top of page


How to Start and Run a Pay It Forward Board
A Pay It Forward Board is a simple, low-cost way to fight food insecurity, build community loyalty, and highlight your business as a hub of kindness. Customers buy meals (or drinks) for others in advance, and those in need can discreetly redeem them—no questions asked

David Baxter
Sep 14 min read


Brewing Cooperation: How Beanchain Lives the Cooperative Principles
a workplace built on the Seven Cooperative Principles, the global guidebook for worker-owned businesses. At Beanchain, these principles aren’t abstract ideals; they’re daily practices that shape how we work together, share responsibility, and serve our community.

David Baxter
Aug 303 min read


Building a Better Workplace: Beanchain's Worker-Directed Philosophy
In an era defined by stagnant wages, workplace abuses, and deepening mistrust between workers and management, Beanchain Coffee is pioneering a refreshing alternative: Worker Direction. This isn't just a philosophy—it's a transformative practice aimed at cultivating a genuinely democratic workplace, rooted firmly in cooperative principles and shared leadership.

David Baxter
Aug 13 min read


Why We Started Beanchain
My wife Shannon and I created Beanchain as a living experiment in economic justice. It’s a worker-directed company—meaning we’re building a workplace where decisions are shared, wages are fair, and power is distributed. We’ve built in casual voting, open forums, and teams that allow people to earn more by taking on more responsibility. We’re moving steadily toward a living wage and a path to cooperative ownership.

David Baxter
Jul 214 min read


How to Get Involved with Beanchain Coffee’s Mission
Beanchain Coffee isn’t your ordinary coffee shop. Based in Mesa, Arizona, Beanchain is pioneering a unique model—worker-directed businesses that prioritize fairness, solidarity, and community support. If you share these values, there are plenty of meaningful ways you can get involved in supporting and furthering Beanchain’s mission.

David Baxter
Jul 183 min read


How to Start and Operate a Local Food Cooperative (Chat GPT Deep Research Report)
Starting a community-owned food cooperative (food co-op) is a rewarding journey that empowers local people to secure fresh, affordable food and reinvest in their community. A food co-op is defined by the International Cooperative Alliance as “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise”

David Baxter
Jul 1635 min read


The Solution Seeking System Brief
TLDR one linerThe Solution Seeking System assists systems(any group of people) by identifying solutions that improve communication, connection, wisdom, leadership, or any other aspect of those systems. It creates a smooth cycle of growth and change that creates living systems that can better serve their participants.

David Baxter
Jul 105 min read


The Global History of Cooperatives: Evolution, Types, and Milestones (AI-GENERATED REPORT)
Cooperatives are member-owned and democratically governed enterprises that have evolved over centuries from informal mutual aid practices into a worldwide movement spanning diverse sectors. While forms of cooperative behavior (such as mutual insurance or shared farming) existed long before the industrial era, the modern cooperative movement began when people applied formal cooperative principles to business organizations in the 19th century.

David Baxter
Jun 2221 min read


Laws Impacting Worker Cooperatives in the United States (AI-GENERATED REPORT)
Laws Impacting Worker Cooperatives in the United States. Includes a TLDR and detailed summary for each law!

David Baxter
Jun 2055 min read


Cooperatives and Cooperative Ecosystem in Arizona (AI-GENERATED REPORT)
Arizona hosts a diverse cooperative ecosystem spanning worker-owned businesses, consumer-owned retail co-ops, producer cooperatives, housing co-ops, financial cooperatives (credit unions), and support organizations. Below we profile key examples by sector, detailing each organization’s business, governance, alignment with the seven cooperative principles, lessons for Beanchain, collaboration opportunities, and contact information.

David Baxter
Jun 1652 min read


The 7 Cooperative Principles: Definition, Implementation, and Roadmap for Adoption (AI GENERATED REPORT)
In this report, we explore each of the 7 Cooperative Principles in depth—covering their definitions, origins, practical implementation across sectors worldwide, benefits for stakeholders, and the governance tools and best practices that support them.

David Baxter
Jun 1581 min read


Welcome to Beanchain Coffee!
Beanchain Coffee is a worker-directed coffee shop and incubator for democratic business practices, located in Mesa, Arizona. It is embracing worker cooperative principles and attempting to build a model that can serve as a bridge for other companies to use to move towards worker ownership and worker cooperative models. With the larger goal of building a Cooperative Network that can allow for scaling while ensuring local worker ownership.

David Baxter
Jun 153 min read
bottom of page