The Interpreters’ Cooperative of Madison is entirely owned and operated by us, the interpreters. We don’t just represent the company, we are the company. As a local, small business, we understand the needs of small businesses and non-profits. Our owners have the advantage of working for a business that they own, giving them more incentive to make each engagement a success, as well as working to ensure the continued sustenance of our cooperative.
While many of our interpreters live in Wisconsin, we span the globe, offering over 40 different languages. Our interpreters are either native speakers or have spent extensive time in places where their languages are spoken, so they also understand the cultural context of your non-English-speaking audience. This makes us effective at letting you — and them — communicate fully and comfortably.
In today’s world, many community members and organizations need to work across languages. Not all of them can afford our services. We share their concern. If you share this concern, or are in a position to address it, we would like to talk with you.
Our History
We started off as a list of volunteers around 2008. That year, we incorporated, and started taking our first clients. Interpreters Coop started very small and remained small for years, but we started picking up steam in 2017.
In April 2021, at the height of the pandemic, we took the biggest job we’d ever heard of — 60 consecutive hours of interpreting in ten languages, all remote. That was an enormous amount of work, but it was a watershed for us, and the number of languages we provide has only continued to climb since then.
Testimonials
Our clients have great things to say about working with us, demonstrated by the fact that they come back year after year. Here a few words from our clients about their experience with us.
- Family Voices of Wisconsin (since 2009)
- “Thank you so much for providing excellent interpreter services for the Circles of Life Conference!! We sincerely appreciate your professional services and your flexibility to help our Spanish speaking families during the conference.”
- Wisconsin Board of People with Developmental Disabilities (since 2017)
- “Looking forward to working with you again.”
- 350.org (since 2020)
- “It was also great to work with you guys! Will certainly be in touch if we have another similar event.”
- Kate Barut, US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
- “Steve and co., thank you all so much for your flexibility and intentionality with making it work <3 Appreciate ICM so much.“
- Monica Bear, Dane County
- “I continue to get positive feedback about folks who work with you.“
- Amy Stumpf, Create Behavior Solutions
- “We look forward to continuing to work with you and your team.“
- Sam Weyeburg, Fiscal Assistance
- “You get rave reviews at FA so I’m looking forward to working with you!“
- Shayla Ferguson, ACT Treatments
- “You all are amazing!”
- Sara Toromasi, UCP Dane County
- “Thank you!! You guys are the BEST!!”
- Adam Trott, Shared Capital
- “I love working with Interpreters’ Co-op of Madison. Shared Capital gets to achieve its mission, adhere to co-op principle and get great service.”
- Monica Bear, Disability Services Manager, Dane County Human Services
- “The Dane County Children’s Long Term Support (CLTS) program’s partnership with the Interpreters Co-op has increased language access for children with disabilities and their families, regardless of their primary language. The Co-op gets consistently high marks from families, case managers and providers for their responsiveness and professionalism. Quality interpretation and translation from Interpreters Co-op has helped reduce disparities in CLTS service utilization. It is a pleasure to work with them.”