Andrew Sage

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so the Seminary Co-op is a set of two bookstores in Hyde Park.

The Seminary Co-op bookstore, which is a misnomer on two out of three counts.

It's not a seminary anymore.

It's not a co-op anymore.

It is still a bookstore, although it is a not-for-profit bookstore, which is a mysterious category of business that doesn't exist anywhere else.

just be a library like i we have this it's called libraries they're a really big bookstore just i don't know it's yeah it was big yeah oh baffling baffling yes yeah and then i guess like the second part of it is like when they say it's a co-op what does that mean

It means truly, and as can speak to this more, that it was founded by Chicago Theological Seminary students.

And there was a reason for that.

But yeah, at one point it was a cooperative because like you, you were a member and you got your course books cheaper because you, you know, had a certain amount of shares in the books, but yeah, it was I think smarter, not harder kind of scheme.

Yeah.

And then when they dissolved the ownership shares and stopped being a co-op, that was 2019 when they organized as this not-for-profit.

It's not a 501c3.

They don't have non-profit status.

It's this slightly different thing.

And so one of the one things that has happened in the past year is we had an interim director who got us basically a non-profit sponsor who lends its 501c3 status to other organizations and allows you to take tax-deductible minimums.

donations but like up to that point we couldn't do that because we were not a legitimate non-profit we were this other thing yeah um so since 2019 it's been that and then since 2024 it's been that plus Chicago's standalone unionized bookstore for now we're hoping that others follow inshallah they will yes

I feel like it is not a great sign of your business being well-run when you are doing a thing that, like, rookie activist campaigns do where they're like, oh, shit, we got a bunch of money.