VOSKHOD Consumer Cooperative

VOSKHOD brings together the developers and the users of software for the cooperative economy. The cooperative builds a digital platform on which consumer societies run membership, document flow, meetings and accounting, and develops it with the effort and resources of its own members.

The cooperative rests on a need its members share: Russian cooperatives require software of their own, and building it is a task for joint effort. Every member takes part in this work through share contributions. Authors contribute the results of their intellectual activity: program code, methods, texts, design. Other members contribute money and other assets. In this way each member supports the cooperative movement in the form available to them and receives a platform they helped to create.

The cooperative gives its members access to the software in exchange for membership fees. The main product is ISTOK, an ERP platform for the council of a consumer cooperative, together with its applications. VOSKHOD develops and maintains these products itself, so members get access to them first-hand.

The cooperative takes the results of intellectual activity onto its balance sheet and records them against each member in the amount of that member’s share contributions. Thanks to this arrangement, the software of the cooperative economy belongs to the members of VOSKHOD, who create and use it.

Development of the platform began in the summer of 2023, when the present team came together. On 2 April 2024 the team registered the VOSKHOD Consumer Cooperative and continued the work within it.