Employee Ownership News archive

Employee Ownership Scholars Share Findings at Virtual Meeting
At Kelso meeting, scholars share the impact of the pandemic on ESOPs and worker cooperatives.

Canada looks to social enterprises, including cooperatives, to build a better future
Researchers examine what is needed for successful business to cooperative conversions.

Opportunity Knocking
Impact capital could become the lever used to redirect wealth into the hands of working Americans.

Social Capital Partners Turns to ESOPs to Address Wealth Inequality
Filling the finance gap to accelerate employee ownership

Biden Transition Team Considers Local Economy Preservation Funds to Build Back Better
Local holding companies could help save small businesses and create a more equitable economy.

EOX expands network of state employee ownership centers
COVID-19 has accelerated need for succession planning and ensuring business owners know employee ownership is on the menu.

In Brief: Employee Ownership News Updates, October 2020
Books, films, conference updates and more

Employee-owned Firms More Likely to Retain Employees during Pandemic
Employee Ownership Foundation releases survey data comparing pandemic response among ESOP and non-ESOP firms.

Business Legacy Fund to Finance Employee Ownership Conversions
Co-op Cincy looks to sustain businesses and jobs in Southwest Ohio.

ASBC Recommends “Creating an Economic System that Works for All”
New report calls for broadening employee ownership, among other recommendations.

The ESOP Association Announces New Digs on Capitol Hill
The International Center for Employee Ownership will provide a base for more effective education and advocacy.

The Main Street Phoenix Rising
A COVID-19 recovery strategy that puts workers first.

The B Corp Movement Drives Better Business
Dr. Chris Marquis discusses stakeholder-driven business, employee ownership, and the future of capitalism.

Equitable Employee Ownership Transitions Require Investor Guardrails
New publication outlines best practices for investors, asset managers and others Harpoon Brewery became employee owned in 2014. by Karen Kahn The novel coronavirus has permanently shuttered tens of thousands of businesses, leaving millions of employees jobless in a perilous economy. The pandemic has had a particularly devasting impact on Black- and Latinx-owned businesses, with…

In Brief: Employee Ownership News Updates, August 2020
Marjorie Kelly argues for bold action in response to the small business crisis in The Hill.

Employee Ownership on the Rise in United Kingdom
100 firms became employee owned in the last year, an increase of 28 percent.

Can Employees Be Protected in an ESOP Bankruptcy?
Debating the risks and rewards of ESOP participation.

Obran: A Cooperative Conglomerate
Using business and finance tools to build community wealth

Embrace Social Purpose, Says British Employee Ownership Expert Graeme Nuttall
Nuttal delivered this year’s annual Ghandi Foundation lecture.

Race, Equity and the Transformative Power of Employee Ownership
A conversation with Todd Leverette, program manager for Legacy Business Initiatives at the Democracy at Work Institute

Innovative Strategies for Worker-to-Owner Business Conversions
New paper examines how the tools of finance can advance employee ownership.

In Brief: Employee Ownership News Updates, July 2020
Coop Innovation Awards, new sponsors for Congressional legislation, and more

Can Employee Ownership Rescue the Economy?
Robust employee ownership discussions emerging in response to COVID-19.

Formerly Incarcerated Women Launch Chicago Worker Cooperative
ChiFresh Kitchen prepares meals to help address food insecurity during the pandemic.

CERO: Closing the Food Loop
African American and Latinx worker coop collects and processes food waste, which it then delivers to local urban farms.

Could COVID-19 help to scale employee ownership?
Employee-purchasers are well-positioned to buy firms out of bankruptcy.

California Employee Ownership Alliance Proposes $10M Recovery Package
The WORC Coalition urges Californians to contact their legislators before the June 15 budget vote.

Employee Ownership Key to Survival of America’s Oldest Hat Company
Bollman Hat Company turns to mask making to bring its factory back to life.

Save Local Businesses, Scale Employee Ownership
Local Economy Preservation Funds offer solution to the small business crisis.

It’s Time to Reconsider Bankruptcy Protections for ESOP Participants
Employee owners at ESOPs shouldn’t lose their retirement savings.

Building the Future with Employee Ownership
Tim Rettig, CEO of InTrust IT, has plans to grow employee ownership sector.

Employee-owned NewAge Industries Meets the COVID-19 Challenge
An employee-ownership culture drives high-performance in a critical industry

How employee-owned firms are managing the COVID-19 Crisis
Five lessons on how to keep your firm strong and nimble.

Center Employee Ownership in Pandemic Economic Response
Employee ownership transitions could speed economic recovery, says The ICA Group

Means TV: First Cooperative Streaming Service
A lefty media platform with a growing audience

Prospera Launches Latina Entrepreneur Resiliency Fund
Latina cooperators helping each other to survive the economic shutdown.

Cooperatives Cooperate to Protect Home Health Aides with Masks
Carolina Textile District ramps up PPE production.

COVID-19 Stimulus Package Includes Relief for Cooperatives and Nonprofits
Apply now for disaster relief.

In Brief: Employee Ownership News Updates
Maine passes legislation, Txemi Cantera Award honors Great Game, and foundations show interest in supporting employee ownership

Evergreen’s Fund for Employee Ownership Acquires Berry Insulation
After sale to employees, business founder will stay on to ensure success of future cooperative.

Access to SBA Loans Could Help Employees Buy Their Companies
Employee ownership deals hindered by SBA rule that puts seller debt on standby by Bruce Dobb The largest source of financing for the sale of small, low-margin businesses that drive local economies are bank loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA). However, these loans don’t work very well for workers who want to buy their…

Accelerate Employee Ownership Initiative Addresses Capital Bottleneck
Project Equity and Shared Capital Cooperative partnership brings financing and technical support to employee ownership transitions

Home Care Cooperatives Gaining Ground in the Northwest
Northwest Cooperative Development Center hopes to transform an industry.

Worker Co-ops Show Significant Growth in Latest Survey Data
New report from Democracy at Work Institute and U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives gives rich picture of state of sector.

House of Representatives Small Business Committee Convenes Employee Ownership Hearing
Witnesses addressed financing challenges and solutions.

Out of the ClickHole, a light on alternative media ownership models
Employee ownership offers potential alternative to media companies seeking to retain journalistic integrity .

Investor guidelines for shared value creation in employee ownership transitions unveiled
Fifty by Fifty presents guidelines at Rutgers Kelso fellows mid-year workshop by Karen Kahn In mid-January, the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing held its mid-year Kelso fellows meeting, in which scholars and practitioners spent two days sharing research and ideas to deepen understanding of the many forms of employee…

Center for American Progress proposes new policies to broaden ownership
Proposals to scale employee ownership and profit-sharing aimed at state and municipal governments.

Mendoza Business Magazine explores relationship between Catholic social values and employee ownership
Medoza alum Jessica Rose featured in business mag story exploring the benefits of employee ownership–and the barriers to going to scale.

John McNamara Responds: New Belgium Brewery Goes Flat
I’ve been wondering when the craft beer market would begin consolidating. A few years ago, shockwaves went through the Cascadia craft beer community when 10 Barrels sold to Anheuser-Busch Inv Bev and worse, Full Sail sold to an investment company. Around the same time, another ESOP brewery in Oregon sold as well; it was notable…

Hazel Corcoran: What If We Had an Antidote to Worker Co-ops Selling Out?
Indivisble reserves are one way for worker cooperatives to prevent demutualization.

Brightly Cleaning: Lessons from the First U.S. Worker Cooperative Franchise
The worker cooperative franchise provides a model to go to scale.

Ownership design for a sustainable economy
In this final report on our research into the relationship between employee ownership and sustainability, we detail our methodology, our findings, and questions for further research.

Christopher Mackin: New Belgium Brewing and the Future of American ESOPs
There is movement afoot in the ESOP marketplace to create scaled capital institutions that can drive the conversion of privately held businesses into employee owned companies and compete with conventional financing sources.

Priming the Pump for Employee Ownership
A proposal to scale employee ownership by launching $100 billion in federal loan guarantees could transform the economy.

Encouraging Inclusive Growth
Richard May and Christopher Mackin discuss their proposal for a $100 billion employee equity loan program.

Michael Palmieri and Chris Cooper Respond: What Are We Asking of Employee Ownership?
How one interprets the sale of New Belgium depends on how one answers the ends vs. means question.

Camille Kerr Responds: Don’t lose sight—the point is systems change
What should we be doing today to lay the foundation for future generations to have a democratic, equitable economic system?

Karen Kahn: Is Your Beer Funding Human Rights Abuses?
Kirin, it appears, has blood on its hands. Whether New Belgium can bring its ethical and moral leadership to bear on its new corporate parent remains to be seen.

Christopher Michael: Could the Employee Ownership Trust Better Sustain Perpetual Employee Ownership?
The next step in broadening access to this simpler, less expensive, and perpetual form of employee ownership is public policy.

Last call: A forum on the end of employee ownership at New Belgium
What does it say about the viability of market-based strategies that even the most integral moral commitment to worker equity ultimately could not stand up to economic and market pressures?

Nathan Schneider: Discarded Mutualisms
We should resist the temptation to mistake what is for what could or should be.

Erbin Crowell and Sonja Novkovic: ESOPs or Co-ops? Depends on the Long-Term Goal
While both co-ops and ESOPs are often included under the umbrella of “employee ownership,” this term has been largely appropriated by conventional economic thought that places the right to dispose of property at the center of ownership rights.

Melissa Hoover: Employee Ownership Often Helps to Shape and Build Hot New Markets—Then What?
Can lessons from New Belgium help us think differently about employee ownership in high-growth sectors?

Martin Staubus: New Belgium—A Success by Any Measure
Rumors of the death of employee ownership are greatly exaggerated.

Jason Wiener: Let’s Not Let the Ideal Be the Enemy of the Pretty-Darn-Great
We ought to celebrate instances of employee self-determination, including the right of employees to cash out and move on.

Jared Kaplan: The Sustainable Legacy of New Belgium Brewing
Sustainability isn’t the same as immortality, and it certainly doesn’t mean stagnation.

Jennifer Briggs: New Belgium Was More than an ESOP
An ESOP in and of itself doesn’t create a company like New Belgium—it takes culture, too.

Matt Cropp: What is Expected of Employee Ownership?
Employee ownership was core to New Belgium’s identity, and their story offered an alternative model to many concerned by the corporate consolidation of the craft beer sector over the past few years.

Michael Keeling: ESOP Terminations—Red Flag?
As employee ownership advocates, we need to address why so many ESOP companies walk away from broad-based ownership.

Daniel Fireside: How Beeswax and Rope Can Save Your Company’s Soul
It turns out that there are plenty of investors and lenders happy to take a supporting role knowing that we’ve prevented ourselves from selling our company, and our mission, to the highest bidder.

Bret Keisling: New Belgium—A great story to tell
We should aspire for ESOP permanence, but not regard it as a failure when a great ESOP successfully transitions to a different structure.

Dave Hammer: Employee Ownership Must Become a Movement for Social Change
Employee ownership must become more than a community of practice, we must marshal our resources and become a movement for positive social change.

Joseph Blasi: New Belgium—A Victim of Its Own Success
Employee ownership expert and author of “The Citizen’s Share” on the sale of New Belgium.

Corey Rosen: ESOP companies face the same pressures and opportunities all companies do
While it would be nice for the ESOP community to retain its great companies permanently, that is not a realistic goal unless employee owners are willing to forego potentially significant economic returns or market opportunities.

Berkeley Revises Loan Requirements to Help Finance Employee Ownership
It will be easier for worker co-ops to acquire loans under the new policy of limited guarantees.

Can a Private Equity Fund Model Help Scale Employee Ownership?
Proposed model could provide a vehicle for investors to finance worker-centric employee ownership conversions.

Employee-Owned Firms Should be Eligible for Minority Certification
Some simple requirements could ensure that employee-owned firms seeking certification are controlled by people of color.

Millennials at Employee-Owned Firms More Ready for Retirement
New ESCA survey data shows ESOP employees are more financially secure.

A Promising Path to Growing the Employee Owned Economy: Acquisitions by Existing ESOPs
ESOPs are far more successful in acquiring and integrating new businesses than traditional firms, according to new research.

Employee Ownership as a Business Retention Strategy
For cities, employee ownership offers opportunity to retain local businesses.

B Corp Champions Retreat Highlighted Employee Ownership
Fifty by Fifty joined mission-led employee-owned companies to shine spotlight on benefits of employee ownership.

For Co-op Conversions, It’s All in the Timing
To grow employee ownership, impact investors, foundations, and other agencies must consider business lifecycle.

Cooperative Industry Requests Congressional Hearing on SBA Loans
Small Business Administration report offers no alternatives to the personal guarantee.

The North Carolina Employee Ownership Center Launches
New resource to help baby boomer-owned businesses
with succession planning.

Fifty by Fifty Goal: 50 Million Employee Owners? Or 50 Million Empowered Employee Owners?
Is it enough to have millions of employee owners with tiny shares of publicly traded companies?

Illinois 14th State to Legally Recognize Worker Cooperatives
New statute will make it easier to launch and grow worker cooperatives.

Employee Ownership Rarely Integrated into MBA Programs
Employee ownership makes stakeholder capitalism real,
says Marjorie Kelly in the Boston Globe.

Models for Taking Cooperatives to Scale
A typology of cooperative networks and associations can help cooperatives think about how to scale and maintain their values.

Kendeda Fund Announces Plan to Invest over $24 Million in Expanding Employee Ownership
Grants will catalyze at least 100 employee ownership conversions over five years.

Big Business Rethinks Shareholder Primacy
Business Roundtable statement kicks off robust debate on purpose of the corporation.

The Role of Employee Ownership in an Economy that Works for All
Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard highlight movement for a democratic economy.

Government Contracting Preferences Pose Barrier to Scaling Employee Ownership
An ESOP trust doesn’t qualify as a minority-owned business.

Role of Capital in Taking Employee Ownership to Scale
At the Beyster Symposium, Fifty by Fifty panel explored a new financing model to scale employee ownership.

Can Worker Cooperatives Transform the Commercial Laundry Business?
Evergreen Cooperatives plans expansion of its laundry co-op model to New Haven and other cities.

To Grow Employee Ownership Pennsylvania Center Is Building Awareness
PA Center for Employee Ownership models strategy for states to expand employee-owned companies.

Two Publishers Illustrate Why Ownership Matters
Financial ownership vs. inclusive multistakeholder ownership leads to different outcomes for Jossey-Bass and Berrett-Koehler

Mass relaunches office to grow employee ownership
Concerns over business closures reignite interest in employee ownership among Massachusetts lawmakers

Three Quarters of Americans Prefer to Work for an Employee-Owned Company
Widespread consensus on employee ownership revealed by national survey question.

Berkeley, CA: Early Investor in Employee Ownership Conversions
City’s partnership with Project Equity aims to address wave of business closures.

A National Strategy to Grow Home Care Cooperatives?
Participants at the USDA Interagency Working Group meeting see role for government leadership.

Mission-led Employee-Owned Enterprises Share Learnings in First-Ever Convening
Firms united in desire to spread transformative enterprise design model.

Co-op Innovation Awards Announced
Awards go to groups using cooperatives to empower workers and support immigrant rights.

Ownership Design: Why does it matter?
At Fifty by Fifty we’ve been exploring ownership design. Our research has led us to conclude that enterprise design is an important lever of change, the key to building an economy that is both sustainable and equitable.

Employee Ownership Builds Assets for Low- and Moderate-Income Workers and their Families
New report show how ESOPs can close wealth gap.

SBDC Working Group Pilots Employee Ownership Training
Preparing Business Advisors to Carry Out New Mandate.

Consum Cooperativa: Feeding 3 Mil in the Spanish Mediterranean
A worker and consumer cooperative powered by renewables.

Mission-led Employee-owned Firms: The best of the best
Fifty by Fifty releases report identifying new ownership design.

Eastern Kentucky Launches Employee Ownership Training
Retiring business owners target for employee ownership conversions.

Worker Ownership Proposal Garners Widespread Support in National Poll
New report proposes giving workers the “right of first refusal.”

Mission-led employee-owned firms: The best of the best
Mission-led employee-owned firms embody a powerful model of enterprise design for a new era of environmental sustainability and social equity.


Employee Ownership Drives Success at Newport Restaurant Group
Employee ownership deepens engagement, builds community.

Colorado Leads States in Preparing to Scale Employee Ownership
New executive office on employee ownership poised to become model for other states.

Employee Ownership Education Beginning in Response to New SBA Mandate
Small Business Administration, DC Metro, holding five trainings for business owners by Karen Kahn In late February, the Washington Metro Area District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration held its first seminar for business owners interested in employee ownership as a potential exit strategy. The plan is to hold one a month in each of the…

Common Myths about Employee Ownership
Scaling employee ownership requires dispelling common misunderstandings by Bruce Dobb A number of factors inhibit the growth of employee ownership, among them, common misconceptions among small business owners. The three most common myths we encounter at Concerned Capital when discussing employee ownership with small business clients preparing to sell are: Employee ownership means an ESOP.All employees must…

Northwest Cooperative Development Center Launches Legacy Project
USDA grants fund employee ownership education workshops targeting business advisors.

How Ownership Structure Shapes Purpose and Impact
Eileen Fisher vs. Donna Karan International

Craft Beer: 100% Employee-Owned, Organic, and Powered by Renewables
Cerveses Lluna Bio Beer leads organic beer production in Spain.

Chicago Turns to Cooperatives to Improve Opportunity
New Coalition Aims to Raise Awareness and Build Capacity by Karen Kahn Hoda Katebi, an Iranian-American fashion designer, known for her fashion blog JooJoo Azad, has turned her sights to helping immigrant and refugee women by starting a clothing production cooperative in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. Blue Tin Production Co-op, says Katebi, will create jobs for…

Employee-Owned Heritage Aviation Becomes Vermont Benefit Corporation
New Corporate Status Could Protect Company from Outside Buyers by Karen Kahn Heritage Aviation Campus “Making business decisions that give weight to both profit and social impact has made us a more successful company because it has made us a more meaningful organization to our customers, vendors, employees and community,” says Dave Stiller, CEO of Heritage…

New Strategies to Grow Employee Ownership
Cities are embracing employee ownership (EO) as an economic development strategy that delivers both growth and equity. To further explore how, why and where, Employee Ownership News has started a new series focused on urban ecosystems. Take a look at our first two stories to see how: · Durham, NC, is seeking to maintain the legacy of African-American…

TDIndustries: Servant Leaders and Employee Ownership
An Organizational Culture that Drives Success by John Case This story was originally published at Employee-Owned America, February 1, 2019, and is reposted here with permission. What’s interesting about TDIndustries, a big mechanical construction and facilities-services firm, isn’t just its business results, though heaven knows those results are impressive enough. Founded 73 years ago in Dallas, TD…

Best Friends Pet Hotel Acquired by ESOP
Mosaic Capital Partners Leads Conversion to Employee Ownership by Karen Kahn Best Friends Pet Hotel is a growing pet boarding, day care, grooming and training business, with 30 locations throughout the country. Every day, pet owners trust the devoted staff of Best Friends to care for their furry family members. It’s recent transition to employee ownership…

Miami Gears Up to Expand Employee Ownership
Local anti-poverty organization, Catalyst Miami, partners with JP Morgan Chase This story, part of our series on cities growing employee ownership, is based an op ed that appeared in the Miami Herald. Miami hopes to stem the tide of gentrification with employee-owned businesses. In 2016, a report from Florida International University recommended employee-owned cooperatives as one of several…

Moving Toward More Equitable Workplaces: B Corps Share Business Rights and Responsibilities
Companies See Bottom-Line Benefits From Worker Ownership by B the Change Technicians for Sustainability became an employee-owner cooperative in 2017. (Photo courtesy TFS) Thinking long-term. Acting like a team player. Caring for the customers. Showing ownership mentality. While any business would be lucky to have employees with those qualities, they’re a priority when Technicians for Sustainability (TFS) looks…

To Preserve African-American Businesses, Durham, NC, Turns to Employee Ownership
As Black Business Owners Approach Retirement, Succession Planning Lags This story is based on reporting from Next City. Fifty by Fifty is beginning 2019 with a new series exploring city strategies for growing employee ownership. In our first article, we look at how Durham, NC, a city with a strong legacy of African-American entrepreneurial activity, is promoting…

Add Employee Ownership to the Green New Deal
by Fifty By Fifty As we embark on the new year, there is a lot of talk about a “Green New Deal.” At Fifty by Fifty, we are all for policies that bring our economy into alignment with the needs of our planet. We’ve spent much of the last year exploring the relationship of employee ownership…

Transitioning Leadership at an Employee-Owned Firm
Kimberly Jones Is Preserving a Legacy and Building a Future for Butler/Till by Sarah Stranahan Butler/Till leadership team (L-R) Melissa Palmer, Peter Infante, and Kimberly Jones Fifty by Fifty spoke with Kimberly Jones to learn what it is like to step into leadership at an employee-owned B corporation. Jones became the president of Butler/Till, an advertising…

Finding the Path to a Sustainable Economy
An Interview with Carina Millstone “We cannot have an ecologically sustainable economy when we have the publicly traded corporation as an economic actor,” says Carina Millstone, author of Frugal Value: Designing Business for a Crowded Planet, in a recent Next System Podcast. Millstone is deeply concerned with how we build a sustainable economy, one that “creates the…

The British are Coming — ESOPs and Perpetual Trusts
John Lewis Partnership’s employee ownership structure is simple. . . . John Lewis employees are not bought out at retirement. Rather, they enjoy profit-sharing during the years that they work at the company.

Employee Ownership Championed by Leading Responsible Business Association
ASBC sees employee ownership as key to building a sustainable economy by Sarah Stranahan The American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC) is a network of businesses and business associations that have committed themselves to the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit. In recent years, advancing employee ownership has been a key component of ASBC’s agenda: to…

Worker Cooperative Report for 2017 Shows Continued Growth
Conversions of conventional firms represent 25 percent of new coops by Karen Kahn In their annual report, “Worker Cooperatives: State of the Sector,” the Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI) and the U.S. Federation of Cooperatives paint a picture of the cooperative sector and how it is changing over time. Among the key findings, the sector continues to grow at a…

Employee Ownership: Updates from the Field
Reports, meetings, webinars — employee ownership is a topic of growing interest by Karen Kahn National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) Issues Retirement Security Report: “S Corporation ESOPs and Retirement Security,” a new NCEO research report, compares the retirement savings of employees in ESOP companies to average retirement savings among all U.S. workers. The survey of members of the Employee-Owned S…

Fifty by Fifty Inspires Employee Ownership Campaign in Scotland
Scotland for EO Sets “Audacious” Goal for Scaling Up Employee Ownership Scotland for EO launched their campaign last summer, referencing the inspiration of the Fifty by Fifty initiative. Last summer, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon launched Scotland for EO, a public-private partnership to lead efforts to expand the number of employee-owned companies across Scotland. The…

Employee-Owned B Corp Makes a Great Brew
New Belgium Brewery’s Sustainability Values Grounded in Worker Friendly Culture By Sarah Stranahan New Belgium’s brewery, in Asheville, North Carolina, is built on a former brownfield. The New Belgium Brewing Company began when a couple of Belgium beer enthusiasts, Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan, made beer in their Colorado basement. Their amber ale, Fat Tire, was so…

Are Cooperatives Really So Difficult to Finance?
Cooperative Fund of New England Is Meeting the Challenge Low-water landscape, A Yard and A Half Landscaping by Micha Josephy Cooperative Fund of New England (CFNE) is a community development financial institution (CDFI), founded in 1975 to provide financing and development support to New England’s cooperatives. CFNE aggregates loan capital largely from individual and family trust…

Evergreen Cooperatives Launch Fund for Employee Ownership
New Fund to preserve jobs by acquiring companies and converting them to employee ownership “ Our theory is that the reason employee ownership has been slow to grow is a lack of agency — no one is incentivized to promote employee ownership conversions in a way that can compete with the strength of the traditional mergers and…

Next Generation Enterprise Design: The employee-owned benefit corporation
New research from Fifty by Fifty focuses on employee ownership and environmental sustainability.

Employee Ownership Policy Update
With mid-term elections around the corner, Fifty by Fifty is tracking the latest policy developments in the employee ownership arena. SBA draft regulations open for comment The Small Business Administration has issued proposed regulations to clearly define the loan process for the 7 (a) Preferred Lender Program, following the passage of the Main Street Employee Ownership…

Next Generation Employee Ownership Design
Are mission-controlled, employee-owned companies better environmental stewards than conventional finance-controlled corporations? Is transitioning to employee ownership a more likely path to keeping a firm’s ecological mission alive, compared to selling a firm to a large competitor? The answer to these questions is critical to enterprise design for the 21st century and beyond. If we understand…

Beneficial State Bank’s Investment in Rural Oregon Builds Community Wealth
North River Boats ESOP Conversion Aided by Mission-Oriented Lender The Cascade, built by North River Boats The following article is based on Allison Sackett’s original blog posted at Beneficial State Foundation. Banking is often synonymous with extracting wealth from communities; but not all banks use this model. On the West Coast, Beneficial State Bank, founded by Kat Taylor and…

Getting Serious About Scaling Up Worker Cooperatives
New Report Analyzes Market for Co-op Conversions by Alison Powers In September, Capital Impact Partners and the ICA Group, with support from Citi Community Development, released a groundbreaking report, “Co-op Conversions at Scale: A Market Assessment for Expanding Worker Co-op Conversions in Key Regions & Sectors.” The report points to an enormous opportunity to convert…

Yes! Magazine: A Boost for the Worker-Owned Economy
By Fran Korten Business owners looking to sell their companies to their employees just got a helping hand from the federal government. It’s the first such measure that’s passed Congress in more than 20 years. Tucked into the omnibus National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Trump in August 2018 was language directing the U.S….

Berrett-Koehler: Connecting People and Ideas to Make a Company that Works for All
A Multistakeholder Ownership Design Protects Company Values By Sarah Stranahan Berrett-Koehler Publishers (BK), an Oakland, California -based independent publisher, created a Constitution in 2016 that begins with the words, “We are embarked together on a journey to do the seemingly impossible — to create a world that works for all. No road map exists for this journey, so we are…

New Employee Ownership Mandate for Small Business Development Centers
SUNY Center preparing to support employee ownership transitionsF SUNY SBDC recently assisted the Rose Garden Early Childhood Center in its transition to becoming a worker cooperative. The nation’s roughly 1,000 Small Business Development Centershave a new mandate. The newly passed Main Street Employee Ownership Act (MSEOA) directs these technical assistance centers, which are hosted by universities and state…

News Roundup: Bipartisan Legislation to Boost Employee Ownership
New Small Business Administration Mandate Garners Media Attention Senator Gillibrand led effort to include support for employee ownership in the Defense Authorization Act by Erin Kesler Signed into law last month, the John McCain National Defense Authorization Act contained a provision to expand employee ownership to more Americans. Drawn from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) Main Street Employee…

Technicians for Sustainability
Unique Governance Structures Designed to Protect Employee Ownership by Sarah Stranahan Kevin and Nicole Koch, founders of Technicians for Sustainability (TFS), a solar design–build firm based in Tucson, Arizona, built their company from scratch. After more than a decade of running the business, the couple made an unconventional decision, converting TFS to a worker cooperative…

EA Engineering: Aligning Mission and Corporate Structure
How the problems of stock market ownership led this firm to employee ownership by Marjorie Kelly EA Engineering, an environmental consulting firm, found its values upended when the company went public. To return to its roots, the original founder bought the company back and then transitioned to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) along with…

Eileen Fisher: Designing for Change
A business that puts sustainability and human rights at its core Eileen Fisher fabrics are dyed without hazardous chemicals. by Sarah Stranahan Eileen Fisher, Inc., designs women’s clothing. The company, which is 40 percent employee owned and a B Corp, is a leader in its human rights and sustainability practices. We wanted to understand how Eileen…

King Arthur Flour’s Recipe for Success
ESOP plus B Corporation by Sarah Stranahan Fifty by Fifty recently spoke with Suzanne McDowell, one of a three-person co-CEO team currently leading King Arthur Flour, as part of our research into the relationship between employee ownership and environmental sustainability. We knew King Arthur Flour, under the leadership of then-CEO Steve Voigt, had become a founding B…

Employee-Owned Butler/Till Grows Its Sustainability Mission
As retirement neared, Butler and Till chose to protect their company culture with an ESOP by Sarah Stranahan When Butler/Till’s original founders Sue Butler and Tracy Till began to look at retirement, they were concerned about protecting their company culture. They had thought they would look for a compatible buyer but instead chose to transfer…

Organically Grown Company Transitions from ESOP to Perpetual Trust
Pioneering a New Business Structure to Preserve Mission by Natalie Reitman-White In some situations, employee ownership via an ESOP may not be suited to advancing a sustainability mission, due to the demand on profits that comes from a perpetual duty to buy back shares from employees. Organically Grown Company faced this situation with a wave…

Gardener’s Supply: A Company as a Living System
How Employee Ownership Has Protected a Founder’s Vision by Marjorie Kelly What is a company? The dominant view today, the Wall Street view, is of an object owned by shareholders, which has a primary purpose of producing a smooth flow of earnings, like so many ball bearings off an assembly line. The alternative the planet…

Worker Cooperatives: State of the Sector
National survey shows small but steady growth of U.S. worker cooperatives by Karen Kahn A new report from the Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI) and the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives estimates that 357 worker cooperatives operated in the United States in 2016. These businesses employed 6,833 people and generated $428 million in gross revenues in 2016.[i] As the numbers suggest,…

Powerful New Approaches to Scaling Employee Ownership
New Economy Coalition Conference Embraces Employee Ownership by Sarah Stranahan The importance of taking employee ownership to scale was front and center at the June CommonBound conference in St. Louis, Missouri. More than 700 people attended this biannual event of the New Economy Coalition, including activists, thinkers and leaders from across the world, working for a more…

Aspen Institute Touts Employee Ownership as Solution to Economic Insecurity
by Karen Kahn Employee ownership is getting increased attention from the Aspen Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisan think tank seeking to build leadership and find solutions to the many challenges that face our nation. On May 10, as part of the Working in America series, the Employment Opportunities Program and Financial Security Program sponsored “Having a Stake,”…

Amicus Solar Purchasing Coop Spreads Employee Ownership
Achieving Scale while Maintaining Local Impact Amicus Solar has 48 member-owners with office locations in 33 states nationwide including Puerto Rico and Canada by Sarah Stranahan Amicus Solar is one of more than 250 purchasing cooperatives in the US, including such well-known brands as Ace Hardware and Best Western Motels. By forming a large national cooperative,…

Number of Employees Set to Triple at Evergreen Cooperative Laundry
New Contract to Operate Cleveland Clinic Laundry Drives Expansion by Jessica Rose On May 10, I stood with city dignitaries, hospital executives, and over 100 shop-floor employees to witness an historic ribbon-cutting ceremony, as Cleveland’s Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL) announced it was taking over operation of the Cleveland Clinic’s massive industrial laundry facility. The mood…

Colorado — “The Delaware of Cooperative Law”
Benefits to Incorporating a Worker Cooperative in Colorado by Jason Wiener and Linda Phillips Also, many more mountains than Delaware. Perhaps you are starting a cooperative business or maybe you are transitioning an existing business to a worker-owned cooperative. Though the process is only a little more complicated than a standard incorporation, a separate set of…

Employee Ownership and Ecological Sustainability
Image: Solar installers from PV Squared, a worker cooperative and certified B-Corp Are mission-controlled, employee-owned companies better environmental stewards than conventional corporations? Is transitioning to employee ownership a more likely path to keeping a firms’ ecological mission alive, compared to selling a firm to a large competitor? The answer to these questions is critical to…

Cathedral Builders at South Mountain Company
A Mission-Led Employee-Owned Firm By Sarah Stranahan The best of the best is what you might say about South Mountain Company, an employee-owned, environmentally oriented design-build firm on Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. It’s a B Corp, a new type of company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems….

The Power and Limits of Enterprise Design
The Environmental Performance Record of UK’s John Lewis Partnership By Sarah Stranahan Photo © Peter Turner (cc-by-sa/2.0) The new economy movement often speaks of creating an economy that works for people and the planet. But are those two goals always aligned? Given limited resources and competing needs, how do businesses manage trade-offs between what’s best for people — employees,…

Stocks from Employee-Owned Companies Outperform S&P
Brokerage Platform Created by NCEO Allows Investors to Focus on Businesses with Shared Ownership and Inclusive Workplace CulturesT What do Southwest Airlines, Alphabet, and Etsy have in common? All are companies that have some degree of employee shared ownership and high-engagement workplace cultures. These are qualities that the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) uses to determine…

Historic Federal Law Gives Employee-Owned Businesses Access to SBA Loans
by Steve Dubb As we noted in NPQ [Nonprofit Quarterly] last fall, nearly half of US small business owners are baby boomers, aged 53 to 71. Collectively, they own 2.34 million businesses, employ 24.7 million people, and have combined sales of $5.14 trillion. It is estimated that 80 percent of these businesses lack a plan for what they are going…

Employee Ownership: Protecting Local Businesses
The loss of local businesses is not inevitable. By Melissa Hoover Employees at Arizmendi Bakery, a worker-owned cooperative in the Bay Area (Photo by Arizmendi Bakery) Linda and Gregory Coles founded their preschool, A Child’s Place, in their Queens, NY basement in 1983. Over the years it grew steadily and developed a deeply loyal community. Now…

The Unsung Route to Employee Ownership
Employees Purchasing Their Division From a Major Corporation By Sarah Stranahan We usually think of ESOP conversions as a way for founders to sell private businesses to their employees, because that is the most common scenario for creating ESOPs. But ESOPs can also be used for other types of business succession, like purchasing a division…

With 1 in 6 jobs at Risk, How do We Turn Lemons into Lemonade?
Shoring up against the silver tsunami small business crisis By Alison Lingane As employee ownership (EO) advocates search for effective ways to take EO to new heights, Project Equity in the Bay Area has pioneered a vital new method: begin in a city or region with an inventory analysis of businesses at risk of closure…

How to Create Good Jobs
Some companies have learned to create good jobs for employees at every level of the organization, blue collar and white collar alike. By John Case Nearly every politician these days wants to create more jobs. And not just any jobs — good jobs. But what is a good job, and how does a company go about creating one?…

Education and ESOP Creation
Performance Validation’s Journey By Richard Van Doel, Ph.D, President, Performance Validation On January, 2, 2018, Performance Validation (PV), a leading bio-technical, pharmaceutical and medical device industry contractor, became Indiana’s newest Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) company. As the president of this company, I’d like to share how our experience in educating employees about employee ownership — even before…

The Divine Right of Capital
by Majorie Kelly The Sacred Texts. The Principle of Worldview. In the worldview of corporate financial statements, the aim is to pay stockholders as much as possible, and employees as little as possible. More and more people have the sense today that the economic system is rigged. In fact, according to a Marketplace and Edison poll,…

Governing: Jobs without Bribes
An editorial by Governing’s publisher Mark Funkhouser highlights the potential of employee ownership to create new, stable jobs without the use of state tax incentives or corporate giveaways. “A few jurisdictions are beginning to explore this alternative. Legislation was introduced in Wisconsin that, among other things, would provide a capital gains tax exemption for employee ownership; loans…

Fifty by Fifty Year in Review
Strategies for Getting to 50 Million Employee Owners by 2050 By Marjorie Kelly As we wrap the second year of the Fifty by Fifty project — aimed at getting to 50 million worker owners by 2050 — we’re more convinced than ever that the time is right for strategic interventions to catalyze the employee ownership field to a much larger…

Scaling Employee Ownership: Policies or Markets?
What comes first, public policies, institutions, or markets changes? By Sarah Stranahan Those of us seeking to advance employee ownership face a bewildering array of legislative initiatives and competing advocacy priorities. At last count, there were at least six Senate bills dealing with employee ownership. They range from Senate Bill 1082, which would create an…

A Cure for What Ails our Communities
By Anthony Mathews At the Beyster Institute at the University of California-San Diego, which is dedicated to studying and promoting employee ownership, I was part of an initiative about ten years ago to try to organize a work group with the humble goal of curing poverty in the U. S. We started from the assumption…

Ownership and Economic Democracy
Introducing Jason Wiener, P.C., a legal and consulting business for mission-driven companies. By Jason Wiener If the 18th century can be defined as the age of industrialization and competitive advantage of the nation state, the 19th century by the power of the corporation, and the 20th by corporate financialization, then, I believe, the 21st century…

The Woman Aiming to Get 50 Million Americans Into the Worker-Owner Economy
And she has a plan to do it. This interview by Fran Korten originally appeared in Yes! Magazine For decades Marjorie Kelly has looked for ways that businesses can better contribute to the good of society. In 1987, after getting a master’s degree in journalism, she founded Business Ethics magazine to showcase socially responsible corporations. But after 20 years…

Bipartisan Support for Employee Ownership
by Erin M. Kesler Late last week, on October 19, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a resolution to the Judiciary Committee designating October “National Employee Ownership Month.” Sponsored by Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), the resolution was signed onto by senators as diverse as Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Angus King (I-ME), Todd Young (R-KS), and Pat Roberts…

Mondragon through a Critical Lens
Ten Lessons from a visit to the Basque Cooperative Confederation By Jill Bamburg The town of Mondragón-Arrasate. (Richard Hobbs) I recently completed a study tour to Mondragon, a small town in the Basque region of Spain, which is the home of the world’s largest and most advanced cooperative economy. In the United States, the cooperative sector,…

Employee-Ownership Reduces Stress and Anxiety
Employee-owners are more confident about their financial security. by Erin M. Kesler At a time of growing anxiety around economic issues for many workers, recent news indicates that employee owners are experiencing significantly less stress. According to a recent Forbes piece, employee owners have far fewer worries about paying their monthly bills than workers at other firms….

Interview with Certified EO
Spreading the word about Employee Ownership by Erin M. Kesler Set to launch on September 5, 2017, Certified EO is a membership organization that seeks to transform the way American businesses see employee ownership. Certification is a proven tool for spreading market innovation. For example, fair trade labels help discerning consumers choose products that meet…

Employee ownership and the next system
The Democracy Collaborative’s Research Director Thomas Hanna and Next System Project Deputy Director Dana Brown sat down with Dr. Joseph Blasi — preeminent expert on employee ownership, Distinguished Professor at Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations, and regular contributor to work around Fifty by Fifty — for a chat about the importance of employee ownership and its role in a larger…

The ESOP-erative
A new design: worker cooperative governance with ESOP tax benefits By Martin Staubus Businesses interested in transitioning into employee ownership are often presented with a structural dilemma: convert into an ESOP or a cooperative? Go for the democratic worker control and participation of a cooperative, or the tax benefits of an ESOP? I recently helped…

Half of American Workers Could be Employee-Owners
by Thomas Dudley For those interested in employee ownership, it is critical to understand if employee ownership can achieve the scale required to truly reduce wealth inequality and create strong local economies. In a previous post, we saw that today there are thousands of employee-owned business operating in every industry and employing up to 2 million Americans. But while…

Six Lessons in Getting Published
Spreading the world on employee ownership by Majorie Kelly Okay, true confessions: I used to be a weekly columnist for a daily paper. That was on top of my work at that time as publisher of Business Ethics magazine. I’m a journalist at heart, and the daily paper is still the beating heart of journalism, in my…

Real Pickles DPO: How Employees Raised Half a Million Dollars to Buy a Business
A Creative Tool For Financing a Worker Cooperative by Erin M. Kesler Real Pickles sold its first jar of organic dills in 2001, when founders Dan Rosenberg and his wife, Addie Rose Holland, decided to turn their pickle-making hobby into a business. By 2015, the business had grown to over than $1 million in revenue….

What do Craft Beer and Solar Have in Common?
By Marjorie Kelly, Executive Vice President and Senior Fellow, The Democracy Collaborative When it comes to identifying low-hanging fruit for companies most ready to convert to employee ownership, the “contagion effect” can be a key strategy. One industry where this phenomenon is well known is craft beer, where the trend is poised to get a boost from…

Fifty by Fifty: Taking Employee Ownership to Scale
by Jessica Rose Jessica Bonanno, Director of Employee Ownership Programs, The Democracy Collaborative and Marjorie Kelly, Executive Vice President and Senior Fellow, The Democracy Collaborative The moment is right for employee business ownership to go to scale. The models are tested and proven, the increasing struggles of American families makes the need apparent, and the…

How Big is America’s Employee-Owned Economy?
by Thomas Dudley Employee ownership (EO) is gaining traction as a way to address a number of social questions including rising wealth inequality, and the best way to create strong local economies As a sign of employee ownership’s increasing importance look no further than Colorado, where Congressman Jared Polis kicked-off his gubernatorial campaign at Save-A-Lot, an employee-owned grocery store. If we…

Impact investing and employee ownership
In this Fifty by Fifty research brief, Mary Ann Beyster, president and trustee of the Foundation for Enterprise Development (FED), explores the existing landscape of employee ownership opportunities for impact investors, and highlights emerging models and strategies for inclusive investment in ESOPs and worker cooperatives.

New Report: Opportunities for Impact Investing in Employee Ownership
by Erin M. Kesler With income inequality in the United States at record high levels, employee ownership is increasingly being lauded as a potential solution to spreading wealth more broadly. Most recently, research from the National Center for Employee Ownership released in May shows that employee owners have a household net worth that is 92 percent higher than non-employee owners….

Hacking the American Dream: Progressive Senators Go Big for Worker Ownership
Jessica Bonanno, Director of Employee Ownership Programs at The Democracy Collaborative The best-kept business model secret of our age is about to get the spotlight it has long deserved. It’s employee ownership — a proven, common-sense pathway to reduce inequality, anchor jobs at home, and rebuild a strong and stable economy, using a vehicle that’s as American…

Learning + Design Session
On June 13th and 14th of 2016, we hosted a gathering in Washington, D.C. of key leaders in the national ecosystems of support and advocacy around employee ownership. This report captures the insights and lessons from this strategic convening.