A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "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".

• Cooperatives may include: Non-profit community organizations/businesses owned and managed by the people who use their services (a consumer cooperative) or organizations managed by the people who work there (worker cooperatives) or organizations managed by the people to whom they provide accommodation (housing cooperatives) hybrids such as worker cooperatives that are also consumer cooperatives or credit unions multi-stakeholder cooperatives such as those that bring together civil society and local actors to deliver community needs second- and third-tier cooperatives whose members are other cooperatives.
• Research published by the World watch Institute found that in 2012 approximately one billion people in 96 countries had become members of at least one cooperative.
• The turnover of the largest three hundred cooperatives in the world reached $2.2 trillion – which, if they were to be a country, would make them the seventh largest.