A good place to start is the idea of social economy - quite popular in Europe - or social entrepreneurship that is more popular on this side of the pond. I posted a few links in my previous posting on the subject, cf.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/entrepreneurship/coop/
but there is much more.
The main idea her is the economy serving some broader social purpose rather than narrowly defined interests of the stockholders. The way to start does not require reinventing the wheel - just doing what capitalists are doing but with social purpose.
For example, some time ago we discusses Barbara Echrenreich's book _Nickel and dimed_ where she writes about a two-bit "entrepreneur" who hires poor people as janitors. Why can similar services be opened with union helps money and targeting people with little or no work experience - but with one big exception - such services would be cooperatively owned? Likewise, a lot of poor people are using "check cashing" services which fleece them big time. Why cant there be a credit union, again opened with union assistance, that provides genuine banking services to the poor and also keeps the money in the neighborhood. When I lived in Santa Cruz, there was a credit union serving the community, why can't it be elsewhere?
There can be a lot of businesses that are cooperatively owned and serving public purpose - form housing (I live in one) to all kinds of services - for that matter why not legal or medical cooperatives e.g. in exchange for scholarship assistance? There is plenty of resources on social entrepreneurship cf. http://www.ashoka.org/home/ which may provide ideas. Again, the bottom line is the promotion of economic self-sufficiency and organizational forms that are conducive for social benefits rather than private profits.
I also think there are many people who would patronize such social enterprises if they had a choice and good information. So far, social enterprise have been limited to wacky hippie outfits and overpriced snake oil peddlers which have zero appeal to the mainstream customer, but that would change if other businesses were organized on the same principle: automotive garages, cab services, retail, medical services, janitorial services, personal services etc. There is nothing in the law that prevents cooperative ownership of such enterprises, and there is nothing on the law that prevents unions from helping to form them either directly or through intermediaries.
Wojtek