cooperation and equity. With Paperform, you can create an application process that reflects your organization's commitment to transparency, accessibility, and community engagement.

This template is designed specifically for solidarity economy organizations, community development financial institutions (CDFIs), cooperative development centers, foundation program officers, and social impact investors who want to streamline the grant application process while gathering detailed, structured information about cooperative ventures.

What Makes This Template Different

Unlike generic grant forms, this template captures the unique aspects of cooperative business models:

• Democratic governance structures and decision-making processes
• Shared ownership models including worker, consumer, producer, and multi-stakeholder cooperatives
• Network participation and solidarity economy ecosystem engagement
• Social impact metrics that go beyond traditional ROI
• Community benefit and wealth-building goals
• Cooperative principles alignment and values-based assessment

The form guides applicants through articulating not just their business plan, but their commitment to democratic control, equitable distribution, and community accountability—the pillars that distinguish cooperatives from traditional enterprises.

Streamline Review with AI-Powered Insights

Reviewing dozens of grant applications can be overwhelming. Paperform's AI Insights feature helps grants managers and review committees quickly identify themes across applications, spot promising ventures, and surface key differentiators. Generate summary reports that highlight governance models, community impact potential, and network integration across your entire applicant pool—saving hours of manual review time.

From Application to Award with Stepper Workflows

Once applications start flowing in, Stepper can automate your entire grant review process. Set up workflows that:

• Automatically acknowledge receipt and provide applicants with next steps
• Route applications to review committee members based on cooperative type or sector
• Track scoring and feedback from multiple reviewers
• Trigger notifications when applications move from review to interview to award
• Update your project management tools and databases without manual data entry
• Send personalized award letters or feedback to applicants

This means your small grants team can manage a larger applicant pool with less administrative burden, freeing up time for relationship-building and technical assistance—the high-touch support that helps cooperatives succeed.

Collect Agreements with Papersign

If your grant requires signed agreements, compliance documents, or memorandums of understanding, Papersign integrates seamlessly with your application form. Once an application is approved, automatically generate grant agreements populated with applicant data and send them for secure eSignature. No need to manually create contracts or chase down signatures—everything stays connected to the original application for a clean audit trail.

Built for Cooperative Values

This template embodies the cooperative principles it serves. It's accessible, transparent in what information is requested and why, and designed to be adapted to your specific funding priorities. Whether you're a cooperative development fund, a community foundation, a credit union supporting local co-ops, or a regional solidarity economy network, you can customize questions to reflect your values and priorities.

The form can collect financial projections, governance documents, and business plans as file uploads, capture detailed budgets using Paperform's calculation fields, and even integrate conditional logic to show different questions based on cooperative type—whether worker, housing, consumer, or multi-stakeholder.

Who This Template Is For

This grant application template is ideal for:

• Cooperative development centers offering startup and expansion grants
• Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) funding solidarity economy ventures
• Foundations and philanthropic organizations supporting democratic ownership
• Credit unions and cooperative banks with community investment programs
• Regional solidarity economy networks with member grant programs
• Social impact investors seeking cooperative investment opportunities

Support the Solidarity Economy Movement

By streamlining your grant application process with Paperform, you're not just reducing administrative work—you're making capital more accessible to communities who've been excluded from traditional funding. You're supporting the growth of democratic workplaces, community-controlled assets, and economic models that keep wealth circulating locally.

Whether you're funding a ten-member worker co-op or a thousand-household housing cooperative, this template helps you gather the information you need while respecting applicants' time and energy. Create a grant process that lives your values—one that's accessible, transparent, and designed for solidarity, not extraction.

Paperform is trusted by nonprofits, foundations, and community organizations worldwide. With SOC 2 Type II compliance and GDPR readiness, your applicant data stays secure. And with 30,000+ templates and an intuitive editor, you can launch your grant program in hours, not weeks.