​Employee ownership works.  

• It works for workers, who deserve a share of and a stake in the economy.
• It works for companies, who need a workforce invested in the company's success.
• It works for communities, who need good jobs that are anchored locally, not stripped away in destructive race to the bottom.
• It works for business owners, who need to ensure the legacy of companies they built.
• And it works for America, which needs an economy grounded in shared ownership, not growing inequality.

The more than ten million employee owners in the United States are a good start.  But we think America can do better. Working together, we can build a movement to reach "50 by 50": 50 million employee owners by 2050.  We pledge to strive, together, towards this audacious—but attainable—goal.

​The 50 by 50 initiative was launched in early 2016 with formation of a Design Team, creation of a research agenda, and some 50 interviews conducted in preparation for an initial convening in June 2016. At that convening, attendees mapped out key intervention points and core strategies required to really move the needle to achieve the audacious goal of 50 million employee owners. That goal represents a five-fold increase from the current number of employee owners, when the total has been relatively stagnant for about 30 years.  How can this goal be reached? Among the interventions and projects underway or on the drawing table:

• Creation of an ongoing 50 by 50 network of leaders, committed to continuing collaboration, coordination, and a common strategy.
• ​Launching a professional marketing strategy, to build awareness and tackle misconceptions about employee ownership.
• Building a CEO Council to begin to create more of a public face for employee-owned companies.
• ​Growing the number of state and local employee ownership centers.
• Knitting together broad and deep alliances with important national movements.
• Working to make employee ownership the number one succession planning strategy for retiring business owners—particularly the 7 million baby boom owners of private businesses likely to retire or sell their businesses in the coming two decades.
• Creating new financing options that make it easier for selling business owners to transition to employee ownership.
• Designing or highlighting existing new models for employee ownership that represent a next generation of design options.
• Work on strategies to increase employee ownership at public companies
• And more (see the full list in our report)

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Read our first report