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 […]
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Fifty by Fifty Inspires Employee Ownership Campaign in Scotland
Scotland for EO Sets “Audacious” Goal for Scaling Up Employee Ownership 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 campaign goal is to increase the number of employee-owned companies from 100 to 500 by 2030. Says […]
Continue ReadingEmployee-Owned B Corp Makes a Great Brew
New Belgium Brewery’s Sustainability Values Grounded in Worker Friendly Culture By Sarah Stranahan 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 popular that they decided to produce it commercially in 1991. Since then New […]
Continue ReadingAre Cooperatives Really So Difficult to Finance?
Cooperative Fund of New England Is Meeting the Challenge 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 investors, as well as co-ops, government agencies, foundations […]
Continue ReadingEvergreen 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 […]
Continue ReadingNext Generation Enterprise Design: The employee-owned benefit corporation
New research from Fifty by Fifty focuses on employee ownership and environmental sustainability.
Continue ReadingEmployee 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 […]
Continue ReadingNext 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 the relationship between enterprise design and a sustainable, equitable economy, we can be more deliberate in the choices we make.
Continue ReadingBeneficial State Bank’s Investment in Rural Oregon Builds Community Wealth
North River Boats ESOP Conversion Aided by Mission-Oriented Lender 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 her husband, Tom Steyer, is committed […]
Continue ReadingGetting 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 […]
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