About FORUS
Built for cooperation. Built for what comes next.
FORUS is the digital infrastructure for the cooperative economy. Built by a cooperative, for cooperatives, it is a connected foundation that helps cooperatives bring people together, coordinate activity, build capability and grow into more opportunities over time.
Why FORUS
Cooperation is powerful. The infrastructure around it should be too.
Cooperatives are built on people organising around shared needs, shared ownership and shared opportunity. But the digital experience around that cooperation can be fragmented: communication in one place, learning in another, operations somewhere else, and economic opportunity often disconnected from all of it.
FORUS exists to give cooperatives a connected digital foundation of their own: shared infrastructure for shared ownership, across the whole cooperative journey.
The vision
A more connected cooperative economy.
Imagine cooperatives able to establish a clear digital presence, connect members, build skills, coordinate activity and participate in opportunities across wider networks.
FORUS is working toward that future by building an ecosystem that can grow around the cooperative instead of forcing the cooperative to adapt to a single fixed software product.
Not one app
Simple at the front. Connected underneath.
The public experience should feel simple: join, connect and grow.
Underneath that experience is one platform with many capabilities: a family of connected FORUS services spanning cooperative foundations, learning, operations, sector needs, trade, payments and integration. Not all of those capabilities are at the same stage today, but they are being designed as parts of one cooperative ecosystem.
- Cooperative foundations
- Learning
- Operations
- Sector needs
- Trade
- Payments
- Integration
Cooperative by design
Designed around participation, capability and shared value.
FORUS should make the cooperative stronger, not make the technology the centre of attention.
That means building for people to participate, for leaders to coordinate, for members to learn, and for cooperatives to connect to wider opportunities responsibly.
FORUS Digital Cooperative is itself a cooperative. The platform is shaped by the model it serves: your cooperative keeps its own ownership, governance and member relationships, participation is designed in from the start, and the value you create together is meant to strengthen the cooperative.
Partnership
Cooperation scales through trusted relationships.
FORUS works through cooperative organisations, sector bodies, implementation partners and institutions that understand the communities and markets they serve.
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DotCooperation
Strategic Partnership Agreement to support the adoption of trusted .coop digital identities by cooperatives across Africa. FORUS has been appointed by DotCooperation as a key Strategic Promotional and Implementation Partner for Africa.
Read the announcement -
World Agriculture Forum
World Agriculture Forum
Strategic collaboration to strengthen the participation of farmer-owned agricultural cooperatives in the emerging TerraNexus ecosystem, working through the institutions that farmers already own and trust.
Read the announcement
Who we are
FORUS Digital Cooperative
FORUS Digital Cooperative is a South African primary co-operative with limited liability, registered under the Co-operatives Act, 2013.
- Legal name
- FORUS MEMBERSHIP COOP Primary Co-operative Limited
- Registration number
- 2022 / 603520 / 24
If your cooperative is ready to connect, start here.
Register your cooperative and we will guide you through the next steps. Built by a cooperative, for cooperatives.