Our work would not be possible without the collaboration, trust, and incredible work of our community partners.

Community-focused Partnerships

At Cookies, we partner with organizations and individuals who are creating meaningful change. We provide resources for capacity building and increased impact. This means our partners can clear more criminal records, add seats in incubator programs, and increase funds for currently incarcerated people to purchase the essentials they need. 
Check out some of our incredible community partners below.

Cookies and UCA partner across various initiatives in service of equity. Our primary initiative is to conduct expungement clinics on a monthly basis to clear records and change lives.

United Core Alliance 

The platform aims to fill a void in the lack of education to empower the next generation of responsible cannabis entrepreneurs, consumers, and investors in the industry.

Blaze Responsibly

An outstanding leader in equity and cannabis advocacy, THI delivers programming, resources, and coalition building in service of reversing the impacts of the War on Drugs.

The Hood Incubator

Our Academy’s programming ensures business owners who qualify for equity have access to the education and the network of resources needed to thrive in today’s cannabis market.

Our Academy

NuProject’s programs increase success outcomes for cannabis entrepreneurs and professionals of color. Our work addresses the three most prevalent equity hurdles: capital, connections, and capabilities. We provide funding for cannabis businesses with a priority placed on funding businesses 51%+ owned by people from communities disproportionately harmed by cannabis criminalization — Black, Indigenous and Latina/o/x.

NuProject

Freedom Grow is an all-volunteer non-profit 501c3 organization, helping people incarcerated for cannabis to regain freedom while supporting their sacrifices through ’The Wish Program’. The Wish Program helps with commissary money, books, magazines, family outreach, and public education.

Freedom Grow

Community Partners

A few of the players that are shaking up the cannabis industry.

Sherard Rogers has created numerous jobs by purchasing a Medical and Recreational Dispensary, Lab, Kitchen, and Grow in Denver, Colorado. Mr. Rogers also actively sits on the board of directors for “BBRB” Black Brown and Red Bagged, A Coalition of owners of color provisioning a voice of Diversity for business owners in the Cannabis industry. As well as holds a chair as a Governing Board member for the “ICR” The Institute of Cannabis Research at the Colorado State University in Pueblo. The ICR is the nation’s first multi-disciplinary cannabis research center at a regional, comprehensive institution. The primary goal of the Institute is to generate knowledge that contributes to science, medicine, and society through the investigation of the benefits and risks associated with cannabis. Research findings are used to translate discoveries into innovative applications to improve lives.

Denver, CO

Sherard Rogers

Mark is a gifted grower who delivers some of the most sought-after strains in the world. He founded Grandiflora in 2008, a microbusiness generating exotic high-quality flower, pre rolls, extracts, and edibles. Mark is one of Oakland&#39;s first social equity applicant recipients and is known to breed some of the hottest genetics in cannabis.

Mark grew up in foster care and group homes in Oakland and Fremont, CA. Throughout his adolescence, he was constantly in trouble, and as a result ended up attending 14 different high schools, ultimately dropping out and later earning his GED. He has spent time in prison for dealing and transporting drugs. At 19, Mark was introduced to cannabis cultivation and immediately fell in love with the science of horticulture. Mark has since grown into one of the leading cannabis geneticists in the country and is a vocal champion of social equity within the cannabis industry.

Oakland, CA

Mark Mccafferty

Ross Bradshaw is an east coast original bringing authentic culture and community outreach to Central Massachusetts’ cannabis industry at Worcester’s first equity dispensary. Raised in Worcester, Mass, Ross grew up amongst the traditional cannabis market, watching friends and neighbors involved in the weed trade and seeing firsthand how destructive the country’s war on marijuana was to inner-city communities while legal intoxicants like alcohol and pharmaceuticals ravaged his city. After trying his own hand at selling weed in college, Ross pursued his passion for cannabis from the financial side, eventually traveling to Colorado and transitioning to a financial consultant in the regulated market.

Once Massachusetts passed its own legalization law, Ross moved back to Worcester to lead the charge for a new era of cannabis CEOs in his home city. First in 2018, Ross Co-founded Equitable Opportunities Now (EON), a Massachusetts non-profit dedicated to ensuring just representation, equity, and opportunity for people of color within the cannabis industry, then in early 2021, Ross opened New Dia, the first dispensary in Central Mass operating under the state’s Economic Empowerment Initiative. Focused on serving the community inside and outside of the dispensary, Ross employs people with legacy market experience to help them make the transition to the regulated market and donates directly back to the neighborhood in both money and time. “My goal has always been how to use the cannabis industry as a platform for something greater.”

Worcester, MA

Ross Bradshaw

Tabasuri Moses is the CEO of GreenSoul Organics (GSO). GreenSoul Organics is the first minority owned business to get a host community agreement (HCA) for cultivation in the state of Massachusetts. Taba’s early years growing up in The Port section of Cambridge, MA were deeply impacted by the war on drugs and ensuing mass incarceration. He was able to foresee the opportunities in cannabis and moved to Humboldt Co., CA to learn cannabis cultivation.

Taba has since applied his broad knowledge of cannabis, experience in real estate, and entrepreneurship to expertly navigate the post-prohibition cannabis industry. GSO has secured two prime retail dispensary locations and is partnering with Berner to open a Cookies affiliated location in the Boston area, which will be the first of its kind on the East Coast. Working with his business partner Richard “Mokey” Harding, president of the GSO Foundation, the non-profit division of GreenSoul Organics, Taba is fighting to ensure that social equity policy is effective in the communities, as intended. Taba and Mokey are making huge strides toward change in local policies to create equitable access to the industry.