Whois & Analysis for altra.org

A credit union is a member-owned financial cooperative, democratically controlled by its members, and operated for the purpose of promoting thrift, providing credit at competitive rates, and providing other financial services to its members.

A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is an autonomous association of people united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled business.

Cooperatives include non-profit community organizations and businesses that are owned and managed by the people who use their services (a consumer cooperative); by the people who work there (a worker cooperative); by the people who live there (a housing cooperative); 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; and second and third tier cooperatives whose members are other cooperatives.

It was estimated that in 2012 approximately one billion people were members of at least one cooperative and that the turnover of the largest three hundred cooperatives in the world reached $2.2 trillion – which, if they were to be a country, it would make them the seventh largest.

In economics, a service is a transaction in which no physical goods is transferred from the seller to the buyer.

The benefits of such a service are held to be demonstrated by the buyer's willingness to make the exchange.

Public services are those that society (nation state, fiscal union, region) as a whole pays for.

Using resources, skill, ingenuity, and experience, service providers benefit service consumers.

A nonprofit organization (also known as a non-business entity) is an organization whose purpose is something other than making a profit.

A nonprofit organization is often dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a particular point of view.

In economic terms, a nonprofit organization uses its surplus revenues to further achieve its purpose or mission, rather than distributing its surplus income to the organization's shareholders (or equivalents) as profit or dividends.

This is known as the non-distribution constraint.

The decision to adopt a nonprofit legal structure is one that will often have taxation implications, particularly where the nonprofit seeks income tax exemption, charitable status and so on.

Employee benefits and (especially in British English) benefits in kind (also called fringe benefits, perquisites, or perks) include various types of non-wage compensation provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries.

In instances where an employee exchanges (cash) wages for some other form of benefit is generally referred to as a 'salary packaging' or 'salary exchange' arrangement.

In most countries, most kinds of employee benefits are taxable to at least some degree.