How to Earn Points Through Member Activities

Updated 11/8/26

With just a little time in your regular life, your activities can Grow The Co-Op . With just a little experience and a few extra hours a month, you can Help The Co-Op. With just a little organization and critical thinking, you can Lead The Co-Op.

With our innovative Points & Tiers Policy, all co-op members can earn “points” towards both buy-ins and tiers through a variety of activities that keep the co-op membership increasing, the marketplace business selling, and creative livelihoods amongst handmade artisans supported without buying, selling or paying. If you have a great idea of an activity you could do to help the co-op, but it’s not listed on the Member Activities Board, we want to hear about it! 

Members find what’s needed in the Member Activities Board. We follow simple steps, join a project or step into leadership. This helpful tool helps us keep track of points but we can use any method we prefer. When we’re ready – each week, month, quarter or year – we submit points by completing this short form.

Grow The Co-Op – Grassroots Support

When we first incorporated, our members and supporters sharing their excitement about what we were doing was key in getting our marketplace operational in just seven months. Ways to support the co-op in your everyday life and business operations that keep us growing are nearly limitless and available to all, such as putting up fliers at relevant venues like art supply stores and food co-ops, passing out business cards at a craft fair, and social media posts. 

• On your own time, with your own resources
• Choose from list or propose something new
• In person or On-line

For activities that are convenient, needed, helpful, and points earning all year round, everything you need is here. Choose an activity, select your resources, complete the steps, and submit your points by completing this short form.

These activities are available 24/7/365 and you can schedule to meet with a member if you want support. We make a big, special push for grassroots support activities around our incorporation birthday, May 1st, to help us celebrate and renew our handmade accomplishments.

Help The Co-Op – Team Co-Operation

The marketplace only functions becomes members co-operate important operational roles, projects and activities in teams- People, Service, Tech, Marketing and Money. Teams function autonomously, on their own chosen schedules with members cooperatively self selecting into roles and projects.

• Ongoing Roles or Temporary Projects
• Coordinated with other Members
• On-line with resources provided*
• People & Service Teams may include Phone or Text

The Member Activities Board 

The Member Activities Board is a list of the activities available for members to earn points. only available in the members-only portion of our website, and in the Membership Application itself for use in calculating the viability of a cash and points combination pledge for buy-in. 

Some of the activities require activity-specific skills or experience, such as data-analysis projects or writing a blog post. When you see an interesting role, project or activity you can fill out an introductory form, schedule to meet with a member or follow the grassroots instructions.

For operational activities, all members receive a baseline of onboarding support, training, and working agreements to help us sustain a quality, cooperative environment across autonomous teams. Completing these before meeting with a member can help get you ready for team onboarding sooner:

• Group Agreement >>>
• Non Disclosure Agreement >>>
• Personal Identifiable Information Security Training Agreement >>>

Lead The Co-Op – Team Leads, Board

Leadership is developed autonomously and with membership consensus to increase the number and diversity of participation and leadership, to protect the voices on teams in choosing their leaders, and to reduce friction and barriers by providing guidelines with reasonable flexibility and allowance for alternatives. 

Team Leads

• Team’s are co-led by internally nominated members with no minimum or maximum time commitment.
• Leads manage the scheduling of team meetings, keeping of team documents, and identifying needs and challenges members are having
• Leads meet with other Team’s Leads to cross communicate, coordinate and support team activitie

Board Members

• Directors are elected by members to two-year terms, internally choose officers annually, and are supported by advisors and legal consult
• Board members consider questions and direct mission aligned decision-making as requested by teams or necessary to serve general membership
• Board & Leads collaborate in Governance Circle

Boards and Leads collaborate in a Governance Circle which is open to all members and is a points earning activity. An Annual Survey is produced by this Circle and distributed in the first quarter of the year. The Annual Meeting is a presentation led by the Board of Directors for all Member-Owners on the last Friday in April, and includes updates and announcements from each Team, results from the Annual Survey, and opens elections for upcoming Board Directors.

How We Value Member Activities

Member Activities are valued by the number of hours spent on an activity by a Member, or a fixed point rate for a grassroots activity. We aim to approximately benchmark 1 hour to a USD dollar equivalency based on the MIT 2023 national average living wage for a family of four (source). At the time of this writing, the Schedule sets Member Activities at 25 points per Hour. In other words, one hour spent on a task x 25 points/hour = 25 points.

In our post on Membership, we explain more about the one-time, buy-in investment that can be paid in all cash, all points, or a combination of cash and points. In our post about the Points and Tiers Policy, we explain more about the different types of patronage contributions to the co-op, each worth a specified number of points. The Points and Tiers Schedule linked in the policy post lays out the current value of points and profit sharing tiers.

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About Artisans Cooperative

We are growing an online handmade marketplace for an inclusive network of creatives: a co-op alternative to Etsy. Shop the marketplace!