👋 Welcome back! From Mark:
Why do people care about employee ownership? Every week I speak with owners, advocates, and funders; almost every week I hear a different answer to this question.
Ed Greenberg noticed the same thing about workplace democracy fifty years ago. He argued that the nonpartisan, unanimous support for the topic was illusory; and that if you asked what different tribes meant by the term, you see they are motivated by different and sometimes opposing goals. He found four:
Business people motivated by how to blunt “the negative impact of labor troubles on productivity and profits”
Psychologists interested by human development and economic efficiency
Participatory democrats seeking “the full development of human beings”
The Left, who viewed it as a tool to develop an “anti-capitalist, revolutionary consciousness”
I wonder if today’s cross-party unanimity about employee ownership is is similar. If it is, there are two ways it could be a problem: (1) It gets papered over, and the tensions turn into resentments that express themselves in weird ways; or (2) it gets put on the table in an explosive way, breaking apart the coalitions we need to advocate for change.
But it could, handled carefully, work to our advantage: If advocates mutually commit to strategic ambiguity, it can create space for surprising outcomes. The geopolitical version of this is Taiwan, whose ambiguous status has let it function as a sovereign state for three quarters of a century. If the US and China can pull that off, I think we can, too.
🥃 Top Shelf News
Lafayette Square Institute was awarded $5M from Aspen Digital to launch Access to Capital, a national initiative to reach entrepreneurs and small business owners
Common Trust launches a new tool to help businesses assess if employee ownership trusts are the right fit for them—and a variation for advisors
Owners might also want to check out the Baker Project Employee Ownership App
Expanding ESOPs reveals its inaugural Advisory Board, including former Senator Rob Portman (R-OH)
Pennsylvania Senate passes landmark employee ownership legislation SB 478
Invest for Better celebrates their 5th anniversary with The Amplifers, 50 influential women that include ownership advocates like our own Jenny Everett
🎃 What better way to celebrate Employee Ownership Month than to buy your Halloween candy from employee-owned companies?
👉 In This Issue
If you’re new here, friend, welcome! You may want to start with Stories & Dealflow.
Events and Opportunities
News
Stories & Dealflow
Research and Insights
🏙️ Events and Opportunities
Events This Week
Oct 11: The People’s Festival: Celebrating Local Economies and Employee-Ownership in Denver, CO
Oct 12: Day one of SOCAP 2026, in Chicago // Day one of New Economies Conference in Bonn, Germany
Oct 13: The Employee Ownership Capital Roadmap Roadshow in Chicago, IL // The eoa interviews Jeremy Walford (members only) // Day one of The Aspen Institute’s Aspen Ideas: Economy in Tulsa, OK
Oct 14: The Next Economy and the Paul Ramsey Foundation host Enrich Sahan from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in Sydney // Project Equity and ALCEO Happy Hour in Birmingham, AL // Project Equity: Addressing Key Person Risk Ahead of an EO Transition // Next City and the Kresge Foundation present Beyond the Model: Building Community Knowledge, Power, and Ownership
Oct 15: Cooperatives Europe celebrates 20 years
Oct 17: Venture for Canada hosts the Canada Succession Summit in Calgary // Day one of the New York Cooperative Summit in Schenectady, NY
Oct 19: Ownership Capital Lab’s Innovation in EO Holding Companies // Day one of ICA Group’s 10th Annual National Home Care Cooperative Conference in Tacoma, WA
Oct 20: The Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals’ BCCM Leaders’ Summit in Sydney // Day one of Employee Ownership Canada’s Canadian Employee Ownership Conference // Day one of the Opportunity Finance Network has its OFN42 conference in New Orleans // Social Nest Foundation‘s The Gap in Between conference in Valencia, Spain
For even more events, see our main Events page.
Opportunities
Brown Advisory | Portfolio Manager (ht Jenny Everett)
Boston Center for Community Ownership | Small Business TA Provider
Center for Community Wealth | Cooperative Developer (ht Matt Licina)
Ohio Employee Ownership Center | Special Assistant - Term Position
Menke & Associates | Senior Associate, ESOP Advisory
Oct 21 Deadline: Visa Foundation opens call for the US Small Business Growth and Innovation Program (ht Julie Menter — we think more EO folks should apply!)
For more jobs, including at employee-owned companies, visit our Jobs page.
🗞️ Ownership News
Employee Ownership
US Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling visits Publix, the largest employee-owned company in the US
Maryland creates a new LLC structure that operates under state co-op law, LWCAs
MassCEO launches a new program to help businesses explore employee ownership
Jason Wiener | p.c. rebrands to CurrentShift Legal
Plaintiffs in the Russelectric ESOP court case filed an unopposed motion for $5.55M class action settlement
Capital Impact Partners and National Cooperative Bank announce the four winners of 2026 Co-op Innovation Awards (ht CDI)
Worker Co-Op Networks in NYC and Madison call for changes to USFWC bylaws to improve representation and governance (en español también)
In response to the bankruptcy of JoAnn Fabrics, creatives pitch “craft and fabric co-op” as small business hub where skills can be honed (ht GEO)
USFWC’s announces the 2026 Worker Co-op Awards winners
Project Equity invites readers to share what EO means to you
Victoria O’Banion becomes Executive Director of Northwest Cooperative Development Center
NCEO welcomes Kristine Kerr as their new Education Assistant
The Rutgers Consortium on Employee Share Ownership now includes Mark Hand and Myrtle Bell’s Shared Ownership Initiative at UT-Arlington! Congrats us
🇨🇦 Arctic Co-operatives Limited joins ICA’s Cooperative Cultural Heritage List
Building on their Women’s Summit in Detroit, NCEO establishes a new Women in EO Peer Network
Ownership on Purpose
PURPOSE premieres their monthly Steward Ownership Monthly Brief
🇬🇧 Ignition, a B Corp digital marketing agency and EOT, joins eoa
Catherine Clark announces her final year as Faculty Director of CASE at Duke
Optimax founder Rick Plympton visits HBS to discuss their Perpetual Purpose Trust case study
Speaking of podcasts: The Ownership Effect dropped a new episode on how purpose transforms a company, in interviewing Kathy Varol on her work with Adidas
The Ownership Economy
MacArthur Foundation allocates $750M to impact investments, a 50% increase
Dec 17 Deadline: ECOnGood opens a call for ECGIC 2028 hosts (Economy for the Common Good International Conference)
Another call to apply: LSE’s 100x Impact is looking for “future social unicorns”
New Majority Capital, ETA investors with an impact thesis, are bringing bringing broad-based ownership and profit sharing into their strategy
Intrinsic Entertainment Collaborative leads campaign to make Letterboxd community-owned, a case study in Exit to Community (E2C)
🇬🇧 Lewisham council proposes a combination of co-ops and CLTs in what The Guardian calls “the most radical suite of solutions to the housing crisis”
KKR banns non-competes for employees making less than $100K/year at its portfolio companies (paywalled); and plans to include a broad-based employee incentive program in its acquisition of Gen II
Stories & Dealflow
Employee Ownership
Empowered Ventures shares OpCo stories in their October newsletter
🇨🇦 GEO profiles New Brunswick housing co-ops
Local First Arizona features ESOP Spinato’s Pizzeria
Teamshares portco Patina (MN) opens ninth and largest store yet
Common Trust profiles P. Terry’s in The Ownership Upside
📺 Alternative Exit interviews Shannon Litton on her ownership transition experiences with 5by5 Agency and 3LS
Menomonie Market Food Co-Op (WI) “a-peels” to market with student animated commercial that increases customer traffic
Dealflow
Parkway Electric & Communications (MI), Reynolds & Moore (TX), and Fidelity Manufacturing (FL) transition to 100% ESOP
🇬🇧 Two Welsh companies merged into a single EOT: 3P Technik focuses on stormwater treatment and rainwater harvesting, while Celtic Sustainables supplies building products; they are now Celtic House Holdings Limited
Mission Health (FL) begins a transition to 100% ESOP
For more, check out our Dealflow page.
Research & Insights
The latest arguments, analysis, and academic research (📚). Go deeper with our other topic-specific, spillover newsletters.
Employee Ownership | The Aspen Institute releases new report on employee ownership as economic and workforce development strategy // Transform Finance and Ownership Capital Lab publish a two-part series, Employee Ownership in Private Credit // 🇬🇧 David Owen launches his new book, Employee Ownership: Seven Success Stories // Renée Mundell gamifies business literacy for employee-owners (members only) // Gartenberg and Pak find that active owners pay 2-4% less for comparable work, inversely correlated to how monitored and quantifiable the job is // Gabrielle Lindemann lays out non-ESOP ownership options in St. Louis Magazine (ht Peter Boumgarden)
ESOPs | ESOP Association launches First-Year Ownership Education Pathway for new hires and post-M&A support // XPX debunks ESOP myths with Menke CEO Trever Gilmore // OwnersEdge encourages owners to plan for exiting before they’re ready to // 📚 Gonza et al. analyze employee ownership through the lens of Tocqueville’s Second Memoir (paywalled) // Prairie Capital’s Christopher M. Silvetti emphasizes the importance of communications in building ownership culture
EOTs | 📺 Miren Oca reframes ROI as Ripples of Impact in a new TEDx talk // 🎙️ Andreas Jørgensen delves into the largest study to date comparing UK EOTs with management buyouts (spoiler: EOT productivity, revenue, and pay are all higher)
Worker Cooperatives | GEO’s Matt Noyes examines unions and co-ops // ifa expands on Oxford research to show how co-ops and mutuals create social value // JEOD calls for papers for the special issue, Cooperatives in Times of Conflict and War
Ownership on Purpose | 🇨🇦 We love a list: Check out this Canadian digest of “values-aligned transitions”
The Ownership Economy | 🇬🇧 Digital Commons shares slides from Land Talks #7 on how property should serve the communities around it // Jurcisin argues that cooperativism addresses economic inequality better than taxation // Alexandra Amouyel, President and CEO of Newman’s Own Foundation, shares her favorite Acquired podcast episodes (we think she has great taste)
Community Ownership | Sean Geobey reflects on social acquisitions and the newly launched Waterloo Region Community Co-operative // Atkinson Foundation’s Selena Zhang (🇨🇦) explores how economic choices and structures impact inclusivity and what it means to belong to a place // Impact Alpha’s Rebecca Kern reports on alternative ownership models, observing how fair financing shifts power to overlooked people and places (paywalled) // 📺 The Democracy Collaborative spotlights community wealth building in the US:
Digital Ownership | Steven Hill and John Mende propose US Sovereign Wealth Fund, funded by Treasury sales (paywalled). Their book, Own the Future: How Sovereign Wealth Funds and Universal Capitalism Build Generational Wealth, comes out next year // Hilary Abell highlights the “cost disease” of AI // This Guardian piece asks: Beyond ownership structures, what makes our AI use “cooperative”?
A final thank you to Praxis Consulting Group for the shout out in their latest newsletter!