Lead organization: UpValley Family Centers of Napa County
Preliminary partners: Promotora Cooperative, Democracy at Work Initiative, Prospera, Latino Community Foundation, Just Recovery
Counties of operation: Napa
Amount awarded: $309,191
Sectors: Small Business and Worker Co-op, Sustainable Agriculture and Viticulture, Healthcare, Tourism and Hospitality
This project will support Latina women currently volunteering as community health workers (promotoras) to enter high-road, quality jobs in the rural UpValley region of Napa County. Many of these women are immigrants and face barriers to traditional employment, despite their considerable skills and experience providing vital services to the local BIPOC community. The project will develop and incubate a worker cooperative for promotoras.
Promotoras serve disadvantaged, low-income, and Latino populations, including farmworkers and hospitality industry workers, providing free, bilingual, and culturally relevant outreach, education, and connections to necessary services. They also act as frontline emergency and disaster response workers and resource navigators in climate-impacted communities. Reflecting the diversity of those they serve, promotoras are trusted resources for their underserved community.
With a cooperative, they can more effectively market their services, build client relationships, and receive equitable compensation. A cooperative will also create an established, legal way for workers to make a living wage, enjoy job security, access benefits, and control their working environment while serving their community.
Catalyst funding will allow project partners to build on completed initial steps—market assessment with feasibility analysis, business plan, and toolkit with vetted processes and templates—to finish the development and incubation of this last-mile project.
