We announced the sale of Natural Magick Shop to Natural Magick Co-op on May 2, 2023. I (Cedar) am now just one of the co-owners. All of the formulas and processes guaranteeing ritual production of our potions are the same - they are actually written into our bylaws.
How did this come about? I had been offering the Natural Magick Tradition Year-and-a-Day program since 2017 (except for 2020 and 2021 of course) in order to have a pool of trained volunteers to help out in the lab. I had been needing extra hands because for years I was at peak production capacity - I just couldn't keep all the products in stock. I was overworked and burning out. It was nice to have volunteer labor, but I knew that we were heading for something more certain than volunteerism.
One day I heard, perhaps for the 99th time, an advertisement on KOOP Radio, by the Austin Cooperative Business Association (ACBA), announcing a mentorship program to help form new co-ops or convert existing businesses to one of the cooperative models. This was the "something more certain" that I was looking for!
I was faced with four long-term outcomes for Natural Magick:
1) I could hire employees and become a boss, which is just really not my style. I come from a background of cooperation and consensus process within activist organizations. I was never going to become "The Man."
2) I could sell the business to another owner(s) when I wanted to retire. Under this option there was no way that I could ensure that the ritual process of making the products would continue. This is my legacy (well, one of 'em!).
3) I could just close the business when I want to retire. Nope. I just couldn't bear to see Natural Magick die this way.
4) I could convert Natural Magick into a co-op! Yes, yes and yes!
Like I said, I come from co-op background. I became an adult within co-ops. First, I lived at House of Commons Co-op, a housing co-op, when I move to Austin to go to UT. Then, I got a job at Wheatsville Co-op, a consumer co-op, and worked there off and on for 14 years. This is when I first started learning about herbs, first in a medicinal capacity, and then in their magickal powers. I had also, as an activist with Earth First! in the 80's and 90's, worked towards the creation of KOOP Radio, a member-owned cooperative radio station.
When I heard those ads from ACBA, it felt like my branches had grown out and out and were now touching my roots! The alums of the NMT Year-and-a-Day had just been in conversations about how to re-start the Tradition now that we were all vaccinated, and change was in the air. I reached out to ACBA in late August of 2021, and Drew De Los Santos replied to me, and in September 2021 we started meeting and attending their workshops on co-ops and co-op conversions. In November we formed a Steering Committee of interested alums and student of NMT.
Drew was our mentor and Den Mother! She led us as facilitator through all of our meetings and filings. All through 2022 we worked together, also getting assistance through UT Law School's Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic, a very prestigious program where UT law students, under the guidance of professor lawyers of the highest caliber, take on a client and provide pro-bono legal assistance. I don't know how we would have done it otherwise - selling even a small business is a very large legal proceeding, and out of our budget. They and Drew helped us with our Bylaws and the contract of sale of Natural Magick Shop to Natural Magick Co-op.
We also got invaluable support and mentoring from SCORE. Any new biz or transitioning business could benefit from their free programs,
By May of 2022 we had incorporated and held a launch announcement. We still had work to do, and we did it! We now have a bank (a credit union, of course - credit unions are all co-ops) and a payroll company. We are committed to living wages for all of our members.
Cooperatives are ideologically aligned with progressive values, concern for community and environmental awareness. They are a way of doing business that doesn't depend on destroying the Earth and dehumanizing workers in order to give corporate executives six-digit incomes. Natural Magick is in a new wave of interest in cooperative structure, as aging Boomers and Gen-Xers (that's me!) seek succession plans for their businesses.
Don't sell out! And don't shut down your business - your legacy -when you can go co-op!
Here are the Seven Cooperative Principles that Natural Magick Co-op, and all co-ops around the world, adhere to.
Maybe this is right for your business!
-Cedar Stevens, Dec. 2023
