☢️ How to Survive an Apocalypse

Mar 01, 2026

The Department of Labor published its first Employee Ownership Initiative Report to Congress. ESOP Association CEO Jim Bonham and PlanSponsor’s James van Bramer break it down
Dr. Hand gave the closing keynote from the first Purpose Trust Ownership Conference (this is the titular apocalypse reference, btw)
Rayan Semery-Palumbo and Andrew Stern are offering a $2,500 prize for ideas on worker-centered solutions for AI & autonomous vehicles. Applications due March 4
In The Great Ownership Transfer, McKinsey describes the six million U.S. businesses that will face succession decisions by 2035; they also interview Philip Reeves of Apis & Heritage
🗞️ Check out recent newsletters from our friends at Predistribution Initiative, Ownership Capital Lab, Social Capital Partners, EOX, and Aspen’s Economic Opportunities Program

For a full list of upcoming events, see our events page. Share your conference recaps with us, too!

March 3: SV2’s Innovative Finance Spotlight 2026 ft. Alison Lingane
March 3-24: The City of Minneapolis’s three-week Co-Op Startup Course
March 4: eoa’s online EO Leadership Development Program
March 4: PURPOSE’s steward-ownership gathering in NYC
March 6: The Ownership Project’s seminar with Tej Gonza
March 10: Clarasys’ event on governance and ownership for purpose-driven businesses, Locking in Purpose: From mindset to mandate
March 10-11: eoa’s course on Representing and Developing Employee Voices
March 11: USFWC'‘s workshop on cooperative member engagement
March 11: LevelUp Coops’ How Ownership Actually Works in a Worker Co-op: A Hands-On Introduction to Ownership Design webinar
March 12: EOX and Deanalytics’ Beyond Retirement, The Real Story of ESOP Payouts

March 18: Grounded Solutions Network’s webinar on innovative models for the real estate market
April 17: St. Mary’s University’s webinar on making sense of AI within the cooperative movement

Associate Director of Investments at Apis & Heritage Capital Partners
Director of Development and Ecosystem Director at The Center for Community Wealth
Program Manager at the Democracy at Work Institute (deadline March 1)

Hoopaugh Grading (NC), R&A Enterprises (CO), and LandSouth Construction (FL) are now employee owned. Congrats!
The Ownership Effect podcast explores the impact of employee ownership on individual owners’ lives
Expanding ESOPs interviews Kathleen McInerney Kane, president of Praxis Consulting Group
⏪ ESOP event recaps: Chuck Mazzanti on ESCA’s recent Leadership Summit, Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks on NCEO’s Think Like an Owner webinar, and Maria Llanos on NCEO’s inaugural Women’s Summit

The Rural Cooperative Developer Scholarships extended its deadline to March 16
India’s co-op minister launched Bharat Taxi, a national cooperative of taxi drivers
Co-op Atlas released their Southern Edition 2026, an initiative that publishes research on cooperative statutes and their governance functions
ICA highlights the women transforming the cooperative space

PURPOSE writes about open source AI chatbot OpenClaw, recaps a recent German parliamentary event on steward ownership, and publishes a case study on Organically Grown Company’s journey from cooperative → ESOP → perpetual purpose trust, all ahead of their first US conference next week in New York

🛠️ New tools
- Project Equity’s Ownership Opportunity Map is an interactive data tool that maps workforce demographics. They also put out a new report on employee ownership among Black business owners
- Cooperative Development Foundation and the National Cooperative Business Association launched a catalog of shared equity housing models
🎧 Ears edition
- Dr. Hand on Andy Farquharson’s A Better Monday podcast, on the values that drive ownership succession decisions
- Nathan Schneider on the Democracy Innovators podcast, on the governance of online communities
✍️ Opinion
- Tom Powdrill on why worker voice is often silenced without structure
- Neil McInroy on the Scottish Community Wealth Building Bill (Bella Caledonia)
- Julien Rosenbloom on how state governments can help finance business transitions to employee ownership (ImpactAlpha)
- Seth Levine and Elizabeth MacBride on why America should embrace the shift from a shareholder economy to one that focuses on stakeholders (Fortune)
- Corey Rosen on the growing gap between productivity and compensation (NCEO)
🦞 Lagniappe
- A new Wall Street Journal reports on the growth of 401(k)s among small businesses
- A new UN report explores the social and solidarity economy as a poverty-eradication tool
- Hélène Landemore recaps a recent event, “Democratizing Corporate Governance”

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