Ed. note—The next few weeks will have an uptick in news from Next Interior. We'll keep the weekly digest since there's a lot going on, plus supplementary pieces, like today’s, that may be longer than usual. I get that there’s a ton of information out there these days, so thank you for your patience as we share more; I hope it is useful and inspiring.

Last week, an email landed in my inbox with some good news: Next Interior, LLC, was approved by the State of Maryland! It’s now an official entity. 🎉 But that bit is not the real centerpiece of this Memo; it is just the starting point for what comes next. For reasons both philosophical and practical, what comes next is moving Next Interior to a model of democratic community and action: Next Interior Co-op.

The hope and vision is to make Next Interior a place where people cooperatively, democratically, and sustainably build a constituency—a movement—that supports and shapes a strong Department of the Interior that fully serves current and future generations across the Nation.

We’re not signing up members just yet—laying out the general direction, listening and conversing—and we’ve got a timeline laid out at the end of this post to help visualize that. But if you’re sold right from the start and want to jump to taking action—four specific requests—then go here, down the page. Otherwise, read on!

Why a co-op?

A common question I get is, “Why a co-op? Why not a 501(c)(3)?” While co-ops and 501(c)(3)s aren’t mutually exclusive, there are a few reasons to focus on a co-op model as the path forward. It starts from the recognition that there are a lot of people out there who care deeply about the Department of the Interior, its mission, and its people, and who want to help ensure its future. Next Interior Co-op will serve people who love public lands and resources, science, and obligations to Tribes achieve impact in advocating for Interior, cooperatively and democratically.

Improving our democratic fitness

The first reason for pursuing a co-op model is the strong sense that we can use a little more democracy in our lives these days. You may have noticed that our collective democratic muscles have gotten weak, we’ve lost some flexibility and mobility. Our democratic fitness has declined. This isn’t a sudden or new issue, but one that’s been building for decades, and we’re now in a very bad place because of that decline. So let’s start exercises that will help rebuild our strength and flexibility.

Co-ops are a model of democracy: one member, one vote. How the details ultimately work out is to be determined. For example, we may ultimately decide that the Co-op Members will elect a Board made up of Members who take on key governance decision-making, but to start, all members will weigh in on governance and direction. I'll also note that I hope it will be a multi-stakeholder co-op, with both the “member” co-op and a worker co-op, the former to set broad direction and the latter to set the terms and conditions of employment. Bit by bit, we can help rebuild our democratic fitness.

Engaging and taking action is critical

Related to the first principle is a hypothesis: that we have gotten too used to assuming someone else will do the thing that needs to be done. Doesn’t really matter what the thing is, but it is some action that makes a difference. I know I’ve been guilty of that! 

But as we are learning these days, each individual taking action matters, so that collectively our voices are heard. Not only do people realize it feels good to take action, we see how it builds social courage and strength. Membership will confer benefits (more on that below), but also obligations to engage. Yes, voting is part of it, but we want to enable more engagement and action. 

Of course, not everyone will want to or needs to engage in the same way! That’s not only alright, it’s healthy. Maybe you’re a current or former civil servant still traumatized by the current administration’s actions—designed to traumatize—and you’re not ready to dive in. That’s fine, and we want to be here for you. 

Or maybe you’re one of those current or former civil servants who is fired up to take action. That’s great too, we want to build a place to help you do that! Maybe you just care about Interior’s lands and nature, or its science and knowledge-building, or its service to Tribes and want to do your part. We’re here for that too. 

The point is that there’s potential in driving action and engagement from a co-op model. That model also lends itself to our third reason, sustainability.

Sustainability

I am grateful to The Navigation Fund for its support of Next Interior and getting this all started; it would have been much harder or impossible without them! And I have found a 501(c)(3) organization that can serve as a fiscal sponsor if there are opportunities where tax-deductible donations would benefit our mission—think of foundations or donors whose contributions are high enough to benefit from tax deductions. But it’s a challenging time with foundation funding or similar “traditional” nonprofit models; lots of demand these days, as you can imagine, and lots of uncertainty on the funding supply side. There’s also the issue that starting from a philanthropic-first model might not get us where we can and need to go as a community. For one thing, that philanthropic model can shift an organization’s work based on the funder’s priorities, which may be tangential but not core to the organization’s. But a co-op is driven by members’ needs first!

Since we’re starting from a philosophy of a cooperative community, a place with an involved and dedicated membership with significant buy-in, I think that lends itself to a sense of engagement and reciprocity that builds sustainability. Yes, we will be asking people to pay membership fees, and in return, Members receive benefits that address their needs, maybe as a part of their identity, that meshes with their passions. More on that below.

Avoiding 501(c)(3) limitations

Last, it’s worth mentioning a practical issue. The IRS Code places strong limits on what a 501(c)(3) can do in terms of political engagement, and crossing those lines can spell trouble. 

But the U.S. Congress is one of the key audiences for Next Interior: for us to be effective, we’re going to need to engage with Congress, our representatives and senators, to change the course for Interior. That means supporting candidates who champion the Department and speaking out against those who do not. It means engaging on specific legislation—that is, being for and against—that affects the Department’s direction. 

So, as one long-time expert in those 501(c)(3)s told me, “Just stay away from those limits if you can find a model that’s not a 501(c)(3) and that will let you say what needs to be said.” That seems like valuable advice. We have the fiscal sponsorship option noted above, which could support some of our work that isn’t lobbying-related, like education and research. But otherwise, the co-op model will leave us open to say what is needed, when it is needed...to be full-throated advocates for the Department of the Interior, its mission, and its people.

Next Interior Co-op Member benefits 

What about the benefits of being a Next Interior Co-op Member? The last point of the previous section is the jumping off point:

1. Members benefit by knowing their membership is going to the work needed to build a strong Department of the Interior that serves all people in its mission. Next Interior Co-op will use every tool at its disposal—education and marketing, facilitating action, advocacy with the public and lawmakers—to advance the mission of building and supporting a strong Department of the Interior. As such, we anticipate that much of what we produce—or help you produce and act on—will be made available to non-members because that’s how we will build a movement for Interior.* Members will help make that possible, with support for areas such as:
   1. Staffing to do steady work that enables growing the movement. A few priority roles include continued support; someone to help keep the (growing) community engaged; someone to support on data and evidence; and someone to engage specifically with the organizations working for and in Indian Country.
   2. Continuing and growing the Next Interior Fellows Program, which supports people who bring their skills, talents, and interests in projects that will both support their development. The inaugural Fellows are focused on the nexus of climate, nature, and people, and many more opportunities are possible!
   3. Much more is possible, but as noted below in But what about the details?!, we want to help prime the pumps and make space for the discussions of what Members want and need.
2. Membership means benefitting by having a say, being a voting Member of a vibrant community. Interior needs a strong and active movement if it is to fully meet its mission; a community of people who are ready to take action in support of the institution and its people. By working together, we can better inform, educate, and support each other in working towards a shared vision of what Interior can be. There are plenty of options to just donate some money and move on; with the Co-op, you will get to set the direction, be part of the solution, something bigger.  
3. Members benefit from certain Members-only events and resources. As noted above, much of what Next Interior Co-op produces—written works, events and activities, advocacy, community—will be available to the general public since that will be critical to building the movement that Interior needs. However, we will also produce resources and events that are available only to members, or to which members get early access. For example, the online community that anchors our work will have some public components, but also members-only areas for informing, discussing, and organizing. We don’t want to be too prescriptive with what is included; Members will set that direction!
4. Members who are current or former Interior employees benefit from a (private) network that is part of the Co-op. While there are a few, mostly informal groups that aim to support the needs of current or former Interior staff—and some like Resistance Rangers for National Park Service staff that are already more organized—there is no equivalent of the Environmental Protection Network for Interior. Let’s change that by having Next Interior Co-op build the network, make the space for it, support bureau-specific efforts as there is interest, and more! The purposes? I’m hearing interest in networks for moral support, information and resources, networking connections, and means of organizing and engaging. Details to be determined…by the Members! (Yes, anyone with an interest in a strong Interior will be welcome in the Co-op but this network will be restricted to people who work for Interior either currently or previously.) 

But what about the details?!

I know some people will read this and want more details. How much will membership be? Will there be different membership categories? What are the bylaws? What is the core “structure” of the organization? 

Most of the details for the Next Interior Co-op are not settled, which is by design and intent. I want to scope out the general direction—that point out on the horizon that we’re aiming for—and have been developing ideas for generally how we might get there. But consistent with the philosophy of a co-op, it’s critical to not set those as “the way” we will operate; we need to listen and engage while using those ideas as feedstock. 

This newsletter is already too long to get into those initial ideas, so in the coming weeks we’ll have both (a) follow-up newsletters that dive into more details of key topics and (b) listening and discussion sessions to hear from people who are interested in early engagement. Watch your inbox for those opportunities. Until then, would you like some options to take action?

Calls to action

As you’ll see in the timeline below, our target is to launch Next Interior Co-op membership right after the New Year’s break in 2026. There’s a lot to do to get there, and that includes some things you can do to get involved, if you would like and are able.

1. Get involved in Next Interior’s engagement with the SEEC Institute. One of the things I want us to do is organize people to take action, and bring their knowledge, expertise, and passion to bear on work that will help Interior. We have one such opportunity now! The Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) is a caucus with “100 members in the House of Representatives who advocate for durable and effective environmental policies.” For example, significant portions of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act came from SEEC recommendations. The SEEC Institute was created in 2023 as a nonprofit to support SEECs work outside the halls of Congress. They recently put out a Request For Information to hear from people and organizations on their Thriving Economy Project. 

Throughout November, Next Interior will be working on a submission to the SEEC Institute’s Request For Information, focusing on a subset of the topics and questions most closely related to Interior’s mission. If you would like to be a part of that—organizing, thinking, writing, reviewing, something else—then please add your name and info to the survey below (reading the newsletter on the web) or click here (if reading the email).

2. Be an online community beta tester. Unlike your local grocery co-op, Next Interior doesn’t (yet, at least) have a place for you to walk into to engage in co-op business. And given our scope—the United States—that’s going to be difficult, but maybe that will happen eventually! But we still need a place to gather and discuss, collaborate and cooperate. To that end, we’ve set up online community tools and are alpha testing them. We’re already learning quickly but will need more people—potential Co-op Members—to help us test during November and into December, so that we can then do any tweaks ahead of the Co-op membership launch in January. We are very intentionally going slow with testing and the launch because we want to make sure it’s a good experience for folks. If you sign up but don’t hear from us immediately, don’t fret: we’re taking our time but will be in touch. To that end, we invite anyone who would be interested in helping with beta testing the online community to sign up here (web) or click here for the survey (email).

3. Help us find legal and related advice. While we have gotten enough advice for various legal and financial questions in the past months to get to this point, we don’t have a go-to for advising on key questions, such as those around the interplay of co-op establishment and funding avenues such as the 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor mentioned above or options for 501(c)(4) designation, etc. If you know of lawyers or firms who may be willing to help, especially if pro-bono in the beginning, please reach out by emailing co-op@nextinterior.org and we’ll get back to you. Many thanks for any leads.
4.  Give us your initial feedback on the Co-op idea. One of the most important things of this transition and making Next Interior Co-op is hearing the ideas and needs of Members and potential members. Please consider taking a moment to tell us one thing you would love to see Next Interior Co-op do and one thing you really hope Next Interior Co-op will avoid. These can be anything that interests you! We won’t be able to do everything, at least not at first, but we want to hear what is on peoples’ minds so that we can best serve their needs. Just two questions below (web), or click here for the survey (email).

Importantly, these surveys will not be the only chance to provide your input. For example, there are those listening and discussion sessions in the coming weeks and months—and they would be a regular feature of Co-op engagement, I think—as well. Stay tuned!

The timeline

“So, Jacob, when is this all happening?” you might be asking. Well, here’s an overview of the timeline to both help us stay on track and help you see it laid out. There's a bunch of testing and engagement before the end of 2025, then launch right after the New Year's break - probably 06 January - then further development into early 2026.

Questions, comments, or ideas beyond the forms above? Drop us a line!

* But what of freeloaders?! Yes, there might be “freeloaders” who take advantage of the work of Next Interior Co-op and, by extension, the generosity and dedication of its Members. But I don’t think we should assume that behavior is set in stone. In fact, together, I think we will demonstrate why membership matters and convert people to the cause and the philosophy of involvement, service to others, and reciprocity. If we convince even a few people, then it will be progress toward a healthier future.