In order to compete in a corporations-dominated economy, worker cooperatives need millions of dollars to finance large-scale businesses in manufacturing and production.

"That's the hole in the cooperative movement which there needs to be some infrastructure for," said Michael Leung, of Somerville, MA, who last year earned a doctorate in Physics from Princeton University. "I don't personally see a way where co-ops have the mechanism for large-scale growth."

At the National Conference of Democratic Workplaces, two workshops focused on the challenges of raising capital for worker cooperatives. The first workshop presented a series of case studies of innovative strategies for raising capital. In the second workshop "Building Community Wealth," lenders and foundations with a track record of investing in worker cooperatives described their mission.