Beloved Community Incubator – Washington, D.C.
Tool : Neighborhood Business Incubators
Beloved Community Incubator (BCI) is a nonprofit that provides resources for community-based cooperatives and collectives in the D.C. metro area through its BCI Network. It incubates new cooperatives and collectives, supporting workers during the process of creating and launching business operations. As an incubator, BCI provides pre-launch support, business and leadership development, governance, and conflict resolution training, as well as legal, bookkeeping, and administrative support, all at sliding-scale rates. As of 2024, it has supported more than a dozen cooperatives that create living-wage jobs and are led by low-income, working-class BIPOC owners, including a cleaning company, taxi service, grocery co-op, restaurant, and advocacy nonprofit.
BCI also created a Solidarity Economy Loan Fund (DC SELF) in 2022 for D.C. area co-ops. DC SELF is for co-ops led by worker-owners from historically underinvested communities who do not qualify for loans through traditional lending practices. Loans from the fund do not require personal guarantees or assets to secure and do not have to be repaid until a co-op has enough revenue to do so. DC SELF has invested in two local co-ops, Dulce Hogar and Throneless Tech.