Educational Software Cooperative was incorporated in 1994. We celebrated our 10th anniversary party at the annual Shareware Industry Conference in Rochester NY in 2004. Rosemary West has written an informal history of the ESC, entitled "ESC: In the Beginning". This project has been posted in the ESC's newsgroup. Some of these posts have been collected and archived here on the website.

ESC is a nonprofit organization whose purposes are to advance the mutual benefit of authors, publishers, dealers and distributors of educational software; to voluntarily cooperate formally and informally with each other to better develop, advertise, distribute and sell educational software; and to provide the public with information regarding the benefits, uses, and availability of educational software.

Software users, educators, developers, publishers, distributors, and others work together to promote these goals.

All officers are unpaid and elected by the membership. As with any organization, there are costs involved. Basic annual membership dues are $35, ($40 outside North America) and include a newsletter subscription and current benefits. Contributing ($50), Supporting ($100), and Lifetime ($1000) members receive special recognition for their important contributions to our ongoing efforts, as well as free banner advertising on the ESC web site. Membership is renewable each April.